My dual E5-2670 Home server build

[suchamoneypit]

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!-

[FAQBytes]

Very nicely done. Very similar to my build besides the fact I went all the way and put it into a modified server case.

[glitchmaster0001]

nice i was going to do a dual socket LGA 2011 build with the E5 2670s but the board was $300 so i decided not to do it. luckly i got a good ass deal on a Supermicro dual socket LGA 1336 board. so now im in the process of building a dual socket X5650 build with 12 cores 24 threads 24GB DDR3 RAM and a GTX 760

[suchamoneypit]

2 minutes ago, FAQBytes said:

Very nicely done. Very similar to my build besides the fact I went all the way and put it into a modified server case.

I thought about just buying a normal server case, but the idea of modifying my current case and making it something custom was very appealing to me. Still mad at myself for the massive oversight of EEATX to EATX. Although I learn from my mistakes, so that one wont happen again!

[srmarkovic]

Great job. I got new  intel S2600COEIOC board and want to build computer like yours, but I cant find case. I know that I will have to do some mods, but I need a case to fit MB + Blu rey writer. What is your case,please?

[Guest]

Would it be a bad time to tell you it's impossible to self host the DayZ Server Client ATM. 

[suchamoneypit]

11 hours ago, srmarkovic said:

Great job. I got new  intel S2600COEIOC board and want to build computer like yours, but I cant find case. I know that I will have to do some mods, but I need a case to fit MB + Blu rey writer. What is your case,please?

For an SSI EEB motherboard the only mainstream case seems to be this one. My case is a HAF 932 advanced, and although it supports EATX, it does not support the proprietary EEATX.

6 minutes ago, Noire said:

Would it be a bad time to tell you it's impossible to self host the DayZ Server Client ATM. 

Its only one of a dozen things I want to do, and its actually the one im least interested in doing since I don't even own the game, it would just be for others. Not being able to run it doesn't bother me at all.

[srmarkovic]

I ordered new http://www.fractal-design.com/home/product/cases/define-series/define-xl-r2-black-pearl for 126€. I hope that motherboard will fit, if not.......

I saw a pic with ssi eeb board in this case and only one hole doesn't fit. 

[suchamoneypit]

10 minutes ago, srmarkovic said:

I ordered new http://www.fractal-design.com/home/product/cases/define-series/define-xl-r2-black-pearl for 126€. I hope that motherboard will fit, if not.......

I saw a pic with ssi eeb board in this case and only one hole doesn't fit. 

yeah it doesn't specifically list support but I willing to bet enough holes line up to not be worried.

[srmarkovic]

There is one small cheap old case which fully support ssi eeb 

Chieftec

There actually a lot of Chieftec cases supporting this format. But I couldn't find any because those are old models.

[srmarkovic]

No Fractal Design, they will send me 

Phanteks Enthoo Pro

in monday.

[srmarkovic]

Well cpu, memory and case will come during next week. I think to buy new R7 370 2GB DDR5.

I am thinking about power supply also. I found one old. I removed it from my sons computer and put one no name 650w psu. I had original box so I packed broken PSU and all cables. A year ago I opened this old PSU and change damaged 5vsb capacitor and it worked. I tested it today and it works without any noise, perfect. But I think that it will not be enough for dual e5-2670, AMD graphics, 4 hard drives and one ssd.

Sorry for bad pictures I used my phone and light was bad.

Should I go with this 6y old PSU or buy 1200-1500w?

[srmarkovic]

I've been testing PSU on my old overclocked 4.6GHz i7 2600k with AMD graphic 6780 or something like this for a few hours.

[suchamoneypit]

19 minutes ago, srmarkovic said:

Well cpu, memory and case will come during next week. I think to buy new R7 370 2GB DDR5.

I am thinking about power supply also. I found one old. I removed it from my sons computer and put one no name 650w psu. I had original box so I packed broken PSU and all cables. A year ago I opened this old PSU and change damaged 5vsb capacitor and it worked. I tested it today and it works without any noise, perfect. But I think that it will not be enough for dual e5-2670, AMD graphics, 4 hard drives and one ssd.

Sorry for bad pictures I used my phone and light was bad.

Should I go with this 6y old PSU or buy 1200-1500w?

 

750W is more wattage than you need for the server, 1200-1500w would be insanely overkill. As long as that PSU has 2 CPU power connectors, it should work. This server (without GPU) probably only draws around 300-400w at 100% load.

