Need help choosing a cpu for server

[Bajantechnician]

Hi everyone!

 

Im looking to build a dual xeon server and im not entirely sure which cpu to get. Im looking at the 2697 v2 and 2690 v2 as of right now.

 

The uses for the server are:

 

Hosting 10 different minecraft servers/instances (30 ppl per server or so, spigot/paper)

 

host 3/4 wordpress websites(max of 40 ppl at a time on each)

 

freenas on a VM (21 tb as of now)

 

pfsense on a VM

 

Ive also looked at Dell 720s, but id idealy like something with a high core count as i am able to dish it out more easily to mc servers as im thinking of creating more down the line.

 

The 2697 and 2690 have clock speeds of around 2.8 or so but turbo up to 3.5 or so. Would a base of 2.8 or so be too slow for a spigot/paper server? Idealy id like two high core count high base clock speed xeons. (lower the power the better) Ill be using a gt720 to set up the server but then will be using it headless after. at any given time, the server will not be experiencing the max amount of load from wordpress and minecraft respectively. As in if wordpress is max loaded (40 ppl on each) , at that time it will not experience max load (30 ppl on each server etc) from minecraft. Itll be more of a on off thing. 

 

I have 150/150 fiber up down from frontier if that helps  Also, im looking at a fiber switch, not sure if i need that or if cat 5e is more than enough. 

 

Thank you!

 

[TH3R34P3R]

you have a budget for us to look at? because you can get one new 32 core threadripper and be done. 

[Electronics Wizardy]

7 hours ago, Bajantechnician said:

ve also looked at Dell 720s, but id idealy like something with a high core count as i am able to dish it out more easily to mc servers as im thinking of creating more down the line.

The 720 will take the cpus you have listed, so might as well get one of those.

 

7 hours ago, Bajantechnician said:

Also, im looking at a fiber switch, not sure if i need that or if cat 5e is more than enough. 

fiber switch won't bake a difference for wan transfers, it can help if you want 10gbe lan, but thats up to you.

 

7 hours ago, Bajantechnician said:

The 2697 and 2690 have clock speeds of around 2.8 or so but turbo up to 3.5 or so

look at the all core turbo speed for a idea of what clocks to expect. I sit at around 3.1 on my e5 2680 v2

 

 

what hypervisor are you using?

 

Id personally get the heaper 2680v2's as the performance difference will be pretty small and you start paying much more for the 12 cores and at that point, you might as well get a r730 or a newer server with better chips.

 

 

[Bajantechnician]

21 minutes ago, TH3R34P3R said:

you have a budget for us to look at? because you can get one new 32 core threadripper and be done. 

its about... 1200 or so usd. Maybe a bit more/less

 

Oh.. that is a good point. a 1950x is around $550 right now

 

10 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

The 720 will take the cpus you have listed, so might as well get one of those.

 

fiber switch won't bake a difference for wan transfers, it can help if you want 10gbe lan, but thats up to you.

 

look at the all core turbo speed for a idea of what clocks to expect. I sit at around 3.1 on my e5 2680 v2

 

 

what hypervisor are you using?

 

Id personally get the heaper 2680v2's as the performance difference will be pretty small and you start paying much more for the 12 cores and at that point, you might as well get a r730 or a newer server with better chips.

 

 

6

I dont have anything on lan thats 10gbe, so ill probably just stick with ethernet

 

Ill probably be using windows since thats what im more familiar with.

 

It seems that a 2690 v2 has a base of 3.0? Would that be worth the extra $80 or so? the 2680 v2 and 2690 v2 seem to be exactly the same except for tdp and base clock

[Electronics Wizardy]

7 hours ago, Bajantechnician said:

Ill probably be using windows since thats what im more familiar with.

Look at proxmox as a hypervisor. Easy to use + free. And has zfs for storage so you won't need a freenas vm.

 

7 hours ago, Bajantechnician said:

It seems that a 2690 v2 has a base of 3.0? Would that be worth the extra $80 or so? the 2680 v2 and 2690 v2 seem to be exactly the same except for tdp and base clock

I wouldn't spend the extra, the performance difference is pretty small and you probalby wont' notice it.

[Bajantechnician]

Just now, Electronics Wizardy said:

Look at proxmox as a hypervisor. Easy to use + free. And has zfs for storage so you won't need a freenas vm.

