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PS : SORRY FOR MY ORTOGRAPH IM A FRENCH FROG DOING HIS BEST I recently buy (( i realise after )) A MULTITASKING Monster ((see my profile)) The first test was, install Windows 10 demo to see how it running result Number1 for drive diagnostic, durring vbox ubuntu setup and net streaming but closing everything and starting coldwar running 50% and don't really understand how to run it... Too mutch tread i guess... So i remove one physic cpu and become better but... My brain make a spark and format again but direcly Ubuntu on my 500hdd... Loading virtualbox 12gb ram... 10 core... drive on ssd... Max graphical memory 128mb Virtual pc run perfecly and cpuid bench close to direct w10 but not enought graphical power for gaming I see Linus tech unraid video did is my single way to totaly exploit my new baby My objective is : Xp on a 19" (( retro gaming )) Ubuntu on the other 19" (( android studios and cnc programming )) Or each one alternatively And win 10 on my 55in ont the gtx 1050 My sincères salutations Alex

Hey guys, I built a dedicated game server PC to host game servers for me and my friends to play on. (Arma 3, Minecraft, DCS and etc) I used to host everything from my main pc until I ran into the dedicated servers using to much ram and cpu so I went to the dedicated machine route. Ordering the parts:(parts list is at the bottom) I ordered a the motherboard cpu, ram, NVMe drive(yes, Ik it's kinda sketch) and coolers all from Ali Express ($318) took around a month and a half to get the Chinese stuff and about a week to get the rest (case, fans and rgb) ($90) Building: Building in the Deepcool Matrexx 55 V3 was easy besides messing with cheap bend out brackets and cable management and one issue with the motherboard being in a weird non standard eatx form factor it was shorting against the case so I had to use electrical tape to tape off the contacts for the ram and vrms. putting in rgb was really easy as I only had to hot glue it against the case as it was falling off with the stock rgb strip adhesive. Conclusion: For a total of around $408 this was a killer deal of a pc having 16 Cores 32 Threads and 64GB Ram is great for any hosting and creative content that is cpu and/or ram intensive. But you got to deal with basically no drivers or support or documentation for the motherboard and you have to go on a man hunt for the correct drivers. Parts: Motherboard: Kllisre Dual X79 (E5-M2L-8D) CPUs: 2 E5-2689 Xeons @2.6Ghz Stock 3.3Ghz Boost Ram: 64GB Samsung DDR3 ECC Registered @1600Mhz Boot Drive: Some generic chinese NVMe M.2 SSD GPU: GTX 690 (Already had this) Case: Deepcool Matrexx 55 V3 PSU: EVGA Supernova G3 1000w (already had this)

Good evening Ladies and Gents. First time posting in the forums. Just a quick post to see if anyone has had a similar issue with a Tyan 7010 (ex-supermicro server) board. I have just torn out my dual xeon motherboard with dual xeon E5645's, 64GB ECC Memory and a few other bits and pieces and installed into a 900D case, as the 2U form factor was ridiculously loud. After re-testing & rebuilding, everything started fine with a Win 10 boot SSD, and after loading a few drivers etc, all seemed well. But... after about 45 mins, the OS froze. I then ungracefully shut down the server, as there was no other option. Since then, when booting, runs through bios etc, but as soon as it hits an OS, whether Win 10, Ubuntu live, mint etc etc, it either freezes, or restarts after a short time. Will also try ESXi again, as have had it running with that for the last couple of weeks with no probs. Only thing I have noticed is that one memory channel has dropped out. No idea why, but will start with checking what's happened there this evening. Anyways, any help/advice/bits to check would be awesome face. Love love, Griefa

I am a television producer in I have two computers one with core i7 6700 2x geforce 1080 and 32 gb of ram and another with a Quadro m4000,core i7 6800 and 64 gb of DDR 4 memory. My problem is that once we throw on adobe after effects and several red giant plug ins the rendering timeson our 4K footage become slow. 30minutes of footage takes about 30 hrs. I have a budget of about US$ 6000 to about $ 7000. I had planned to buy a dual Xeon with a quadro M 6000 build but I saw Linus's video on youtube which basially told me that it would be wiser to build something with 3 titan x instead.....I am not a computer person, please could anyone advise on the best possible build. we are pressed for time to deliver our project

