Need suggestions for Remote Desktop Server build

[dogdaynoon]

Our environment will be Windows Server 2016 Standard. Remote Desktop users will be 4-5 some day more. The software the users will be using is ArcGIS, AutoCAD Civil 3d, Orbit 3D point cloud editing software. Office products and the like.

I have set up a sandbox with the following hardware:

Board: Supermicro 5039ADT

Processor: Intel Cor i7-7700K

RAM: 64GB

Storage: Samsung 960 PRO NVMe M.2 512GB SSD

Graphics: Nvidia GTX 1080

Network: 10GB Ethernet adapter

 

This environment worked out fairly well during testing. Max load was 4 users, 2 using the Orbit software to extract data from large 3D point clouds and 1 user using AutoCAD Civil 3D and 1 user just monitoring Perfmon and GPU-Z1(graphics card monitor)

I noticed the device started to cap out on processor utilization when all 3 users were hard at it. The GTX 1080 was utilized to about 50-75% off and on. No real consistency with the graphics utilization.

My question is this... I am going to build a server for this purpose and will be upgrading to a duel socket board with Xeon processors. Should I put more resources toward the processing or should I put them toward's graphics?

I could go with 2 X titan video cards or I could put that money toward better processors NOTE* I need to keep under 16 cores per windows server licensing. Currently I am thinking of running 1 x titan and 2 X Intel Xeon E5-1660V4

Would love your feedback!

thanks!

[dogdaynoon]

Quote

Context is the most important thing.  Your initial question is meaningless without the context.  If you are building a RD Windows server, there are still questions to be answered.

• Is this for your personal use, or for an enterprise/commercial application?
• How many concurrent RDP sessions do you expect?
• What will the users be using the RD sessions to do?  Game?  Word processing?  Video editing?  etc?

Depending on what your purpose is, you probably will need a powerful (server grade) CPU and a very very good GPU, but without real specifics to work from people can't really help you.

Replying to quoted text from other thread.

@Vantage9

You can see above the uses that we will be applying and the number of users. This is for a commercial/enterprise solution in the work space. CAD design of roads, watersystems and bridges, GIS utilization of many types, and Orbit is new to us.

 

Thanks,

[brob]

The applications listed mostly do better with fewer, but higher performance cores. Since the test showed good performance up to three users on a four core cpu, I wonder at quadrupling the core count when the stated user count will be around double the test size.

 

Did you consider the X299 platform? Perhaps something like the i9-7900X.

 

[dogdaynoon]

Hi @brob,

Thanks for the input. I am at odds with mother boards and the iLine of processors. It is hard to find a board that support Windows Server and an i series processor.The one we tested on had to be sort of duct taped to get to work correctly. We have looked into the i9s a bit as well as the i7s. I would love to see 2 x i7 7700K  oh man!

You are correct about the applications though. We are trying to focus on higher clock speeds per core over number of cores.

You also make a good point that doubling the core count may not be as effective if we also double the user count.

 

Thank  you!

 

[brob]

Didn't realize there were no x299 motherboards qualified for Windows Server. Too bad.

[dogdaynoon]

I just wanted to post back so anyone who is or was interested could hear our solution.

We ended up with these specs for our RD server:

 

Windows Server 2016 w/ RD services

 

Super Micro X11DPG-QT board: https://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/Xeon/C620/X11DPG-QT.cfm

2 x Intel Gold 6128 https://ark.intel.com/products/120482/Intel-Xeon-Gold-6128-Processor-19_25M-Cache-3_40-GHz

96GB Ram

4 x 500GB Kingston SSD on RAID 5 (1 spare)

8 port AOC-S3108L-H8iR Raid Controller http://www.supermicro.com/products/accessories/addon/AOC-S3108L-H8iR.cfm

Titan X

 

We have  4-6 remote users on this computer at all times using a mix of CAD, GIS, ORBIT and now Drone to Map for 3D Point cloud rendering and image mashing. 

When choosing the processors we had to consider the core count to speed ratio while trying to stay under 16 cores between 2 processors so that we wouldn't go over licensing restrictions as well a need to maintain scalability. (we can change boards and add 2 more of those processors if we ever had the need.)

No complaints so far other than, "why does IT have to install all of my software?"

 

This has been working great!

 

Total cost with licensing and warranty - $13,000.00 

[brob]

Glad it worked out.