X79 Xeons General Discussion Thread 1.0

[Ordinarily_Greater]

Welcome to the Discussion thread of Xeon in X79 Chipset! The idea of creating this thread is so any new person that wants to build a X79 can know what Xeon is best to buy for their money.

1. Introduction : Why X79?

Advantages :

-Wide variety of Motherboard Size, from that Dual CPU Socket Server boards you can find, workstation motherboards, and the Mini ITX boards that you can find perfect for mobility

-Good upgrade path, CPU list in next Section 

-In the US (not like where the writer lives), Xeons are cheap dirt for some models that are already an amazing performer

-Mentioned Xeons Supports ECC (Error Correcting Code) RAM, which is also supported at Ryzen i guess?

Downsides :

-Expensive 8 slot boards

-These Xeons are Locked, that means you can't squeeze max juice from it

 

 

2. Getting in : CPU List! (I will only list the good chips, 4c/8t that at least can perform at 3.6GHz. Or the chips that has at least 6 cores)

*v1 Series*

a. Xeon E5-16xx series

Lowest tier, E5-1620 with 4c/8t at stock 3.6GHz and Max at 3.8GHz 

Stepping up a little bit, E5-1650 with 6c/12t at stock 3.2GHz and Max at 3.8GHz

To the top tier, E5-1660 with 6c/12t at stock 3.3GHz and Max at 3.9GHz

 

b. Xeon E5-26xx series

Well this is the 8 core HyperThreaded lineup at different speeds

Lowest tier, E5-2650 at stock 2.0GHz and Max at 2.8GHz (95W TDP)

More 200MHz, E5-2660 at stock 2.2GHz and Max at 3.0GHz (95W TDP)

20W TDP Increment, E5-2665 at stock 2.4GHz and Max at 3.1GHz (115W TDP)

Compelling Chip, E5-2680 at stock 2.7GHz and Max at 3.5GHz (130W TDP)

Top of the series, E5-2690 at stock 2.9GHz and Max at 3.8GHz (135W TDP)

 

*v2 Upgrade!* (will post the worthy upgrades only)

E5-1650v2, 6c/12t at stock 3.5GHz and Max at 3.9GHz

E5-1660v2, 6c/12t at stock 3.7GHz and Max at 4.0GHz

E5-2650v2, 8c/16t at stock 2.6GHz and Max at 3.4GHz

 

Good motherboards Example :

1. Asus P9X79

2. Asus P9X79 Pro

3. ASRock X79 Extreme series

Well all X79 Boards are actually good, but those three boards are just my personal favorites

And that is what i can told you for now. If you guys want to discuss something related to X79 or if you have some other facts i didn't know just comment.

Finally just prepare your "is it worth?" sense and you can apparently join XCMR (Xeon Master Race, C is mystery!)

The project R9 Xeon

CPU = Xeon E5-2650 v1 | Graphics Card = Asus R9 Fury X Watercooled | Motherboard = Power Xtreme X79 Mini ITX | RAM = Kingston HyperX Fury 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3-1600 | Storage = Seagate BarraCuda 1TB HDD (ST1000DM010) - Samsung 850 Evo 250GB SATA SSD - WD 160GB HDD (Free) | PSU = Corsair HX650i 80+ Platinum | Case = Micro ATX OEM | Display = Samsung FHD Curved 40" TV

 

 

 

 

[Jumper118]

Pcie 2.0 vs pcie 3.0 doesn't affect performance at all on an old xeon

[Ordinarily_Greater]

3 minutes ago, Jumper118 said:

Pcie 2.0 vs pcie 3.0 doesn't affect performance at all on an old xeon

Really? well how can RX 480 being bottlenecked when using Xeon X5460?

[Herman Mcpootis]

13 minutes ago, Ordinarily_Greater said:

Really? well how can RX 480 being bottlenecked when using Xeon X5460?

that's an old as hell xeon from lga 771, not surprising that it'll bottleneck the 480.

[Ordinarily_Greater]

1 minute ago, herman mcpootis said:

that's an old as hell xeon from lga 771, not surprising that it'll bottleneck the 480.

well yeah, when we talked about xeons i got interested so like you brought me to the xeon world

and i was going to ask your help to tell which X79 CPUs are cheap so i can put prices in the post, but i just leave it like this as this thread version is 1.0

[Herman Mcpootis]

10 minutes ago, Ordinarily_Greater said:

well yeah, when we talked about xeons i got interested so like you brought me to the xeon world

and i was going to ask your help to tell which X79 CPUs are cheap so i can put prices in the post, but i just leave it like this as this thread version is 1.0

2660s start at $80 on ebay

2665s don't look like a very good deal so i'd pass on those

2670s start at 120 on ebay

 you might be able to find some good deals on taobao if you don't mind the extra hassle.

[Ordinarily_Greater]

Just now, herman mcpootis said:

2660s start at $80 on ebay

2665s don't look like a very good deal so i'd pass on those

2670s start at 120 on ebay

https://item.taobao.com you might be able to find some good deals here if you don't mind the extra hassle.