So after watching Linus’s $150 budget PC build, I decided, or rather my friend decided to go for something similar. So we ordered: the image here Dell WS 7400 Motherboard + 16GB RAM + 1 CPU 5472 for $39 1 more CPU 5472 for $12 PSU for dell 7400 for $50 Q_Q 1 SSD intel 320 series for $40 And GTX 960 2GB Reference for $78 Everything arrived yesterday, so we connected stuff and the system did post… However lol. We totally forgot coolers and now it’s a big problem since we live in Georgia and it takes up to 2 weeks for ebay packages to arrive. So 1. We got some 1155 stock coolers that we could zip tie to the board and use them passively until the 771 coolers arrive. And I’m not sure if these cpu’s can run only 1155 stock intel heatsink 2. It appears 7400 does not support win 10 drivers. The latest is Vista. But people on forums say they vista drivers work for windows 7. But I’d prefer win 8 or even 10 if possible, anyone have experience with this stuff? 3. We’re going to build a custom case out of wood today any suggestions about that? Like is case made of wood even a good idea? Or how to manage airflow etc. 4. And finally if you have any suggestions about anything I’d love to hear it Thanks in advance, all tips and suggestions very much appreciated.

Hi Guys I got a ASROCK EP2C602-4L/D16 (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00G9TZAIS/ref=od_aui_detailpages01?ie=UTF8&psc=1). Its SSI EEB form factor motherboard. I wasn't able to find any cheap SSI EEB compatible Cabinet in India, so I narrowed down on Cooler Master MasterBox 5 case. I guess there will be few missing screw holes in the cabinet, which I will have to ignore. Will this be ok with this motherboard or will there be issues? This will be my config: Dual xeon E5 2670 EVGA SUPERNOVA 850 G2 ASROCK EP2C602-4L/D16 2 * Cooler Master 212x 128GB(16gb*8) ram GTX 1080 Thanks!

hello i wanted to know is the mothermoards support x5650 and or x5670 and i will be really happy if you team me cheap psu that has 2 8pins for cpu Motherboard D2709-A13 Fujitsu-Siemens Primergy TX200 S5 For Intel CPU

Hej, so recently i have thought of upgrading my rig, i was thinking of building it a dual Xeon build, since i just got 2 Xeon X5670 CPUs. And i was thinking of buying a hd 7990 GC but I'm not sure about that. The case i have would actually fit a dual CPU mobo in it, i know it because i actually took the case that was a dual CPU server case. I know there is one guy out there who has a dual Xeon build. So if you're reading it, give me some advice on what to jam into the build. The rig will be used for some AAA gaming, some work stuff like rendering, and maybe if I'm out, some crypto coin mining.

Hello all, A few rounds of google and some BIOS fiddling could not give me an answer as to why my new dual xeon X5670s, which are supposed to have a base of 2.96 Ghz, are booting at 2.26 Ghz and not going any higher than 2.4 ghz. the motherboard is a Tyan S7012. the OS is Windows 8.1 Pro. I believe it's a hardware problem because the post screen is reporting the frequency as 2.26 Ghz. It's strange, however, because under CPU it says "Xeon X5670 @ 2.96 Ghz" but under "Freq" it's "= 2.26 Ghz." I set the Ratio CMOS to 22 which makes the clocks go to 2.4 Ghz when I put on P95 or Aida 64, but they refuse to go higher. It is clear from googling that other people are not having this problem with this motherboard, and are reaching the correct stock speeds. I am over 25C from throttling. I have made no other hardware changes. The X5670s are replacing the pitiful E5506s. The last memory upgrade was two months ago and all sticks are clean. The OS install is fairly fresh, less than 3 months old, with only a handful of vital programs. The PSU is not even at half load with P95 running. I am kinda at a loss. If anyone has any info, thanks. EDIT: I should mention that all processors and threads are also appearing correctly. 12ct/24th.

