Server To Workstation - Dell R710

[JoshuaBedford]

I can provide more information if needed, but before I continue in research I wanted to tap into the minds of you all.

 

I am contemplating taking a dell R710 (dual xeons, 56GB RAM, 6 2.5" HDD) and making it into a workstation. I've read rumors of the ability to convert the dual x8 PCI slots on this motherboard to accept a x16 GPU, but I'm concerned with compatibility. Would this be able to accept a graphics card via conversion, and run without melting with new (quieter) fans? It seems like it would be a cool project, and has very powerful components, but the main concern at this point is compatibility (I'll address heat / noise after I find out the compatibility). Has anyone ever tried this or seen it done? I need someone more knowledgeable in this area (Linus and this community seem to be great).

 

Thanks in advance! I can provide more specifics if needed.

[Himommies]

Combatability with what

[Thunderzzu]

4 minutes ago, JoshuaBedford said:

I can provide more information if needed, but before I continue in research I wanted to tap into the minds of you all.

 

I am contemplating taking a dell R710 (dual xeons, 56GB RAM, 6 2.5" HDD) and making it into a workstation. I've read rumors of the ability to convert the dual x8 PCI slots on this motherboard to accept a x16 GPU, but I'm concerned with compatibility. Would this be able to accept a graphics card via conversion, and run without melting with new (quieter) fans? It seems like it would be a cool project, and has very powerful components, but the main concern at this point is compatibility (I'll address heat / noise after I find out the compatibility). Has anyone ever tried this or seen it done? I need someone more knowledgeable in this area (Linus and this community seem to be great).

 

Thanks in advance! I can provide more specifics if needed.

AFAIK a x16 card will run just fine in a x8 slot as long as it has its own power slots since x8 delivers just ~30W i think while the x16 does 75W

[JoshuaBedford]

41 minutes ago, Thunderzzu said:

AFAIK a x16 card will run just fine in a x8 slot as long as it has its own power slots since x8 delivers just ~30W i think while the x16 does 75W

One of the problems is its literally a x8 slot (half the size if that makes sense), but I know i could get a riser (I've seen them around somewhere) to fit a normal graphics card and convert it from x8 to x16. Good to know on the power delivery, but that makes me wonder, will that pose a problem? I guess I have to figure out how to actually power the card from the power supply too.

 

P.S. the one in question is a 2U server, so it has a little more room to fit things inside (though idk about it connecting through the back panel).

 

41 minutes ago, Himommies said:

Combatability with what

 

I'm not entirely sure honestly. I have read (maybe thats my mistake) that people have alot of difficulties getting these things to all cooperate (a normal GPU in a server). I would think its still just (high powered) hardware so surely it would be fine? That's what I want to verify if possible without just doing it and wasting money if it doesn't work.

 

 

HEAT

 

Another question, how would heat be affected if I:

1. Put in quieter fans
2. Mounted it vertically the wrong way for space reasons (Its meant to pull in the front push out the back. Mounting front-up would kind of counteract the cooling).

 

USB3.0

 

Possibility to add USB3.0?

[Electronics Wizardy]

what are you using this for? Id just buy a desktop workstation with dual lga 1366 cpu's. There about 300 used now and you get all the desktop features aswell.

 

 

[JoshuaBedford]

1 minute ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

what are you using this for? Id just buy a desktop workstation with dual lga 1366 cpu's. There about 300 used now and you get all the desktop features aswell.

 

 

It's more of a pet project than anything (its free and has 56GB ram and 2 xeons... so figured i would try to use it), but I would want to program (I'm a web developer) on it, as well as edit photos and videos. This may get me kicked out here, but I don't game much! (uh... did he just say that?)

 

In short:

• Photo editing
• Video editing
• Programming
• Local Apache server (For my development... but I'm pretty sure it can do that one (-; ... ).

I have a GTX960 i could put in it if it were to become my main machine.

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, JoshuaBedford said:

It's more of a pet project than anything (its free and has 56GB ram and 2 xeons... so figured i would try to use it), but I would want to program (I'm a web developer) on it, as well as edit photos and videos. This may get me kicked out here, but I don't game much! (uh... did he just say that?)

 

In short:

• Photo editing
• Video editing
• Programming
• Local Apache server (For my development... but I'm pretty sure it can do that one (-; ... ).

I have a GTX960 i could put in it if it were to become my main machine.

Whats your current system? id just use this as a vm server and offload some tasks to it. It really won't make a great workstation.

[JoshuaBedford]

4 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Whats your current system? id just use this as a vm server and offload some tasks to it. It really won't make a great workstation.

Good to know. I currently have an i7 4790k, 16GB ram, GTX960, Samsung SSD. PCPartPicker: https://pcpartpicker.com/user/JrBedford/saved/vpMLrH

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, JoshuaBedford said:

Good to know. I currently have an i7 4790k, 16GB ram, GTX960, Samsung SSD. PCPartPicker: https://pcpartpicker.com/user/JrBedford/saved/vpMLrH

Then your desktop will be faster in almost all of those tasks. Id just use the r710 to run vms and as a home server on.

[JoshuaBedford]

1 minute ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Then your desktop will be faster in almost all of those tasks. Id just use the r710 to run vms and as a home server on.

hmm well thanks! I didn't know that. I guess I could still offload rendering and such to it somehow. Still curious about how it would be done though!

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, JoshuaBedford said:

hmm well thanks! I didn't know that. I guess I could still offload rendering and such to it somehow. Still curious about how it would be done though!

Video encoding and exporting will be faster on your desktop with most programs as they like the faster single threaded performance of that i7. 

 

Depends on the program, some support clusters. Often you just install the program on the server and run the export from there.

