asus x99-e ws 3.1

[farhod]

Greetings,

I'm planning to build in couple of month a new workstation based on the Xeon platform, that I will be using mainly for work and some gaming.

The system must be as silent as possible and I might need it to run for couple of days on full load, so it must be well cooled. And the most important i do not want my system to crash, that's why i want to go for a xeon with ECC Registered memory.

For noise damping i have chosen Corsair Carbide 600q case and four nf-a14 pwm case fans as well as noctua nh-d15.

Since noctua nh-d15 has quite a huge radiator, on most of the motherboards it blocks PCI-E slot 1.

By comparing price/performance of Xeon CPUs i have found that nice Broadwell-EP e5 2640v4 that is within my budget and will be sufficient for multitasking, and won't create such bottleneck for 2 way- SLI when I will be gaming: http://ark.intel.com/products/83359/Intel-Xeon-Processor-E5-2640-v3-20M-Cache-2_60-GHz

 

But when I started looking for a mobo I got stuck.

The best mobo that I have found is asus X99-e ws that supports xeon's and is able to run 2 way SLI in non default configuration(slot 3 and 7 etc) due to the PLX chips.

But when I comes to the CPU support on that mobo, it is not listed in the VQL and officially Asus supports Broadwell-EP arch only on the server type mobos, but not workstation series motherboards.

 

I have taken a look at other vendors and they do not have even a similar boards, with same functionalities that I need like:

4 four pin fan PWM connectors

intel xeon e5 support on which i could install noctua nh-d15

8 slots with ECC registered memory support

dual NIC

enough PCI-E slots (what will be installed is at least double GPU, wireless adapter, sound card)

 

So far what I have chosen from the hardware that i wanted to use:

 

CPU: Intel Xeon e5-2640 v4
RAM: Kingston 4x16GB ECC RDIMM 2133
Mobo: Asus x99-e ws 3.1 USB
PSU: EVGA SuperNova 1000 P2
Case: Corsair Carbide 600q
SSD: Samsung EVO 850 1TB
Cooler: noctua nh-D15
Case Fans: 4x noctua NF-a14 PWM
GPU: 2 way SLI EVGA Reference NVDIA GTX 980 TI (maybe will wait for a 1080 and use my old 780 as a sub)

 

I have also take a look at MSI x99 mobos, They seem to support Broadwell-EP Xeon CPU but in the 

Maybe some one can advise another motherboard that would support Xeon e5 v4 with ECC registered RAM support? Or maybe some one have tried ECC memory on MSI mobos?

 

[TheRandomness]

Chances are, it won't crash with or without ECC RAM. It's really only used in situations where the world depends on it not crashing. (This is all from memory, so someone tell me if I'm completely wrong c:)

[dobbylan]

@farhod I currently face the exact same problem. I also want to use the Asus X99-E for a Broadwell-E workstation with ECC RAM. I contacted ASUS support and they say that Broadwell-E CPU support should arrive "within the next few weeks", whatever that means.

 

Did you think of the ASUS Z10PA-U8 as an alternative?

 

Anyway, I would be happy to hear from you if you get any news on this or decide to use a different mobo :-)

 

 

Edited April 26, 2016 by dobbylan

[farhod]

On 4/26/2016 at 5:59 PM, dobbylan said:

Did you think of the ASUS Z10PA-U8 as an alternative?

Hey @dobbylan,
I actually do not think that this mobo will fit my needs, this is more for a server rather than for a workstation.
It does not seem to support the SLI and has quite weak back IO connectivity.

And has EET mounting holes, so it is not compatible with corsair carbide 600q case.