Hi, there LTT community, I have been considering building a pc for my dad and really like the dual Xeon idea from Linus' video. Just wanted to know of any problems with the following as a build. TIA Build: CPU: Dual Xeon E5440 4C @2.83Ghz MOBO: Dell RW199 Precision T7400 Workstation Motherboard RAM: Samsung / Kingston 16GB (4X4GB) PC2-5300F DDR2-667MHZ ECC FB-DIMM GPU: Geforce GTX 970 (second hand) PSU: Not sure yet as not sure on power and connection requirements - Any suggestions welcome. SSD: Samsung 250GB 840 EVO - As I already have one of these that he can have and I know that the board only supports SATA 3.0Gb/s and the SSD supports 6.0Gb/s HDD: Toshiba P300 500GB 7200RPM HDD

Hey guys I have posted a similar question a while ago but I have found a Dell power edge 1950 with 2 Quad core xeon x5365 and 16 gb of ram for $50 on craigslist near me. I was wondering it it would be worth it to use that instead of my i3 4160? Also is it a good price for the server or no because i want to experiment with VMs and other things on it. Thanks! https://detroit.craigslist.org/okl/sop/6167112072.html <-------Link for the server, About half way down

Hi LTT forum gurus, I have built the below budget rig and was hopping to overclock the CPUs (as they are unlocked) but can not find a way to do it in BIOS. This forum is probably the last hope for me... Would you also be able to help me on optimizing this build? SPECIFICATION: MB: Tyan S7012GM4NR / S7012GM4NR-B Dual Intel socket LGA1366 DDR3 motherboard Dual CPUs: Intel Xeon X5650 (12M Cache, 2.66 GHz, 6.40 GT/s Intel® QPI) RAM: 72GB (18x4GB) DDR3 PC3-10600R 1333 MHz 240-Pin ECC REG RDIMM KVR1333D3D4R9S/4G GPU: Asus GTX 970 Strix 4GB PSU: Seasonic M12 II Bronze Evo 850W Modular 80 Plus Bronze STORAGE: 1 x SSD (Win 10) + RAID0 500GB (For start) MONITOR:Acer GN246HL Bbid 24-Inch 3D Gaming Display (144Hz Refresh Rate) Other: MICE: Corsair M65 Pro KB: Razer Blackwidow (Mechanical) 2 Ports USB 3.0 + eSATA 3.0 + SATA 3.0 + Pin Combo PCI-E Card Adapter (No on-board USB3 support) USB Sound card (No on-board sound) 3 x Pack of Arctic F12 120mm (Front) 2 x Cooler Master hyper 212 EVO P.S. Planning to buy additional 120GB SSD to create RAID 1 with the existing SDD to compensate on board SATA2 speed bottleneck. Thanks for any help in advance!

Hi I am trying to build a workstation for my applied genomics/mathematics work. I have a cluster server at work, but I need a workstation for daily use. I have decided on some aspects/parts as listed below. I need a solid recommendation on good MOBO and a compatible full-tower case. I am not interested in racks and I don't want to drill holes if the mobo & cpu mounts do not align. I prefer that the MOBO has thunderbolt 3 ports, so I can daisy chain List of recommendations needed A. Compatible MOBO with support for dual Intel Xeon 26xx series and if possible, thunderbolt 3 support B. recommendation for dual liquid cool CPU OR dual air cooled radiator C. recommendation for compatible Full-tower case with native support for MOBO MOBO should be compatible with these and have plenty of PCI-express lanes : 1. Dual Xeon E5-2697A 2. 256GB DDR4-2400 LRDIMM RAM - 2 crucial 4 X 32 GB kit 3. Dual EVGA GTX 1080 in SLI mode 4. LSI MegaSAS Raid 9260-8i 5. Seven 6TB WD RE Drives in RAID5 6. Intel SSD DC P3608 - 2TB Thanks for helping me !