Well thanks for the CPU prices, and i hope this thread can be just useful as i hoped

[Herman Mcpootis]

1 minute ago, Ordinarily_Greater said:

Well thanks for the CPU prices, and i hope this thread can be just useful as i hoped

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zf2bcHUTnkMuav5R_5ugpUIW3O9x4PzQ2EF5Zq6Wduk/pub?gid=0 here's the google docs sheet for ES E5 xeons if anyone's fine with engineering samples.

[Ordinarily_Greater]

Just now, herman mcpootis said:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zf2bcHUTnkMuav5R_5ugpUIW3O9x4PzQ2EF5Zq6Wduk/pub?gid=0 here's the google docs sheet for ES E5 xeons if anyone's fine with engineering samples.

now can i ask you? is this build good for $765.32? I scavenged my country

The project R9 Xeon

CPU = Xeon E5-2650 v1 | Graphics Card = Asus R9 Fury X Watercooled | Motherboard = Power Xtreme X79 Mini ITX | RAM = Kingston HyperX Fury 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3-1600 | Storage = Seagate BarraCuda 1TB HDD (ST1000DM010) - Samsung 850 Evo 250GB SATA SSD - WD 160GB HDD (Free) | PSU = Corsair HX650i 80+ Platinum | Case = Micro ATX OEM | Display = Samsung FHD Curved 40" TV

 

[Herman Mcpootis]

1 minute ago, Ordinarily_Greater said:

now can i ask you? is this build good for $765.32? I scavenged my country

The project R9 Xeon

CPU = Xeon E5-2650 v1 | Graphics Card = Asus R9 Fury X Watercooled | Motherboard = Power Xtreme X79 Mini ITX | RAM = Kingston HyperX Fury 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3-1600 | Storage = Seagate BarraCuda 1TB HDD (ST1000DM010) - Samsung 850 Evo 250GB SATA SSD - WD 160GB HDD (Free) | PSU = Corsair HX650i 80+ Platinum | Case = Micro ATX OEM | Display = Samsung FHD Curved 40" TV

 

i'd get a higher clocked e5 xeon than the 2650. see if your mobo supports ECC registered ram and get those instead if it does support it.

[Ground]

While the CPUs are cheap, motherboards are certainly not, particularly the interesting ones. As well as that - another interesting Xeon is the 1680 v2, 8 cores (not sure about the clock speeds). What makes it more interesting than the cheaper 8 cores? Well, the 16** Xeons (up to v2 I believe) are unlocked like their i7 counterparts. Prices are too much still though. 

 

Given that most of these Xeons are locked anyways, the cheap chinese motherboards may be something to consider here, I haven‘t seen any reports of them not working properly. 

 

Currently the only situation where I would consider x79 would be one where I need lots and lots of RAM with a somewhat low budget and high multicore performance, though again - 8 slot motherboards are expensive. 8 GB DDR3 ECC DIMMs go for about 25$ on the used market - going with 2x2660 (2x80$), a somewhat cheap dual socket board (300$?) and 16 8GB DIMMs (400$) is probably one of the cheapest ways to get that kind of performance with as much RAM. 16 16 GB DIMMs are in the 1000$ Range though...

and yet this is cheaper than DDR4... oO

[Ordinarily_Greater]

1 minute ago, herman mcpootis said:

i'd get a higher clocked e5 xeon than the 2650. see if your mobo supports ECC registered ram and get those instead if it does support it.

how can i check it since the brand is unlikely known for most people? but i will search for Power Xtreme's site

[Herman Mcpootis]

1 minute ago, Ordinarily_Greater said:

how can i check it since the brand is unlikely known for most people? but i will search for Power Xtreme's site

see if the page you're getting it from states any support for ecc registered ram.

[Ordinarily_Greater]

2 minutes ago, Ground said:

While the CPUs are cheap, motherboards are certainly not, particularly the interesting ones. As well as that - another interesting Xeon is the 1680 v2, 8 cores (not sure about the clock speeds). What makes it more interesting than the cheaper 8 cores? Well, the 16** Xeons (up to v2 I believe) are unlocked like their i7 counterparts. Prices are too much still though. 

 

Given that most of these Xeons are locked anyways, the cheap chinese motherboards may be something to consider here, I haven‘t seen any reports of them not working properly. 

