High core count Low TDP cpu

[thegoogler]

hello I am planning on building a multipurpose server for local nas storage and rendering but want to run multiple Vm's also but can't find a cpu that has a high core count with low power draw that is any good at rendering or has cheap parts overall like a AMD opteron 2x cheaper than the boards it needs. I am able to run dual CPU motherboards and stuff like that because I want me and my friends to be able to render off it fairly quickly but making it cheap for me to run? any idea what hardware (CPU) I should get due to most of the renders being CPU bound such as archicad rendering and premier rendering and stuff like that.

 

The Vm's will run stuff like nas os's and media server os's also and maybe a remote desktop so I can access files from anywhere and other stuff like that, I am new to this server stuff and recently wanted to get Into servers and server hardware and to have a self built nas and stuff like that.

[NelizMastr]

You can't have great performance and low power. Pick one.

 

The cheapest high core count low power chips are the Xeon L56xx chips for socket 1366. 6-core 12 thread options available.

[thegoogler]

1 minute ago, NelizMastr said:

You can't have great performance and low power. Pick one.

 

The cheapest high core count low power chips are the Xeon L56xx chips for socket 1366. 6-core 12 thread options available.

I guess I will take performance??

[NelizMastr]

2 minutes ago, thegoogler said:

I guess I will take performance??

K. Xeon X5675 is a superb chip for the money. Get two of them and you'll have 12 cores and 24 threads with decent performance. Power draw is a good bit higher, though.

[Morgan MLGman]

2 minutes ago, thegoogler said:

I guess I will take performance??

What about the Ryzen 7 1700? Its TDP is 65W and it has 8 cores & 16 threads, or is that not enough for your needs?

[thegoogler]

10 minutes ago, Morgan MLGman said:

What about the Ryzen 7 1700? Its TDP is 65W and it has 8 cores & 16 threads, or is that not enough for your needs?

That is a bit out of my budget but might be a upgrade later i looking for cheap performance but thanks for the suggestion.

[thegoogler]

12 minutes ago, NelizMastr said:

K. Xeon X5675 is a superb chip for the money. Get two of them and you'll have 12 cores and 24 threads with decent performance. Power draw is a good bit higher, though.

Wow that looks pretty good thanks hopefully now I can find a good 1366 mobo or a dual socket one

[Morgan MLGman]

9 minutes ago, thegoogler said:

That is a bit out of my budget but might be a upgrade later i looking for cheap performance but thanks for the suggestion.

Older motherboards are expensive sometimes despite the CPU prices being decent, considering the power consumption it might not be such a bad idea.

What you'd need is a cheap B350 motherboard and a Ryzen 7 1700, if you buy used then the combo might be quite cheap and you will be able to upgrade the CPU to 2nd gen Ryzen or 3rd gen Ryzen when it launches next year. The problem is memory prices (DDR4 is still quite expensive).

[WereCat]

AMD is going to release an 8-core 45W TDP CPU so thats probably your best bet.

Or just get the R7 2700 and undervolt it.

[wojtepanik]

30 minutes ago, Morgan MLGman said:

What about the Ryzen 7 1700? Its TDP is 65W and it has 8 cores & 16 threads, or is that not enough for your needs?

add ddr4 ram to it and you have expensive server, best option is to go for some dell r610 or r410 and dual xeons with ddr3 ecc register for the cheap

[Morgan MLGman]

Just now, wojtepanik said:

add ddr4 ram to it and you have expensive server, best option is to go for some dell r610 or r410 and dual xeons with ddr3 ecc register for the cheap

Yeah, but then you throw the "low TDP" requirement out the window so it's probably not that simple I mentioned the DDR4 cost in my second post.

Though older motherboards may be more expensive than the CPUs themselves so that's something to keep in mind as well.

[wojtepanik]

5 minutes ago, Morgan MLGman said:

Yeah, but then you throw the "low TDP" requirement out the window so it's probably not that simple I mentioned the DDR4 cost in my second post.

Though older motherboards may be more expensive than the CPUs themselves so that's something to keep in mind as well.

there are dell dual socket boards on allegro for about 100$, add 2 x xeon 5645 = 12 threads for 200$ with board, 100$ for 32 gigs of ddr 3 ecc registered

 

those xeons are 85w tdp each, but in practice those run really cool, in games I have mine running @55 celsius

[AskTJ]

I suggest an X5650. Two of them can be had for around $70 - $80 and gives you 12 cores and 24 threads. Buy 16GB of server memory and you will be set.

[thegoogler]

10 hours ago, AskTJ said:

I suggest an X5650. Two of them can be had for around $70 - $80 and gives you 12 cores and 24 threads. Buy 16GB of server memory and you will be set.

Ok I will check those out 

[thegoogler]

10 hours ago, AskTJ said:

I suggest an X5650. Two of them can be had for around $70 - $80 and gives you 12 cores and 24 threads. Buy 16GB of server memory and you will be set.

Ok I will check those out 

[thegoogler]

10 hours ago, AskTJ said:

I suggest an X5650. Two of them can be had for around $70 - $80 and gives you 12 cores and 24 threads. Buy 16GB of server memory and you will be set.

But the dual socket motherboards for them are like 200-300 aud sorry I didn’t mention that before 

[mineblaster]

gen 1 2670 xeons are good too and motherboards arent to expensive and the 2670 is an 8 core with 10 and 12 cores with support of the 2600 v2 series xeons and being able to stack more ram in aswell with bigger sticks

[Pixel5]

for what you want to do with this server you could literally take any 10 year old dual core and it would probably still be more efficient than these old server CPU´s.

