Dual Xeon E5-2620 v3 vs Dual e5-2630l v3


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Hello

 

I am looking to upgrade my current Unraid Server (powered by Xeon E3-1225 v3)

 

I am looking at a used server on ebay where I can choose between Dual Xeon E5-2620 v3 vs Dual e5-2630l v3

 

Dual Xeon E5-2620 v3  - 2.4GHz

Cpu Mark - 15262

85W

6 Cores

 

Dual e5-2630l v3 - 1.8GHz - $80 more

Cpu Mark - 15183

55W

8 Cores

 

I am trying to figure out which one should I get, they both seem to have almost the same CPU mark score.

 

I like the idea of lower power and more CPU cores but will I regret not getting the full power CPU?

 

I am currently running one 24/7 Windows VM (with Blue Iris) and many dockers. I am hoping to run few more VMs and even more dockers after the upgrade. I do use Plex transcoding but it's pretty much never more than 1 stream at a time.

 

Do 8 cores make up for the lower frequency?

 

Thanks

 

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For most applications you won't notice any real difference, the total work each CPU can do is around the same hence equivalent passmark. Both CPU's are around double the passmark of your E3-1225 V3 so a 300% increase! 

 

The E5 2620 v3 will be a benefit if you have any applications that are single thread dependant, usually games or some other time critical app. 

 

The E5 2630 v3 has more cores so you could pin 1 or 2 to your windows Blue Iris VM to ensure it always had plenty of resorces the let unraid share the rest between apps.

 

It may be worth checking space invaders videos on you tube as he recently did a multipart guide to running CCTV in a docker with very low system usage vs VM's which are often resource hungry. Some docker were still pretty resource intensive to others ran on very little.

 

You don't say a lot about your server experience but most rack servers are really noisy and quite power hungry as even the screaming fans can take 50W+. Far from ideal in a domestic property unless you have somewhere out of earshot to locate it.

 

I'm on a similar upgrade path, I've had unraid on a E3-1225v3 for the last couple of years while maintaining  WHS2011 on an Athlon II X4 640 for backup and CCTV with blue iris. I've now bought an inexpesive 8 channel DVR which supports multiple camera modes (composite, IP etc) so I can isolate the CCTV from the server as every time I want / need do stop the array the CCTV would be down. Backup is now Veeam which so far is reliable and was able to restore my wifes lenovo for a disk swap when WHS couldn't.

 

I've just had a E5-2660 V3 delivered (10c20t) 2.6/3.3Ghz 105w which will go in an X99 board I've had on the shelf for a couple of years along with some basic DDR4. Seems that servers with the 10 and 12 core Haswell chips are being retired as the is a regular supply around $120 to $150 which is cheaper than Q and ES parts were 6 months ago. 

 

X99 has 40 lanes of PCI-E gen 3  and 10 native sata. Should be a good basis for a quiet system with 130% more power than the old one. Only thing I wont have is ECC.

 

 

 

 

 

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Thanks for the reply.

 

I feel like more cores more be better for me than higher clock count, although it does worry me a bit to go to 1.8GHz from my current 3.2Ghz. 

 

In addition to running Windows VM 24/7 right now I would like to probably add another one that could be used as remote desktop for surfing etc, not a lot of gaming if any. I also was able to get Mac OS VM running but it's really slow so I am hoping this will help (plus getting a better pass-through video card)

 

I have a lot of Dockers like coucpotato, emby, grafana, influxdb, observium, plx, sabnzbd, sickrage, telegraf, transmission....

 

I have actually installed and configured Shinobi based on spaceinvader's video, but I was not able so far to configure the motion detection to work properly. Also, I used Blue Iris Android app daily so I don't think I will be able to get rid of BI.

 

What I am looking to buy is actually a Lenovo P700 workstation server and then move the insides to my current tall tower Unraid case, so hopefully there won't be any significant increase in noise. It is in a closet in the basement. I have done a lot of research on building everything from scratch but frankly I already spend so much time on this, I'd rather buy a prebuilt system :P

 

 

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Tower case is a good idea, I don't know how easy it is to transplant HP boards into another case though.

That dual cpu board is likely to be an unusual size, at least ETX or some sort of custom ATX.

 

Boost behavior of the CPU's you're looking at is below, seems really quite low especially on the E5-2630L so I was suprised at the passmark figures you quoted.

 

image.thumb.png.d903b0c0823b7550206a095bd38b0ac2.png

 

 

I had a look on passmark and from what I can see:

 

E3-1225    V3   --- 7590  4c4t

E5-2620   V3   --- 9977  6c12t

E5-2630L V3   --- 9666  8c16t

 

E5 2660 V3    --- 16665 10c20t

E5 2680 V3    --- 18430 12c24t

 

I'd have to say that the P700 is looking poor value with that CPU pairing, given you want to transplant it I suspect a lot of other issues.

 

Unless it really is very cheap I'd be looking at used 10-12 core CPU as above ($150-200), an ATX workstation motherboard single CPU (new from $400) e.g. Supermicro X10SRL-F  and some ECC RDIMMS used or new, always add some more memory later

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Yeah, upon further review it looks like it's not really possible to move MB from P700 to a different case so that's a no go.

 

The passmarks I was quoting were from a dual cpu build, which is something I am interested in.

 

I will probably try to buy CPU/MOBO separately and build from scratch even though I was trying to avoid that. I am ok buying used on ebay. I was hoping to get a CPU that will be under $150 for a pair, and a mobo at around $200 max.