 

Currently the only situation where I would consider x79 would be one where I need lots and lots of RAM with a somewhat low budget and high multicore performance, though again - 8 slot motherboards are expensive. 8 GB DDR3 ECC DIMMs go for about 25$ on the used market - going with 2x2660 (2x80$), a somewhat cheap dual socket board (300$?) and 16 8GB DIMMs (400$) is probably one of the cheapest ways to get that kind of performance with as much RAM. 16 16 GB DIMMs are in the 1000$ Range though...

and yet this is cheaper than DDR4... oO

Yeah i forgot to mention the price of the boards being a downside, thanks for reminding will put downsides section

[Guest]

@Zando Bob

[Guest]

Just now, Abyss Gaming said:

@Zando Bob

@WhisperingKnickers

[Ordinarily_Greater]

1 minute ago, Abyss Gaming said:

@WhisperingKnickers

 

2 minutes ago, Abyss Gaming said:

@Zando Bob

those are the guys with CPUs that supports PCIe 2.0 only right? But it would be also fun if we can discuss here together

[Jumper118]

47 minutes ago, Ordinarily_Greater said:

Really? well how can RX 480 being bottlenecked when using Xeon X5460?

That's because the cpu is old not the pcie version..... 

[Ordinarily_Greater]

1 minute ago, Jumper118 said:

That's because the cpu is old not the pcie version..... 

oh well gotta erase the PCIe 3.0 advantages

well i wonder just how good ecc ram is

[Ground]

PCIe 2.0 or 3.0 doesn‘t make a real difference; the only case modern GPU may be limited by PCIe 2.0 would be if it were an x8 slot. PCIe 3.0 x8 is still viable for GTX 1080 Ti‘s in SLI, and has the exact same bandwidth as PCIe 2.0. 

 

Another benefit of this platform is for sure that it can use less power than x58, especially if both are clocked for comparable performance. A 2660 manages around ~1010 cbs, an x58 6 Core Xeon needs about 4.4 GHz for that, and, most likely, uses a lot more power while doing so. 

 

 

For us, ECC is probably mostly great because it is so cheap compared to non-ECC - 4GB DIMMs can be had for under 10$ for example. 

[Ordinarily_Greater]

2 minutes ago, Ground said:

PCIe 2.0 or 3.0 doesn‘t make a real difference; the only case modern GPU may be limited by PCIe 2.0 would be if it were an x8 slot. PCIe 3.0 x8 is still viable for GTX 1080 Ti‘s in SLI, and has the exact same bandwidth as PCIe 2.0. 

What about SSD that uses PCIe? will that suffer bottleneck from the PCIe 2.0?

[Ground]

Just now, Ordinarily_Greater said:

What about SSD that uses PCIe? will that suffer bottleneck from the PCIe 2.0?

Its possible it might, but the most important part of an SSD is access times, where 2.0 or 3.0 makes no difference at all. PCIe 2.0 would be 500MB/s/lane, so if your SSD has a higher read/write than 2000MB/s it might be a couple percent slower in opening or writing large files. 

[Ordinarily_Greater]

1 minute ago, Ground said:

Its possible it might, but the most important part of an SSD is access times, where 2.0 or 3.0 makes no difference at all. PCIe 2.0 would be 500MB/s/lane, so if your SSD has a higher read/write than 2000MB/s it might be a couple percent slower in opening or writing large files. 

So speaking of power hungry (in the part you said an E5-2660 can reach 1010 cb), does it get hot really fast?

[Đỗ Đức Huy]

nah, worked at a pc shop that build dual xeon rig on C602 chipset mobo. Not worth the performance. A 2670 is 50% slower in single threaded and multi threaded bench mark compared to my 3.9GHz 1700. 

To say that I'm not kidding, this is a dual 2680V2 with 128GB of ram Rig that I build just for the hell of it:

Actual production dual 2690V1 and GTX 780 non Ti that developed a PSU fault which is in for repairs:

(Ngon means okay in Vietnamese computer repairs lingo)

Four 2680V2 lined up before being put into two rigs:

 

The good thing is ECC ram is fucking cheap, you can get 8GB DDR3L ECC stick for like 20$ a pop, good luck finding cheap mobo to put it in though. Some Chinese site offers supped up mobo that runs ECC memory for 150 ish buck a pop, with long warranty but I ain't telling you more than that. You have to discover it on your own.

We don't even offer lower than 2650V1 rigs in our shop anymore, Xeon 16xx? Forget about it. The only thing those xeon got going for them is you can put two of them in a rig for massively parallel tasks like rendering photo realistic pictures of buildings and stuff like that, or massive array of virtual machines for MMO boting.

This is from a guy that ran a 3960X at 4.5GHz and when the mobo died, I jumped to a Ryzen 1700 and OC the snot out of it. Unless you need shit ton of ram for cheap, your workload is massively parallel and you need to spend the least money possible on hardware (discounting electricity cost, a dual 2680V2 rig with a GTX780 going full tilt draws 680-700W from the wall and output most of that via heat. 

Just finished my working week, anyone have any questions at all can all lined them up and I'll try to get some real answer on real hardware for you guys.

[Guest]

46 minutes ago, Ordinarily_Greater said:

 

those are the guys with CPUs that supports PCIe 2.0 only right? But it would be also fun if we can discuss here together

Idk I know they like xeons. Btw pcie 3 x4 is good enough to barely bottleneck a 1080ti, and pcie gen 2 x8 is equal to that. So if it's pcie 2 it doesn't really mean anything unless it's x4