[srmarkovic]

I will have GPU and (although I am 46y old) I play new games sometimes. Two 12v rails(v1,v2) are used for main board connector. Rail v1 is used for 8 pin connector. Rail v2 is used foh sata and molex connectors. Rail v3 and v4 are used for two graphic cards. I want to use rail v4 for GPU and I will use v3 with modified cable for second CPU. I will cut wires and solder 8 pin connector on 6 pin GPU cable. But would 750w be enough?

Servers use 800w + redundant power supplies.

[srmarkovic]

I also got Intel RMS25KB080 PCIe sas raid controller with board. (I payed 220€ for a new board with 2y warranty. PCIe raid was in the box). I will use this with cheap external 8 sata enclosure with its own PSU. I will just use two sas to 4 sata cables. Controller has internal connectors so it would not be nice to see cables protruding through back but.... This raid card draws a lot of power maybe 20W. 

[suchamoneypit]

1 hour ago, srmarkovic said:

I also got Intel RMS25KB080 PCIe sas raid controller with board. (I payed 220€ for a new board with 2y warranty. PCIe raid was in the box). I will use this with cheap external 8 sata enclosure with its own PSU. I will just use two sas to 4 sata cables. Controller has internal connectors so it would not be nice to see cables protruding through back but.... This raid card draws a lot of power maybe 20W. 

you should still have plenty of power even with a super high wattage GPU like a 290/390x. I don't know anything about internals of cables though so as far as making the connectors work your on your own.

[srmarkovic]

[srmarkovic]

It should look like this (this is pic from Phantex site)

 

I covered all unnecessary holes with copper-pertinax panels  coated with black plastic. I want to make wind tunnel from bottom front 20cm fan through coolers to 2x 14cm top and 14cm rear fan.

I am waiting courier to bring me 64GB ecc 1333 DDR3 and PCIe-USB3.0. Probably during next week. 

Still don't know what GPU to use with this old used processors.

[TheCamba]

 

1 hour ago, srmarkovic said:

-snip-

What do you plan to do with it the most?  You could look at the RX480 depending.

[srmarkovic]

Well I am software and net engineer in PE. There are a lot of mighty servers in firm I work for and I wanted something like this. What I do at home. Hmmm... let me see. I do a lot of hobby electronics (as this case has a window, yesterday I made RGB controller with ATMega32 which I will connect to internal serial so I could change colors or blink according CPU activity, if someone is interested I could post PCB and code)   mostly with Atmel microprocessors, I watch movies, sometimes play games (Call of Duty, Far Cry, Arma, Tom Clansy's, Battlefield...). Sometimes I start few instances of VM to test software I do. Last week I'v been editing a lot of family HD movies. More than 82 hours. I bought 2 Blu Ray writers and a lot of discs in 2010 to make archives of events, people and places. I'v been lazy so... Well 82 hours..... I had to see all this, made cuts, transitions, colors, titles. I 'v been lazy (laying in a bed with laptop on chair beside) so I used my Asus n56jr i7  16GB ram 240GB ssd 1TBHDD GTX 760m laptop. It was amazing how this little 3y old computer did this. Sooo fast. It means that I wouldn't use this Xeon I am building for video production. I still don't have 4K cam, so laptop is powerful enough for HD.

 

My final answer is : I will use this machine for watching movies mostly, because it will replace my PC which is connected to 50" TV. 

My 5y old PC ( i7-2600k@4.6GHz 16GB RAM 250GB ssd 4TB hdds ATI HD6870) goes to my 16y old son, or should I give him PC I am building? (I want better machine for me)

 

[ManOfGold93]

You might want to create a new thread then where you talk about your system and how you are going to build/plan it, etc and let this one stay on the Home server build!

[srmarkovic]

2 hours ago, ManOfGold93 said:

You might want to create a new thread then where you talk about your system and how you are going to build/plan it, etc and let this one stay on the Home server build!

You are right, sorry. I will not post here any more.

[suchamoneypit]

6 minutes ago, srmarkovic said:

You are right, sorry. I will not post here any more.

I don't mind, up to you, tag me ( @suchamoneypit )in in the new thread if you do though, I enjoy seeing the progress of yours!

[colinreay]

Haha, I was beginning to feel like this was turning into two separate build logs. Great work @srmarkovic, and @suchamoneypit! You being in high school is pretty inspiring, would love to do something like this in the future, maybe in a rackmount case, and throw a tempered glass cover on it or something.