Upgrading from a 5820k to a Dual Xeon Build, Advice Appreciated!

[Yankee42]

So this is the system I currently have: http://pcpartpicker.com/list/wbLvKZ

 

Certainly a beast of a system, but I'm finding out I actually need some more horsepower.

 

I'm studying Networking and Penetration Testing (Just starting out, any advice would be appreciated). I found out what virtualization was a few months ago and have been playing around with operating systems ever since. I'm starting to get into creating entire virtual networks and I just don't have the core count/ RAM to make the number of VMs I want or have them run as smooth as I'd like.

 

Enter the Xeon E5-2670. I found out about these 8 Core hyperthreading beauties and immediately started planning a new rig. If you don't know, these chips were dumped on the second hand market and go for $55-80 on Amazon and Ebay. I don't just want one, though. At $80 a piece, I want two. So this is my new part list to transform my current rig to a dual Xeon one: http://pcpartpicker.com/list/YnxhM8

 

All I'm changing is the Motherboard, CPUs, and Ram.

 

What say you, brethen? What would you change and why?

[deWaardt]

Well, obviously you're gonna need another CPU cooler

 

If you need the cores, go for it.

But individual core performance will be quite a bit worse, so if you plan on using this PC for gaming as well your framerate might take a hit.

[Yankee42]

I'd need a 3rd cooler????

 

Yeah, I know gaming will take a small hit, but I'm gaming on a 1080p monitor with a 980ti so....probably won't even notice lol

[Droidbot]

Just showing what these little beauties are capable of with multi-threaded workloads. 

[Yankee42]

1 minute ago, Droidbot said:

Just showing what these little beauties are capable of with multi-threaded workloads. 

Isn't it a thing of beauty?!

 

I plan on running a bunch of different Virtual Lab configurations, all running smooth at the same time. Can't wait to see what this kind of power feels like.

[deWaardt]

4 minutes ago, Yankee42 said:

I'd need a 3rd cooler????

 

Yeah, I know gaming will take a small hit, but I'm gaming on a 1080p monitor with a 980ti so....probably won't even notice lol

Sorry didn't notice you already had 2

Please don't kill me!

 

I have no experience with gaming on Xeons, but from what I've heard they're horrible for gaming.

I can't say for sure though!

[Droidbot]

1 minute ago, Yankee42 said:

Isn't it a thing of beauty?!

 

I plan on running a bunch of different Virtual Lab configurations, all running smooth at the same time. Can't wait to see what this kind of power feels like.

 

Oh man, I can just see it now. 

 

They're amazing CPUs for the price - but a word of caution. They are used CPUs, from Amazon's datacenters. Just to be safe, assume that they have been hammered, balls to the wall 24/7 for 3 years straight. They will have a shorter life than your 5820K will, but not by much. 

[Yankee42]

1 minute ago, deWaardt said:

Sorry didn't notice you already had 2

Please don't kill me!

 

I have no experience with gaming on Xeons, but from what I've heard they're horrible for gaming.

I can't say for sure though!

It's too late. The ninjas are on their way....

 

I've seen some benchmarks on Youtube. Your frames take about a 5~fps hit, but that's in comparison to a 5860k.

[Yankee42]

2 minutes ago, Droidbot said:

Oh man, I can just see it now. 

 

They're amazing CPUs for the price - but a word of caution. They are used CPUs, from Amazon's datacenters. Just to be safe, assume that they have been hammered, balls to the wall 24/7 for 3 years straight. They will have a shorter life than your 5820K will, but not by much. 

Yeah that's my one big worry. I'm getting a new MB to try and compensate, but I figured if one dies, I can just pick up another for 80 bucks. I might actually get an extra one just in case.

[ENiX]

Id check to make sure your case support SSI EEB for factor motherboards. 

 

I would watch ebay for a 64GB kit of ECC memmory you should be able to get it for around $80

 

Also you should be able to get a pair of 2670's for $130

 

Lastly, make sure you get SR0KX in case you want to do PICx pass-through in the future.

[Yankee42]

1 minute ago, ENiX said:

Id check to make sure your case support SSI EEB for factor motherboards. 

 

I would watch ebay for a 64GB kit of ECC memmory you should be able to get it for around $80

 

Also you should be able to get a pair of 2670's for $130

 

Lastly, make sure you get SR0KX in case you want to do PICx pass-through in the future.

It does, I lucked out. I got it for the features/look and it just happened to support SSI EEB.

 

What kind of RAM do you speak of???

 

I tend to overbudget lol

 

Awesome! PCI pass-through was something I wanted to mess with for sure, I'll keep this in mind. Many thanks, mah brotha.

[deWaardt]

7 minutes ago, Yankee42 said:

It's too late. The ninjas are on their way....

 

I've seen some benchmarks on Youtube. Your frames take about a 5~fps hit, but that's in comparison to a 5860k.

Aaah I guess you'll be fine

Multithreaded performance with these things is absolute beast!