 

I wouldn't spend the extra, the performance difference is pretty small and you probalby wont' notice it.

I see. It wouldn't benefit Minecraft very much? (spigot is single threaded)

 

never heard of proxmox, ill look at it in a bit

[Electronics Wizardy]

7 hours ago, Bajantechnician said:

I see. It wouldn't benefit Minecraft very much? (spigot is single threaded)

 

never heard of proxmox, ill look at it in a bit

the clock speed will help, but just not that much, its a is it worth it question. an extra .2 ghz really won't make a big difference. If you need more single threaded speed id get a newer system, but this one should be fine.

[Bajantechnician]

Just now, Electronics Wizardy said:

the clock speed will help, but just not that much, its a is it worth it question. an extra .2 ghz really won't make a big difference. If you need more single threaded speed id get a newer system, but this one should be fine.

Gotcha. What would you recommend between the dual xeons and a 1950x? The pricing comes out to be approximately the same

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, Bajantechnician said:

Gotcha. What would you recommend between the dual xeons and a 1950x? The pricing comes out to be approximately the same

Id personally go with the dual xeons as you get much more ram that is cheaper. You will probably be ram limited before your cpu limited here.

 

Im guessing you will need 128gb of ram, probalby 256gb will be nice.

 

What are you doing for storage? Id get a few big ssds for the vms.

[Bajantechnician]

2 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Id personally go with the dual xeons as you get much more ram that is cheaper. You will probably be ram limited before your cpu limited here.

 

Im guessing you will need 128gb of ram, probalby 256gb will be nice.

 

What are you doing for storage? Id get a few big ssds for the vms.

Ahh, i see. Should i get ecc or is normal ones perfectly ok?

 

Im thinking of grabbing a few ssds off eBay or something. Ill be running all the mc servers off one ssd, wordpress off another, etc

[Electronics Wizardy]

4 minutes ago, Bajantechnician said:

Ahh, i see. Should i get ecc or is normal ones perfectly ok?

 

Im thinking of grabbing a few ssds off eBay or something. Ill be running all the mc servers off one ssd, wordpress off another, etc

Id make one raid array of ssds and run everything off that. Its easier to manage that way.

 

registered ECC is cheaper for ddr3, so might aswell get ecc.

[Bajantechnician]

2 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Id make one raid array of ssds and run everything off that. Its easier to manage that way.

 

registered ECC is cheaper for ddr3, so might aswell get ecc.

Ahh, gotcha. Raid... 6?

 

Ill get ecc then  is the max speed i should get the highest supported one on intel ark? or am i able to run it faster than the supported?

[Electronics Wizardy]

1 minute ago, Bajantechnician said:

Ahh, gotcha. Raid... 6?

 

Ill get ecc then  is the max speed i should get the highest supported one on intel ark? or am i able to run it faster than the supported?

How much ssd storage do you need? Id probalby run raid 10 in zfs on proxmox. Id get a few 1 or 2tb ssds.

 

Fastest speed is the one on ark, most server boards don't let you oc the ram, so just run it at stock.

[Bajantechnician]

Just now, Electronics Wizardy said:

How much ssd storage do you need? Id probalby run raid 10 in zfs on proxmox. Id get a few 1 or 2tb ssds.

 

Fastest speed is the one on ark, most server boards don't let you oc the ram, so just run it at stock.

Oh, was thinking of a few 250gbs in raid 6. 6 500gbs is around $300 . 4 1tbs is around $450

 

Just to make sure, it seems to be 1866?

[Electronics Wizardy]

1 minute ago, Bajantechnician said:

Oh, was thinking of a few 250gbs in raid 6. 6 500gbs is around $300 . 4 1tbs is around $450

 

Just to make sure, it seems to be 1866?

Id start with 2 1tb drives, nd then add more pairs later. getting fewer bigger drives is normally better.

 

You want raid 10 for ssds for vms normally, much higher iops.

 

I=Don't worry about ram speed too much. 

 

The max speed also depends on the board and the amount of dimms in the board. If you put 24 dimms in the system your not running at 1866.

[Bajantechnician]

9 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Id start with 2 1tb drives, nd then add more pairs later. getting fewer bigger drives is normally better.

 

You want raid 10 for ssds for vms normally, much higher iops.

 

I=Don't worry about ram speed too much. 

 

The max speed also depends on the board and the amount of dimms in the board. If you put 24 dimms in t)he system your not running at 1866.