Hey all, just wanting to see what would be the best dual-socket lga1366 motherboard. Preferably it would have at least 3 PCI-E lanes for video cards, and lots of RAM slots. I was looking at the EVGA SR-2, which would be really awesome, except that the max "supported" RAM amount is 48GB. Though it can go to 96 by the looks of things. It's pretty pricey though, but still better price-wise than a 1st Gen Threadripper to start up. I'm picking up two Xeon X5570's for $30, and need a dual board at some point to be able to use them. Thanks!

So, I'm in the middle of getting a new dual Xeon rig up and running, but am having issues finding a good case for my motherboard (SuperMicro X8DTH-6F). Ideally I only want to pay $100-200 for it not $400 like retailers seem to want. Only real requirements are that it has at least one 5.25" optical drive bay, and is EATX of course. ? Does not have to be new, though bonus points for a window on the side lol. Thanks in advance!

I like to mess around and learn about computers and such and recently decided to build a small home server. I'm hoping to push myself to learn more about linux and a couple other things relating to having a server. Currently I am set on building a server with dual Xeon X5540's and was planning on using a Supermicro X8DTT-F board. After doing some research I am a little stumped on the type of psu I should be using for this board. Although this wouldn't be the right area to ask about motherboards if anyone has any other motherboard they would recommend, (if it would make more sense to use a different motherboard other than the supermicro) feel free to suggest that as well. TLDR: Dual Xeon E5540 server using a Supermicro X8DTT-F. What power supplies are compatible with this? Or should I look for another motherboard? Suggestions?

Hi! Long time LTT lurker reporting in o/ I came into posession of some old workstations (z800 with dual xeon and z400 with W3565), and I've been wanting to build a NAS for a while now. I'd be using it for backups of two users and as an external library for my audio recordings and sound design works. Gigabit ethernet and HDD speeds are fine in my case. The other use would be to host some light game servers. I'm quite tech savvy, but I don't have much knowledge about server(-ish) stuff. - I want to utilize that dual xeon-pc but is it an overkill for combined NAS/game server (for Factorio)? Would a single W3540 or even W3530 be enough? - I have 6GB of Hynix ECC DDR3 and 12GB of Kingston ECC DDR3. Factorio would need maybe 2GB. - What kind of a software would I need? unraid/freenas, VM, windows 7(got the license)? I was going to google but suddenly I've been suffering from lack of free time and some deadlines. At least I finally got myself to sign up for the forums

What is the best board for dual socket lga 1366? im looking to run a gtx 970, ssd, and a few other pci devices. overclocking cabability is great but not absolutely nessicary. need something that will suport the gtx 970. cheap boards look like they may only be pci gen 1. first time build.

hi, i've build a dual 18-core xeon machine with 72 threads. since windows support only 64 cores this is devided into two processor groups 36 threads each. the problem with this is that most of my programs can use only one processor group and therefore only half of my threads. i've found a small trick how to get around this. i disabled numa nodes in the bios. now group 0 has 64 cores and group 1 has the remaining 8. another problem with this is that programs randomly choose witch group will they use. sometime it uses only 8 threads, sometimes 64. its totally random. i have to open and close the program until it uses the right group (group 0 with 64 threads) today i discovered this blog post about intel TBB and a support beyond 64 threads for windows. https://software.intel.com/en-us/blogs/2010/12/16/tbb-30-high-end-many-cores-and-windows-processor-groups i downloaded and installed newest version TBB and now i'm stuck. i dont really know how to use TBB, maybe its only another dead end. so finally here are my questions. is there a way for my computer to support all 72 threads on all programs? its just very annoying that there is no support for workstations like mine in 2016 on a PRO version of windows. please help. thanks