 

nothing you have mentioned needs high performance from the CPU so i would rather focus on having enough SATA 3 ports and generally having a compact, quiet and low power consumption system.

 

do the math how much it costs you a year to have a 1W power draw 24/7 and multiply with the power draw of the components, running something all year can get expensive real quick if all you look for is cheap components and high performance.

[kladzen]

On 13/6/2018 at 12:11 PM, NelizMastr said:

You can't have great performance and low power. Pick one.

 

The cheapest high core count low power chips are the Xeon L56xx chips for socket 1366. 6-core 12 thread options available.

that is not true...look into Xeon D CPU's!

 

 

Now OP:

 

Look into Xeon D CPU's. it's SOC cpu's. go from 4core -> 16cores/32threads cpu's. high cpu speeds, has Low TDP starting from 30-35tdp (if i remember correct), ECC memory, IPMI, 10gigabit lan and so on... 

 

Take a look at supermicro's website, they come in all form factors... from itx to standard size to special server size boards... and take a look at the  xeron d-15XX series and the 21xx series.

[Ildiesalot]

7 hours ago, kladzen said:

that is not true...look into Xeon D CPU's!

 

 

Now OP:

 

Look into Xeon D CPU's. it's SOC cpu's. go from 4core -> 16cores/32threads cpu's. high cpu speeds, has Low TDP starting from 30-35tdp (if i remember correct), ECC memory, IPMI, 10gigabit lan and so on... 

 

Take a look at supermicro's website, they come in all form factors... from itx to standard size to special server size boards... and take a look at the  xeron d-15XX series and the 21xx series.

I was also about to recommend the Xeon D CPU's in a supermicro as well. If you choose to go this route, however, go with the 8th gen, as they've removed ILO in the 10th gen of supermicros.

 

If performance and cheap up front prices are more important than low power draw, a used HP DL380 G7 or an R710 should be able to be purchased off ebay for <$100. You have some options here, such as whether to go for a xeon L5640 (slightly low power draw), a 5650 (more cores), etc. I'd recommend making sure the server is LFF, however, if you're going to be running a NAS as a vm.

 

That being said, I'd have recommend the supermicro line mentioned above due to the lower long term costs.

 

Cheers!

[bmichaels556]

On 6/13/2018 at 6:55 AM, AskTJ said:

I suggest an X5650. Two of them can be had for around $70 - $80 and gives you 12 cores and 24 threads. Buy 16GB of server memory and you will be set.

Seconded, but maybe go for the X5675. For a few bucks more, I'd say the price is warranted. I mostly figure value by Passmark CPU Mark score / price. Although that benchmark doesn't do great with dual CPU's the way Cinebench, or an actual video editing software or otherwise would, so don't look at the multi-CPU scores on passmark as they're deceiving. But I digress...

 

I just scored a T7500 (with the riser for a dual CPU) for $175 (with 4GB RAM and an old Nvidia 8800GT), plus $80 for the two X5675's for upgrading. Only thing is, the main board's passively-cooled X5675 runs hot under 100% load, upwards of 85C, but I'm looking to ziptie on a cheap Dell 5-pin fan to the heatsink. The riser board's CPU is cooled with a dedicated cooler w/ fan, so it does a lot better, about 70C.

 

Anyway, all that for around $250? You'll spend $300 on a 2700x ALONE, and for only about a 25% increase in performance. Though it'll consume about half the power, similar TDP, dual CPU's... But that extra power isn't that big a tradeoff when your whole system costs less than the CPU for a new one...

 

Anyway, REALLY worth considering IMO. Those old Westmere CPU's are near impossible to beat in price/performance. Maybe short of stealing.  

[JoostinOnline]

On 6/13/2018 at 5:25 AM, thegoogler said:

That is a bit out of my budget but might be a upgrade later i looking for cheap performance but thanks for the suggestion.

The thing with Xeons is that the motherboards tend to be super expensive. Check that before you buy.

[Ildiesalot]

41 minutes ago, JoostinOnline said:

The thing with Xeons is that the motherboards tend to be super expensive. Check that before you buy.

If OP want's to go with Xeon 55xx/56xx line, he/she should opt to pick up a used enterprise server off eBay. Yes, the motherboards can be extremely expensive when purchasing a single part, but used servers (R610, R710, R410, DL 380 G6/7, DL 320 G6/7, etc) can often be found for <$100 + shipping for the complete system. Although this usually doesn't include hard drives.

 

OP, check out labgopher.com.

[bmichaels556]

2 hours ago, JoostinOnline said:

The thing with Xeons is that the motherboards tend to be super expensive. Check that before you buy.

Thing is, a lot of people have noted that LGA 1366 motherboards are expensive, but remember, when you're on a budget, you're not supposed to be looking for high-end gaming boards for $200, but rather server boards that can be had for ~$50 (or whole systems) for a very cheap price as said above.

 

For some reason, people make it like buying a server motherboard that can't overclock is some kind of filthy peasant move or something, despite being on a tight budget. I mean maybe I'm over-blowing it, but it seems to be present in Youtube videos on these processors as well... I don't get it.  

[thegoogler]

Thanks for all of your recommendations so far, I have looked into all of your recommendations and like the Idea of building it for myself but if buying a old pre-built server with a lga 2011 or 1366 socket motherboard meaning I could upgrade to higher core count processors in the future does sound good. It would be easier for me to buy a rack mount server but I don't have a case for those and they are very loud. I could look around for server towers on aussie sites like gumtree but I was leaning towards a x55xx or x56xx and undervolting them if possible. keep the recommendations coming I would  like to see other options for processors I could use.