 

I already have 24 GB ECC DDR3 ram, but it's a bunch of different chips so might not work as well as just buying pairs of large RAM, also I guess some of these actually use DDR4?

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All of socket 2011-V3 is DDR4 so if you're after for DDR3 there you'd be looking at the V1 / V2 CPUs and motherboards.


CPU pricing isn't that bad for V1 / V2 but decent motherboards are very rare and expensive. There are random Chinese sourced boards often using recovered chipsets which may only have half the memory channels working. See some of Linus exploits!

 

For info the passmark for a Ryzen 5 2700 is ~15000 which just goes to show how out of date the tech is. You'd need a cheap GPU (nvidia 710) but you'd get an new AMD board and processor well in budget and likely have enough left for 16GB+ of Ram to start you off. Some Asrock and others boards support ECC 

 

I'm going with X99 for now due to the 40  PCI lanes, though I an coverting the supermicro workstation boards along with some ECC 

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Thanks for your reply.

 

Yeah looks like I will have to buy new RAM if I go this route. 

 

I was really set on getting dual CPU Xeon since I only do these upgrades once in many years and I figured the most cores/CPUs I get the better. But I wonder if I would be better off to just get single E5 2660 V3 or E5 2680 V3 as you suggested, and not over complicate things.

 

I really want v3 because that's what I have now and I believe that you need AVX2 and SSE 4.2 for proper Mac OS VM.

 

Any idea how the power consumption on E5-2660/2680 would compare to my E3-1225 v3?

 

Edited by gulo
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I've only powered up my board for a quick test, I made the schoolboy error of not having a network point near so I couldn't complete the unraid trail boot. (I downloaded a trial for testing)

 

Config

Gigabyte X99-SLI

4 x 8GB DDR4 (standard unbuffered desktop RAM , non ECC)

Nvida GT710 

Antec Earthwatts 380 from ~2005 - used for testing

CPU fan only

No drives

 

It sat around 80W in the BIOS and 38W booted to unraid with no network connection. 

 

I suspect it needs 10W more at idle than the 1225 as I seem to remember my Dell T20 taking ~ 30W at idle with no drives

Under load it will do more work for less watts as the 1225 has passmark of ~7250 @ 84W while the 2660 will do ~16600 @ 105W.

 

With the price of used 10,12 core CPU's  now at reasonable levels (thanks AMD) the case for used dual 6/8 core intel is much reduced.

I'd go for simple any time, a cheap server soon gets expensive when you need custom items or have to rebuy and replace.

If looking at 2011 keep in mind there are two cooler configs.

 

- Square - as it says the holes for mounting are square, supported by lots of coolers

- Narrow - very few coolers support so check you can get a suitable cooler before buying.

 

I'm based in UK and have just found a vendor with 16GB Samsung DDR4 RDIMMS at $55 new, seriously tempting as the also work in Gigabyte X99. 

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Cool thanks!

 

So what are your thoughts on something like:

 

CPU E5 2680 V3  (used $180) 

Mobo SUPERMICRO MBD-X10SRI-F (looks like amazon/newegg has it for about $290)

32GB DDR4 ECC RAM (used about $90-$120)

CPU Cooler SNK-P0050AP4 (Narrow ILM) - $38

 

Are all motherboards for E5 26xx v3 so expensive? I really would prefer to stay under $200 for MB

Edited by gulo
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Nice deal on the CPU, that's a great chip, was $1750 new !!! and has a decent passmark all on it's own
 

Server class motherboards aren't cheap, but if you buy new then you get a warranty.

Motherboards are usually the things that start to die as capacitors age etc. 

I haven't seen them any cheaper but you can shop around, Gigabyte and other do similar boards and you may find something on ebay.

 

My local vendor lists: - mix of square and narrow HSF and number of dimm slots

Supermicro X10SRL-F 

SuperMicro MBD-X10SRI-F-O

SuperMicro X10SRA-F 

Gigabyte MW50-SV0

Gigabyte MU70-SU0

 

I haven't spent a lot of time of the differences, but they are listed in price order for me.

 

I think you'd have a great setup with your suggested build above and I think a good number of Noctu HSF are compatible with Narrow and Square so may be worth checking as you might get a 120mm tower for similar cash which will be quieter.

 

Overall, you are getting the CPU and memory for a steal, the motherboard is a little expensive, but it's the heart of the system. 

 

On newegg, SUPERMICRO MBD-X10SRA-O is a little more expensive but it looks like you can use a cheaper square cooler

Edited by Decto
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2 hours ago, gulo said:

OK I pulled the plug and ordered the parts, wish me luck! Thank you for all your help

 

CPU Intel Xeon E5-2680V3

MB SUPERMICRO X10SRL-F

RAM 2x16 GB M393A2G40EB1-CRC SAMSUNG

CPU COOLER SNK-P0050AP4

Sounds good, I bit on the memory and ordered 4 x Samsung 2133Mhz 16GB DDR4 RIMMS @ $55 ea new. Only a fraction more than used server pulls.

They are on the QVL list for both the X99-SLI board and the supermicro boards if I do upgrade for ECC and more flexible IO later. The X99 won't use the ECC feature for now. The 32GB of stock DDR4 can go back.

 

The mobo you selected is $360 + shipping over here..... taxes and all that.

 

Your build should be plug and play .... enjoy and post back with impressions once done!

I'll be a few weeks for my transplant as I'm still clearing out all the file clutter from my old PC so I can wipe the drives and repurpose the case into server mode.... 

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