So... Linus sparked an idea... cheap old server parts... I am running a Plex Server off my desktop and would like to take the CPU load off that thing... so I set out to make a $200-ish server. Parts List: SuperMicro Dual Socket LGA1366 Motherboard - X8DTT-F-SG007 Rev.2 ($44.95 on eBay, free shipping) 2 Intel Xeon E5540 Quad 8MB 2.53GHz processors Socket 1366 ($9.95 for the pair on eBay, free shipping) New SAMSUNG 8GB DDR3 1333MHz ECC REG (2 for $35.16 each on eBay, free shipping) 2 Intel server grade heatsinks with fans ($36.64 on eBay including shipping...) EVGA 600B Bronze Power Supply, 600W ($46.84 from Amazon, not sure the shipping as I ordered some other things) Cost of parts = $173.54 (I am not adding some of the minor parts I got like SATA cables or screws and nuts... because I mostly had that stuff laying around. I also got 2 HDD bays for free from a friend, they bought for this build.) I was going to have my brother-in-law that works at a steal shop make me the case, but I ended up not waiting on him. I also didn't want him to get in trouble. So I ended up going to Harbor Freight and getting the cheapest metal tool box I could find that would fit my board. I figured it needed to be 20-21" in length, needed to be 7" in depth and the height needed to accommodate 6"... but I knew I had two options for mounting the board so I wasn't super certain at the time of buying it how this would all work out. Picture 1 - is a stock photo from Harbor Freight's website of what the took box was like before I got a hold of it. Note the tray handle and the separators that are part of the handle... yeah those are gone... Picture 2 - is my actual toolbox from the from view.Picture 3 - is the back view where you can see my power supply cut out as well as where I will pass the ethernet through.Picture 4 - Close up of the power supply cutout and you can see the ethernet passthrough as well.Picture 5 - The toolbox open. You will notice the handle from the removable tray is gone. My heatsinks are mounted and the power is ran through the cutouts in the tray. In a future post I will show you more of the modifications to the case that I have made and am going to make. I have to do a full teardown of the server. I plan to pain the whole case a dark bronze color. What do you don't see is what is below the tray. I have (2) 5 bay HDD enclosure with their own fans tucked under there where the PSU is. I also had the modify my 20 Pin connector from the PSU. My dad is an electrician and we spent an hour planning out the wiring based on looking at the pinout in the manual from SuperMicro and comparing it to the standard ATX pinout. After we figured out where we wanted everything on paper I happened to find someone else's image of how to pinout for this very board (don't have the link or our drawing sorry, I'll look for it if someone asks). I will get more pictures of all of the stuff I have done once I tear it down. Next Steps: Cut the HDD ventilation holes Test mount the HDD enclosures Plan out the placement of CPU fan ventilation holes Cut the CPU ventilation holes... Consider notching the lid to allow a VGA cord to passthrough the lid when closed... still not sure on that one. Questions I have: I have tested the server and attempted to get video output... Why can't I get video output? I thought this board had onboard Video for 2D. I assumed that meant the SuperMicro splash and Bios would show up when booted. I hear no beeps, which I did plug a speaker into the board not pictured. The CPU light is on and steady green like it should be. I have the front panel switches and the Power LED wired also not pictured. The Power LED is on and the CPU fans kick on (Loud as hell!) Anyone got ideas what could be the issue? I am going to borrow a friends old PCI Express 2.0 video card they have laying around to test the video in a few days... maybe that will solve my issue. What do you guys think of the build so far? What advice/suggestions would you give me?

Ok so i did this build : but i figured that the low clock speed of the CPUs used in the video wouldnt be sufficient for gaming, also the extra cores cant really be made use of while gaming atm. So i went with 2 Xeon 5060s @3.2 GHz. These are dual cores so I thought bottom line Id end up with a higher clock quad core rather than a lower clock octa core. I know you guys always want full system specs so here you go : Motherboard: SuperMicro X7DVL-E CPU : 2x Xeon 5060 GPU: GTX 750Ti Memory : I dont even know the brand .. but 8GB FB ECC PSU : Thermaltake Hamburg 530 W So i got the rig to work after a couple issues but I'm getting pretty low FPS in games which drop even further the longer i stay in the game. League of Legends: Starts with 80-95 FPS then drops all the way down to 40-50 FPS Also my GPU usage maxes at 29% while CPU usage is at like 70-85%. I already tested the GPU in my main rig where it performed perfectly( 400+ FPS in LoL). Now I have a couple questions : 1. I had to cut open the PCIe x8 slot to fit in the graphics card. Also its not PCIe gen 3 like in my main rig. I know this makes me lose some performance but shouldnt be this drastic right? 2. So what Im thinking is this is a CPU bottleneck problem right ? (btw Cinebench Score is 135 .. ik super fu**n low) 3. Maybe the CPU itself isnt the problem but something else about the CPU that Im not thinking about? Any Suggestions ? 4. If the CPUs are in fact too weak for gaming will getting something like an X5450 fix it entirely? Thanks in Advance I know its a long post but im sorry I dont have any Potatoes to spare ^^