[JoshuaBedford]

Just now, Electronics Wizardy said:

Video encoding and exporting will be faster on your desktop with most programs as they like the faster single threaded performance of that i7. 

 

Depends on the program, some support clusters. Often you just install the program on the server and run the export from there.

I'll have to do some more research on best use for this in my case I guess. Seemed a shame for this to go in the trash. I have several 2950s as well that will be thrown away eventually.

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, JoshuaBedford said:

I'll have to do some more research on best use for this in my case I guess. Seemed a shame for this to go in the trash. I have several 2950s as well that will be thrown away eventually.

r710s are great home servers. 2950 are too power hungry and slow for basically any use these days. Got one sitting in my corner waiting to be dismantled or dumped

[JoshuaBedford]

1 minute ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

r710s are great home servers. 2950 are too power hungry and slow for basically any use these days. Got one sitting in my corner waiting to be dismantled or dumped

I have several 2950s that were going to be thrown away at work that I kept just in case. I have a single r710 now fairly loaded, and might can get a couple eventually (though idk what I would do with them). The biggest problem is where to put them. I live in a very small loft!

 

How would cooling be impacted mounting them vertically to save space?

[Electronics Wizardy]

1 minute ago, JoshuaBedford said:

I have several 2950s that were going to be thrown away at work that I kept just in case. I have a single r710 now fairly loaded, and might can get a couple eventually (though idk what I would do with them). The biggest problem is where to put them. I live in a very small loft!

 

How would cooling be impacted mounting them vertically to save space?

vertical won't affect cooling at all. Only thing is to make sure the vents at the front and back aren't blocked. 6 in should be fine on either side.

[JoshuaBedford]

Just now, Electronics Wizardy said:

vertical won't affect cooling at all. Only thing is to make sure the vents at the front and back aren't blocked. 6 in should be fine on either side.

Now THAT is good news! I was considering building a vertical mount "case" that just held it off the floor, and leave it open at the top and vent the bottom for air escape.

[JoshuaBedford]

58 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Video encoding and exporting will be faster on your desktop with most programs as they like the faster single threaded performance of that i7. 

 

Depends on the program, some support clusters. Often you just install the program on the server and run the export from there.

Could you (or someone) help explain the performance aspect to me? If my R710 has dual 6-core Xeon's running at 3.33Ghz, will that still be outperformed by the i7 4790k for video encoding and after effects and such? I've pretty much given up on this replacing my current build, but I'm curious about how these things work.

 

i7 4790k PassMark: https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i7-4790K+%40+4.00GHz&id=2275

[Dual CPU] Intel Xeon X5680 @ 3.33GHz: https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Xeon+X5680+%40+3.33GHz&cpuCount=2

 

The single-core rating is 2530 (i7) vs 1476 (Xeon) which is a bit different (also noticed the samples are vastly different?), but the multicore is a little higher (as it should be... 3x the cores) in the xeon (13649) vs the i7 (11690). That kind of shocked me that 4 cores @ 4Ghz was that close to 12 cores at 3.33Ghz in a multicore test. Obviously I don't know what I'm doing (or looking for)!

[Electronics Wizardy]

1 minute ago, JoshuaBedford said:

Could you (or someone) help explain the performance aspect to me? If my R710 has dual 6-core Xeon's running at 3.33Ghz, will that still be outperformed by the i7 4790k for video encoding and after effects and such? I've pretty much given up on this replacing my current build, but I'm curious about how these things work.

 

i7 4790k PassMark: https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i7-4790K+%40+4.00GHz&id=2275

[Dual CPU] Intel Xeon X5680 @ 3.33GHz: https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Xeon+X5680+%40+3.33GHz&cpuCount=2

 

The single-core rating is 2530 (i7) vs 1476 (Xeon) which is a bit different (also noticed the samples are vastly different?), but the multicore is a little higher (as it should be... 3x the cores) in the xeon (13649) vs the i7 (11690). That kind of shocked me that 4 cores @ 4Ghz was that close to 12 cores at 3.33Ghz in a multicore test. Obviously I don't know what I'm doing (or looking for)!

Aftereffects is mostly single threaded, so it will be much faster on the i7.

 

Premiere likes clock speed a lot, and thus will still be faster on the i7. It doesn't scale that well with cores.

 

Adobe really doesn't like a ton of cores or dual socket. f

 

The other problem is numa and higher latencies between cpu's. 

[JoshuaBedford]

11 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Aftereffects is mostly single threaded, so it will be much faster on the i7.

 

Premiere likes clock speed a lot, and thus will still be faster on the i7. It doesn't scale that well with cores.

 

Adobe really doesn't like a ton of cores or dual socket. f

 

The other problem is numa and higher latencies between cpu's. 

Very interesting. Well thank you VERY much for your time and knowledge! Both are very valuable commodities. I don't have a ton of use for a home server currently, but I'll look into it anyway to see if I can find a use for this.

[Lord Athetos]

8 hours ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Aftereffects is mostly single threaded, so it will be much faster on the i7.

 

Premiere likes clock speed a lot, and thus will still be faster on the i7. It doesn't scale that well with cores.

 

Adobe really doesn't like a ton of cores or dual socket. f

 

The other problem is numa and higher latencies between cpu's. 

How about something like blender? I might be able to get a r810 with quad 8 core xeons for free from a friend, will it be worth it to modify it (to reduce the noise output) to use it as a 3D rendering PC?

[Electronics Wizardy]

4 hours ago, Lord Athetos said:

How about something like blender? I might be able to get a r810 with quad 8 core xeons for free from a friend, will it be worth it to modify it (to reduce the noise output) to use it as a 3D rendering PC?

Blender will be faster to render on the xeons, but the 960 would be even faster here. Gpu is the way to go with blender cycles.