10

I see. Would i be able to convert a raid 0 to raid 10 later? (striped now, mirrored later)

 

Didnt know that its affected by the number of dimms

[Electronics Wizardy]

1 minute ago, Bajantechnician said:

I see. Would i be able to convert a raid 0 to raid 10 later? (striped now, mirrored later)

 

Didnt know that its affected by the number of dimms

depends on how you set up the raid.

 

Id start with a 2x 1tb mirror and add drives later. How big are all of these vms?

[Bajantechnician]

4 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

depends on how you set up the raid.

 

Id start with a 2x 1tb mirror and add drives later. How big are all of these vms?

Ooo, i see.

 

I was thinking of just getting 250 gbs and assigning each vm to a drive

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, Bajantechnician said:

Ooo, i see.

 

I was thinking of just getting 250 gbs and assigning each vm to a drive

Its much easier to manage and work with if you make and array, then make a virtual disk on the array. It also requires much fewer drives, and you can switch servers much easier. Passing though hdds like that isn't normally suggested

[Bajantechnician]

15 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Its much easier to manage and work with if you make and array, then make a virtual disk on the array. It also requires much fewer drives, and you can switch servers much easier. Passing though hdds like that isn't normally suggested

Ahhh, i see. Gotcha. 

 

so a raid 10 array with 4 500 gbs would be alright? Ill be using the ssds for the program files since ive got 2 6tb blacks ill be using as mass storage in raid 1. 

[Bajantechnician]

25 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Its much easier to manage and work with if you make and array, then make a virtual disk on the array. It also requires much fewer drives, and you can switch servers much easier. Passing though hdds like that isn't normally suggested

between a 2697 v2 and 2690 v2, which one is better? the 97 has 2 more cores, 4 more threads, but the base is .3ghz lower than the 90. Any noticeable different for single threaded applications?

[Electronics Wizardy]

7 hours ago, Bajantechnician said:

between a 2697 v2 and 2690 v2, which one is better? the 97 has 2 more cores, 4 more threads, but the base is .3ghz lower than the 90. Any noticeable different for single threaded applications?

You probably wont' notice the speed difference, but since your mosty running singlethreaded minecraft serves, id get the 2690 v2. 

 

And really, focus on ram and storage more than the cpus, they will make a much bigger difference.

[Bajantechnician]

11 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

You probably wont' notice the speed difference, but since your mosty running singlethreaded minecraft serves, id get the 2690 v2. 

 

And really, focus on ram and storage more than the cpus, they will make a much bigger difference.

Oooo, gotcha.

 

if i max out a board, what ram would you suggest since itll downclock the ram?

[Electronics Wizardy]

7 hours ago, Bajantechnician said:

Oooo, gotcha.

 

if i max out a board, what ram would you suggest since itll downclock the ram?

If you get a r720, you havea  total of 8 ram channells, you want to fill them all.

 

Id get 8x 16gb dimms to start(something like this https://www.ebay.com/itm/128gb-Kingston-8x-16GB-2RX4-PC3-12800R-DDR3-Reg-ECC-Server-Memory-SL16D316R11D4/292924723350?epid=2212058186&hash=item4433ac9096:g:cOIAAOSwsZJbPkbC:sc:FedExHomeDelivery!95014!US!-1 on ebay, you can get cheaper if you hunt around, but thats an eample)

 

Then if you want more ram, get anouther 8x16gb dimms for 256, and you can add anouther one later on for 384gb if you need it.

[Bajantechnician]

2 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

If you get a r720, you havea  total of 8 ram channells, you want to fill them all.

 

Id get 8x 16gb dimms to start(something like this https://www.ebay.com/itm/128gb-Kingston-8x-16GB-2RX4-PC3-12800R-DDR3-Reg-ECC-Server-Memory-SL16D316R11D4/292924723350?epid=2212058186&hash=item4433ac9096:g:cOIAAOSwsZJbPkbC:sc:FedExHomeDelivery!95014!US!-1 on ebay, you can get cheaper if you hunt around, but thats an eample)

 

Then if you want more ram, get anouther 8x16gb dimms for 256, and you can add anouther one later on for 384gb if you need it.

should i get a barebones 720 or should i build a completely custom one since i dont really need all the hdd space and the fans are quite lound on a 720?

 

what board should i look for if i do a custom system?