It's been over a decade since I built my last machine from a barebones kit, so I'm a little rusty. I'm building this machine for work in lieu of buying a system from Boxx, so we can get a little more bang for our buck. This will be used for registering and meshing large laser scanner point cloud datasets. The two software packages we use are multithreaded which is why I'm more worried about the number of cores as opposed to clock speed. Anyway, thoughts? 2 x CPU: Intel Xeon E5-2687W V4 3.0GHz 12-Core Processor ($4010.12 @ Amazon) 2 x CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-U12DXi4 55.0 CFM CPU Cooler ($151.44 @ Amazon) Thermal Compound: Arctic Silver 5 High-Density Polysynthetic Silver 3.5g Thermal Paste ($6.44 @ Amazon) Motherboard: Asus Z10PE-D16 WS SSI EEB Dual-CPU LGA2011-3 Motherboard ($532.65 @ Amazon) Memory: Crucial 256GB (8 x 32GB) Registered DDR4-2133 Memory ($1325.68 @ Amazon) 2x Storage: Samsung 850 Pro Series 1TB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($916.78 @ Amazon) RAID 0 Storage: Toshiba 5TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($216.48 @ Amazon) Internal Nightly Backup Drive Video Card: NVIDIA Quadro M4000 8GB Video Card ($799.00 @ Amazon) Case: Phanteks Enthoo Primo White ATX Full Tower Case ($259.78 @ Amazon) Power Supply: Corsair Professional 1200W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($258.59 @ Amazon) Optical Drive: LG UH12NS29 Blu-Ray Reader, DVD/CD Writer ($53.89 @ Amazon) Operating System: Microsoft Windows 10 Pro OEM 64-bit ($140.66 @ Amazon) Wireless Network Adapter: Asus PCE-AC68 PCI-Express x1 802.11a/b/g/n/ac Wi-Fi Adapter ($100.62 @ Amazon) Monitor: Dell U2913WM 29.0" 60Hz Monitor ($339.99 @ Amazon) Keyboard: Logitech K800 Wireless Slim Keyboard ($68.16 @ Amazon) Mouse: Logitech MX Anywhere 2 Wireless Laser Mouse ($54.11 @ Amazon) Total: $9234.39

So I'm upgrading my computer soon. From an i5-4690k and a 750ti to dual Xeons and a 1080. Kinda a massive step up but it's perfect for what I need it for. However, I have two things I am struggling on for my new build. Link for the build: http://pcpartpicker.com/list/HM8wzM The first thing is all of the cooling. I am currently just slapping on some hyper 212 evos but I am going to build a full custom hard acrylic loop. I want a dual 8 pin 1080 form evga but there are not any full block coolers out yet. EKWB did make special coolers for things like the 980 ti kingpin. I want to know what rads and pumps I will need for a 1080 and dual Xeon e5-2670's. This is my first time liquid cooling my own rig. I've looked at the evga hybrid and was looking at maybe replacing the GPU block with one from EKWB or something. (Ps if you can find a radiator pump reservoir combo for around $160 with a triple rad that would be perfect. I don't like the look of a separate pump and radiator. I'm confused about what pump specs are needed plz help) Second, I am looking to build a custom motherboard cover for my build. My motherboard is an Intel S2600CP2J SSI EEB surver motherboard. If it could be black or white that would be perfect. I've looked at a lot of things online but I don't really have access to a mill. Maybe a 3d printed shell to then vacuum seal on some black acrylic would work? There may also be some "universal" covers for certain things. And yes this build has 128GB of ram. It does also have dual 8 core Xeons. And yes I will be running the card on a x8 pci slot. Deal with it, the ram gets in the way of the x16 slot. Budget on the cooling is like 350 absolute maximum. That includes the GPU and cpu blocks. Motherboard cover... Depends. Maybe $100 The theme of the build is tuxedo. Elegant black and white with maybe a portion of the motherboard cover or something in red or blue. Thanks for the help and sorry about the long post. Also I am free to answer any questions you may have.

