Xeon E-2146G, but what mobo?


Recommended Posts

i'll start off with a little background on this build, its been a rocky start. 

 

i bought a xeon-1220v6 from ebay, 9mo later i bought a Supermicro MBD-X11SAE-O. wouldn't post, wtf? borrowed a i5-6600 from a buddy who upgraded but i know it worked, dropped it in, posted fine. 1220 doa? 

 

so fast forward a couple of weeks, buy a e-2146g, still no post. come to find out i'm a dummy and didn't realize that this c236 chipset doesn't support the xeon E series. 

 

so now i'm stuck trying to decide what c246 mobo to get. 

options?

AsRock Rack C246 WS ATX ...  a favorite, seems to have everything i want and i like the board lay out but expensive at 279

SUPERMICRO MBD-X11SCA-F-O ... i like but its expensive at 291

SUPERMICRO MBD-X11SCA-O .... cheaper, not really sure atm why at 265 

ASUS WS C246 PRO ATX .... at 250

Gigabyte C246-WU4 ... cheapest at 219 and a frontrunner for that reason

 

as you can tell i prefer a full size atx just simply because that's what i've almost always used and the mini/micro versions of these boards are lacking expansion slots i may desire at some point. 

 

this is my first unraid build and its off to a rocky start, but any input here would be much appreciated. is there any boards to clearly stay away from? any community favorites? ive been staring at spec pages, prices and reviews and i cant seem to find anything that helps me narrow it down. 

Link to comment

Yea I ran into that thread, there's ALOT going on there, and while I'm pretty savvy the oddities gave me pause. 

Some of that was in the territory of needing further understanding, because I kept thinking to myself, "what now? Huh?" 

 

Any thoughts on the other board's? 

 

 

Link to comment
25 minutes ago, kenobi said:

Any thoughts on the other board's? 

I believe you saw my post about the ASRock E3C246D4U/XeonE-2288G/64GB Samsung RAM/256GB NVMe SSD combo I recently purchased on eBay.

 

The motherboard is mATX with PCIe x16, x8 and x4 slots as well as one M.2 and they can all be used simultaneously (although the x16 drops down to x8 if the x8 is occupied).  The combo saved me ~$350 over retail prices.  I contacted that seller yesterday and he is about to list some more combos in the next week with the same board and CPU but different RAM.  The 32GB Samsung ECC modules are crazy expensive and impossible find now so he is going to offer combos with 16GB sticks instead of the 32MB.

 

Just to be clear, I have no association whatsoever with this seller (imc), but, since he has a server hosting business, he buys these parts in bulk from the manufacturers and then sells the excess systems (brand new and used) through eBay.

 

He sells just motherboards as well and the ASRock board I mentioned supports your CPU.

Edited by Hoopster
Link to comment

I did see that post, and it was food for thought. I already have a CPU and memory so I just need a board but you post did leave me to consider, "should I be considering mATX? Are the lack of extra PCI(e) slots even something I should consider?". 

 

But thank you for your input, I'll check his sellers page and see if he's got something I might like. I was avoiding eBay after getting burned on the 1220v6, twice. First in cost, and then again on my suspicion but no way to prove that it's DOA. 

Link to comment
6 hours ago, kenobi said:

I'll check his sellers page and see if he's got something I might like. I was avoiding eBay after getting burned

This seller (imc) is legit. Their company website is WebNX and they do data center server hosting in several locations nationally.  He sells new and some used stuff.  They buy in bulk direct from the manufacturers for their data center server needs and then sell the excess inventory.  They have been around on eBay for 20 years and have stellar ratings. 

 

I added up the costs and the combo I got was $347 less than the retail prices of the components separately.

Edited by Hoopster
Link to comment
On 2/28/2020 at 10:32 AM, kenobi said:

should I be considering mATX?

When it comes to "more PCIe slots providing more flexibility, therefore ATX is better than mATX," you have to keep in mind how many PCIe lanes your CPU and chipset can actually support.  Just because a board has a greater number of PCIe slots does not mean they can all be used.  NVMe SSDs or other M.2 cards will often disable x4 PCIe slots on the MB and there are other cases where a certain combination of PCIe cards (especially multiple graphics cards or graphics cards + HBAs, NICs, etc. ) will exceed the number of PCIe lanes your system can support.  An iGPU means I don't have to use a slot for a graphics card, so the three PCIe slots in the E3C246D4U are plenty for me. 

 

Also, on that board, an M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD does not deactivate the x4 PCIe slot as it does on some other boards.  It deactivates SATA 0.  So, on the E3C246D4U, all PCIe slots can be occupied, a PCIe NVMe SSD can be installed, and 7 out of the 8 SATA ports remain active.

Edited by Hoopster
  • Thanks 1
Link to comment

That's actually something I didn't consider, that's good advice. I'll have to compare my previous thoughts with this one that you recommend. 

 

Like you I already have CPU with iGPU. Unless I find myself needing an extra GPU for transcodes or something I don't foresee that currently, I think for my current usage this 2146g should handle anything I'm going to throw at it. 

 

The Plex server I'm running now is a Core2Quad 2.4g with 6gig ram on a win7 os and it ran xp before that. I anticipate this Xeon to satisfy my needs for 10+years which is why I'm fretting about board choice so much. I don't tend to upgrade often. 

Link to comment

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Restore formatting

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.