Xeons for dual workstation (Thinkstation D30)

[Ian Greenhalgh]

Hi folks

 

My long suffering Dell Precision T7600 had died on me, the mainboard had developed a fault where only three memory channels worked and now has died altogether.

 

So I have 16x 8Gb DDR3-12800R and a pair of E5-2667s plus various drives and expansion cards salvaged to build a replacement machine.

 

I've bought a dirt cheap (70ukp) Thinkstation D30 and because I got is so cheap, I have been thinking I can afford to buy a pair of v2 Xeons as an upgrade - the E5-2667s have a passmark rating of 7725, single thread rating is 1678 and the two CPUs together rates at 12798.

 

Obviously, some of the high end E5-269x v2 chips would be the best upgrade but they are still quite expensive, over 100ukp each.

 

So I have been looking at cheaper options and the E5-2680 v2 seems a good bet as it's available for 25ukp each and the passmark ratings are good - 12631, 1794 single thread and 20691 for a pair, which would be a significant upgrade over the E5-2667s.

Another option is the E5-4650 v2 which is even cheaper, they can be had fr around 20ukp each and have 10 cores, but I can find no benchmarks.

 

Anyone got any experience of this chip? Also, does anyone know if there might be any compatibility issues with using a 46XX v2 series chip in the Thinkstation D30?

 

[jaslion]

How expensive is a used 3900x? That things beats dual e5 2680v2s and has a much much much higher single core performance.

 

The d30 doesn support e46 series cpus

[Ian Greenhalgh]

Er, why are you suggesting I buy a Ryzen that won't fit in my machine and won't work with the memory I have?

Sensible suggestions only please.

[AbydosOne]

30 minutes ago, Ian Greenhalgh said:

Sensible suggestions only please.

It is a sensible suggestion. You're talking about "upgrading" 10 year old CPUs, when a single current consumer chip will beat them in every way possible. Technology becomes obsolete eventually, sorry to say. 

[Ian Greenhalgh]

It is not a sensible suggestion as it completely ignores the context of the the question, which is my very small budget and wish to use the 128Gb of RAM and other components that I already have.

[Needfuldoer]

Dual E5-2680 v2s are a good bang-for-the-buck option in your price range, if your workload can take advantage of all those cores. If it can't, you probably won't see a massive difference, and dual E5-2667 v2s would make more sense due to their higher clock speeds (and single-core performance).

 

If the E5-2667s you already have were adequate though, I'd recommend keeping them and saving the money so you can upgrade to a newer platform in the not-too-distant future.

[Ian Greenhalgh]

Yeah, I originally chose the E5-2667s for their higher lcock speed, although for the tasks this machine will be put to, a lot of RAM and storage is more important than sheer CPU power. I also have a Dell T7810 with a E5-2873v3 which is my Windows daily driver machine, this dual setup will run Linux and spend it's time chugging away doing a lot of image processing of photographs and videos.

 

I'll upgrade when the price of DDR4 ECC drops nice and low, which will happen when the data centres and server farms upgrade from it. They will probably bump a load of newer Xeons onto the secondhand market too, we shall see.

[Ian Greenhalgh]

I made a little chart to help me see the options in perspective. It's largely a case of what CPUs can be found at what price.

 

 

[Ian Greenhalgh]

On 8/15/2022 at 2:42 PM, jaslion said:

The d30 doesn support e46 series cpus

Actually, I have found out that it does, as does the S30.

So, please, if you don't actually know something, then please don't chime in with incorrect information.

[jaslion]

1 hour ago, Ian Greenhalgh said:

Actually, I have found out that it does, as does the S30.

So, please, if you don't actually know something, then please don't chime in with incorrect information.

Where did you find this?

 

Officially the d30 doesn't support it as per lenovo's specsheet that I found and online the consensus was that it was a nogo apart from a couple lower end core count ones being the e5 4610 and e5 4620 which are often supported on unsupported machines (since they are basically just e5 2650's but made to be in a 4x config) basically by accident. Neither are cpu's youd want as they tend to be more expensive than their better performing cousins like a e5 2650 v1 or v2.

 

May wanna have a look at the e5 2695's too as they are 12 cores and are often overshadowd by the e5 2697v2 making them a lot cheaper for almost no perf difference. Saw a couple for about 40-60 pounds on ebay doing a quick search. Beasty lil things for not a lot of money.

 

Other than that get the cheapest base 3ghz or better v2 8 core cpus you can get.

 

 

[Ian Greenhalgh]

Please, you clearly don't know what you're talking about, so kindly stop, it is not at all helpful, just obfuscating.

 

I contacted Lenovo, they told me that all the 46xx v2 chips work, I also spoke to a person running a pair of 4658L v2s in a D30 and another person running a 4650 v2 in an S30

[jaslion]

20 minutes ago, Ian Greenhalgh said:

Please, you clearly don't know what you're talking about, so kindly stop, it is not at all helpful, just obfuscating.

 

I contacted Lenovo, they told me that all the 46xx v2 chips work, I also spoke to a person running a pair of 4658L v2s in a D30 and another person running a 4650 v2 in an S30

I do know some but can always learn more.

 

The s30 supporting e5 46 chips is documented but I could almost find nothing from the d30 and found a mixed bag of results thus opting for my response. I know of the e4610 and 4620 normally being surefire supported cpu's even if they are off the list but the rest is pretty much up to whatever is and isnt bios locked.

 

It's good that the e5 46 series is available but as far as I can see the regular e5 26 series seems to be the better value for money in terms of performance and single core performance. Also helped by more cache.

 

So I'd opt for the higher clocked 8 cores or see if a pair  of 2690v2 or 2695v2 can be found for cheap. Another good value one is the e5 2670 v2 which is often overlooked.