So... Linus sparked an idea... cheap old server parts... I am running a Plex Server off my desktop and would like to take the CPU load off that thing... so I set out to make a $200-ish server. Parts List: SuperMicro Dual Socket LGA1366 Motherboard - X8DTT-F-SG007 Rev.2 ($44.95 on eBay, free shipping) 2 Intel Xeon E5540 Quad 8MB 2.53GHz processors Socket 1366 ($9.95 for the pair on eBay, free shipping) New SAMSUNG 8GB DDR3 1333MHz ECC REG (2 for $35.16 each on eBay, free shipping) 2 Intel server grade heatsinks with fans ($36.64 on eBay including shipping...) EVGA 600B Bronze Power Supply, 600W ($46.84 from Amazon, not sure the shipping as I ordered some other things) Cost of parts = $173.54 (I am not adding some of the minor parts I got like SATA cables or screws and nuts... because I mostly had that stuff laying around. I also got 2 HDD bays for free from a friend, they bought for this build.) I was going to have my brother-in-law that works at a steal shop make me the case, but I ended up not waiting on him. I also didn't want him to get in trouble. So I ended up going to Harbor Freight and getting the cheapest metal tool box I could find that would fit my board. I figured it needed to be 20-21" in length, needed to be 7" in depth and the height needed to accommodate 6"... but I knew I had two options for mounting the board so I wasn't super certain at the time of buying it how this would all work out. Picture 1 - is a stock photo from Harbor Freight's website of what the took box was like before I got a hold of it. Note the tray handle and the separators that are part of the handle... yeah those are gone... Picture 2 - is my actual toolbox from the from view.Picture 3 - is the back view where you can see my power supply cut out as well as where I will pass the ethernet through.Picture 4 - Close up of the power supply cutout and you can see the ethernet passthrough as well.Picture 5 - The toolbox open. You will notice the handle from the removable tray is gone. My heatsinks are mounted and the power is ran through the cutouts in the tray. In a future post I will show you more of the modifications to the case that I have made and am going to make. I have to do a full teardown of the server. I plan to pain the whole case a dark bronze color. What do you don't see is what is below the tray. I have (2) 5 bay HDD enclosure with their own fans tucked under there where the PSU is. I also had the modify my 20 Pin connector from the PSU. My dad is an electrician and we spent an hour planning out the wiring based on looking at the pinout in the manual from SuperMicro and comparing it to the standard ATX pinout. After we figured out where we wanted everything on paper I happened to find someone else's image of how to pinout for this very board (don't have the link or our drawing sorry, I'll look for it if someone asks). I will get more pictures of all of the stuff I have done once I tear it down. Next Steps: Cut the HDD ventilation holes Test mount the HDD enclosures Plan out the placement of CPU fan ventilation holes Cut the CPU ventilation holes... Consider notching the lid to allow a VGA cord to passthrough the lid when closed... still not sure on that one. Questions I have: I have tested the server and attempted to get video output... Why can't I get video output? I thought this board had onboard Video for 2D. I assumed that meant the SuperMicro splash and Bios would show up when booted. I hear no beeps, which I did plug a speaker into the board not pictured. The CPU light is on and steady green like it should be. I have the front panel switches and the Power LED wired also not pictured. The Power LED is on and the CPU fans kick on (Loud as hell!) Anyone got ideas what could be the issue? I am going to borrow a friends old PCI Express 2.0 video card they have laying around to test the video in a few days... maybe that will solve my issue. What do you guys think of the build so far? What advice/suggestions would you give me?