[Yankee42]

Yup! I also plan on doing some video editing, so this will probably laugh in my face anytime I tell it to render anything.

[ENiX]

http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-Hynix-64GB-8X8GB-2RX4-DDR3-1333MHz-PC3-10600R-ECC-REG-Only-for-Server-/381569400799?hash=item58d74effdf:g:gYAAAOSwZ8ZW5pdC

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/MATCHING-PAIR-SR0KX-XEON-E5-2670-8CORE-2-60GHz-20M-115W-PROC-FOR-HP-SL270S-GEN8-/131567596148?hash=item1ea20a3274:g:9wIAAOSwmtJXXvkA

[Yankee42]

2 minutes ago, ENiX said:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-Hynix-64GB-8X8GB-2RX4-DDR3-1333MHz-PC3-10600R-ECC-REG-Only-for-Server-/381569400799?hash=item58d74effdf:g:gYAAAOSwZ8ZW5pdC

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/MATCHING-PAIR-SR0KX-XEON-E5-2670-8CORE-2-60GHz-20M-115W-PROC-FOR-HP-SL270S-GEN8-/131567596148?hash=item1ea20a3274:g:9wIAAOSwmtJXXvkA

Not really looking for ECC, this is going to be for VMs.

[ENiX]

5 minutes ago, Yankee42 said:

Not really looking for ECC, this is going to be for VMs.

Fair enough.

 

Here my system btw;

 

[Yankee42]

3 minutes ago, ENiX said:

Fair enough.

 

Here my system btw;

 

O_O...I can has specs?

[ENiX]

9 minutes ago, Yankee42 said:

O_O...I can has specs?

Dual Xeon E5-2670

Suppermicro X9DR3-F

128 GB ECC DDR3-1333

2X Crutial M500 240GB

8X WD RE4 1TB

AX1200i

Intel X520 dual port 10 GB nic

 

Should have an GTX 780 in it but that's on RMA so its got a GTX 570 in it for now.

 

[Yankee42]

4 minutes ago, ENiX said:

Dual Xeon E5-2670

Suppermicro X9DR3-F

128 GB ECC DDR3-1333

2X Crutial M500 240GB

8X WD RE4 1TB

AX1200i

 

Should have an GTX 780 in it but that's on RMA so its got a GTX 570 in it for now.

 

SICK!

 

How do you deal with the lack of USB 3.0?

[ENiX]

2 minutes ago, Yankee42 said:

SICK!

 

How do you deal with the lack of USB 3.0?

I haven't needed it for anything yet, but when I do ill probably get something like this;

 

https://www.amazon.com/Anker®-Express-Connector-Desktops-Chipset/dp/B005ARQV6U

[Yankee42]

Interesting....I was considering going with a cheaper Motherboard, but the lack of USB 3.0 was a factor.

[ENiX]

12 minutes ago, Yankee42 said:

Interesting....I was considering going with a cheaper Motherboard, but the lack of USB 3.0 was a factor.

You would probably still be better off going with the asus board unless you want to deal with ACPi bios comparability problems with newer Operating systems. That is unless two node NUMA isn't important to you.

[Yankee42]

So what is ACPi? Also what is NUMA?

[ENiX]

ACPi is a motherboard control set for instructions and power management NUMA is controled via ACPi and stand for Non-uniform memory access. When NUMA is enabled it creates two memory nodes that isolates the memory that is directly attached the the node owned CPU. With NUMA disabled applications can not tell what CPU they are running on and cannot keep memory on DIMS that attached to the CPU where the threads of the application are running.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-uniform_memory_access

 

I use NUMA to ensure that VM's running one one CPU do not try to store data on memory attached to the other CPU, saturating the QPI (bus between intel CPU's) bus.

 

ACPI has seen a few iterations and the driver in newer operating systems my not be fully comparable with older hardware aka a four year old CPU. I THINK asus get around this by enhancing compatibility by making changes to how exceptions are handled. 

[Yankee42]

7 minutes ago, ENiX said:

ACPi is a motherboard control set for instructions and power management NUMA is controled via ACPi and stand for Non-uniform memory access. When NUMA is enabled it creates two memory nodes that isolates the memory that is directly attached the the node owned CPU. With NUMA disabled applications can not tell what CPU they are running on and cannot keep memory on DIMS that attached to the CPU where the threads of the application are running.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-uniform_memory_access

 

I use NUMA to ensure that VM's running one one CPU do not try to store data on memory attached to the other CPU, saturating the QPI (bus between intel CPU's) bus.

 

ACPI has seen a few iterations and the driver in newer operating systems my not be fully comparable with older hardware aka a four year old CPU. I THINK asus get around this by enhancing compatibility by making changes to how exceptions are handled. 

That sounds amazing!

 

So if I enable NUMA in the BIOS, my VM's will be isolated from each other even more?

 

Just checked the Z9PE-D8 WS has this.