So, its finally built. My dual Xeon server. The specs are: [CPU] [Intel] 2x E5-2670 Xeons (8 cores, 16 threads each) [RAM] [Samsung] 74GB of ECC Registered memory ( 7x 8GB sticks, and one accidental 16GB stick, thanks) [Motherboard] [Supermicro] MBD-X9DR3-LN4F+-O (dual socket, 24 RAM slots, quad gigabit Ethernet ports, IPMI port , EEATX form factor) [GPU] [AMD] HD5870 (I didn't settle for anything but the most high end GPU from 2009) The why: Im a high school student, currently taking a college computer networking class through a program my school runs with local colleges. I've been into gaming and computers for >5 years and I've really taken a liking to computer hardware and computer networking. It started as a pipe dream with a friend in a java programming class, and its evolved to be complete build of which we split the cost. I will be learning windows server 2012 R2 (provided for free by microsoft by giving me a DreamSpark account) and hosting many servers for me and my friends (some are into computer networking, some are not) including but not limited to: Teamspeak server, PLEX server, minecraft factions server, tekkit classic server, ARK server, DayZ server, Arma 3 server, as well as hosting multiple websites for each server once implemented and running. It will also act as a render PC for video as well as model rendering for all my friends and me(some of whom are into video editing with much weaker PCs). Friend who are in computer networking with me I believe have legitimate uses (there are a lot of students, not all of whom I trust ;).) will have unrestricted access to the server to play around with themselves so we can all benefit from this machine, as in the classroom we simply don't have access to a server. Planned upgrades: 9TB HDD storage upgrade for uses with PLEX and torrents, 128GB RAM addition, PCI SSD addition, RAMdisk, Quadros to aid in rendering. Comments: So I'm extremely pleased with the build. Its very powerful (1990-2020 Cinebench score), and will do what I need very well. I definetly went overkill on CPU cooling, and I did it for the looks, not gonna lie. It actually reamins extremely cool, sitting at a mere 50-55 C after 16 hours of 100% CPU and RAM usage. For the price I paid (~$950) It is quite the machine. Since building it the motherboards needed for it have seen a sharp price hike, I grabbed the last one of this motherboard from Newegg. One of my fatal oversights in this was my overlooking of EEATX vs EATX. Luckily, I have a little bit of design experience as well as having a family member who does CADD for a living and has access to manufacturing machines, its a plan in the coming months to custom machine some parts as well as tap some holes in the current case to make it custom and fully support EEATX. This is something I want to do over buying a new case for the custom touch, and to get the case safely vertical before my HDD storage upgrade for a PLEX server. Its kinda weird being in high school and actually owning a machine of this type, but im very excited to own it and look forward to working with it and learning new things. I've actually been friends with a guy I meant playing eve online who does IT work and I've consulted with him and had some 1 on 1 talks about things and going over various server tools/features as he runs his own server as well as others for his work ( the internet can be a really cool place) and he has offered help on anything I might have trouble with. I've seen a lot of threads regarding building PCs like this, especially involving the E5-2670, and I gotta say, do it! My experience was great and im extremely pleased with the resulting performance. And here are the pictures: Finished Build- Parts laid out ready the night before (coolers assembled ahead of time)- The motherboard- installing RAM (incorrectly, fixed later) - CPU coolers installed (huge pain, lots of problems with the 212X dual fan, notice the hot glue!)- Major oversight, EEATX doesnt work in EATX, read more carefully! Did this for a post test before I left for the weekend to hang out with friends- It works if it lays on it side, case modification set for the future to fully support this motherboard, bending of some metal was required for the fit, motherboard secured by 4 screws right now- 390X installed while my main PCs motherboard is out for RMA , drivers wont install, so its since been switched to a borrowed MSI GTX760 so I can play some games, but honestly even with the option I dont play. Thats a nice score!-