New Xeon build advice

[poseidon95]

Hi

 

I have a desktop pc, a gaming laptop, but for the fun I want to get another system.

 

I can get a Poweredge R410 with dual x5650's 8gb of ECC DDR3 version for around £100 ($140). Wondering if that is a good deal or just a trap, I study engineering and do a lot of modelling mostly simulation (Ansys, SW, Autodesk).

 

It has a x16 PCIE so also Is it possible to fit a cheap budget quadro or is it just not worth it.

 

I know that the x5650 doesnt have great single core performance but surely 12 cores will help(?)

 

Thanks

[kelvinhall05]

A dual socket LGA 1366 system for $140?

I bet the motherboard alone is worth more than $140.

[Crunchy Dragon]

Welcome to the forums!

 

From what I can tell, you're building this system just for fun right? Or do you actually plan on using it for something such as rendering or hosting a server? That seems like a fairly good deal to me, even if you're not really going to do anything with it.

 

Linus's video on rendering with GPUs was pretty informative on the power of lower end Quadro cards(the P1000 destroyed a lot of AMD's offerings).

[poseidon95]

2 minutes ago, kelvinhall05 said:

A dual socket LGA 1366 system for $140?

I bet the motherboard alone is worth more than $140.

Sounds like a  pretty good deal then ? 

 

1 minute ago, Crunchy Dragon said:

Welcome to the forums!

 

From what I can tell, you're building this system just for fun right? Or do you actually plan on using it for something such as rendering or hosting a server? That seems like a fairly good deal to me, even if you're not really going to do anything with it.

 

Linus's video on rendering with GPUs was pretty informative on the power of lower end Quadro cards(the P1000 destroyed a lot of AMD's offerings).

Thank you !, yes well my plan is to use it for rendering and so on, but once I graduate i doubt much of my job will be done at home or even if it will be in CAE so I will probably experiment to host a server of some sort, i enjoy learning about these things so I will probably try and set something up. 

 

With the quadro, a p1000 is still sort of out of my budget, will any Quadro be an improvement or is it not worth going for one.

[Crunchy Dragon]

1 minute ago, poseidon95 said:

Sounds like a  pretty good deal then ? 

 

Thank you !, yes well my plan is to use it for rendering and so on, but once I graduate i doubt much of my job will be done at home or even if it will be in CAE so I will probably experiment to host a server of some sort, i enjoy learning about these things so I will probably try and set something up. 

 

With the quadro, a p1000 is still sort of out of my budget, will any Quadro be an improvement or is it not worth going for one.

Sounds pretty good!

 

Any Quadro will be an improvement over no Quadro.

[poseidon95]

Just now, Crunchy Dragon said:

Sounds pretty good!

 

Last thing, it only has 8gb of ram but Dell specifies it supports up to 128gb, will there be a big advantage upgrading to 16 or even 32? Thanks

[Electronics Wizardy]

For modeling you really want single threaded performance, not cores.

 

These aren't great desktop systems, thats why their cheap. No audio, loud, use a good amount of power, no s3 sleep, bad gpu support. A desktop i5 is much better at modeling.

 

Thats the normal price for these systems. Id get a tower workstation if you want that, or a r710 if you want a rack server. You get more ram slots and its quieter with more expansion for a similar price.

[Crunchy Dragon]

1 minute ago, poseidon95 said:

Last thing, it only has 8gb of ram but Dell specifies it supports up to 128gb, will there be a big advantage upgrading to 16 or even 32? Thanks

There would be an advantage with more RAM, Linus recommended in his video that 16Gb is usually the minimum you'll want.

 

 

[kelvinhall05]

12 minutes ago, poseidon95 said:

Sounds like a  pretty good deal then ? 

Absolutely, even if you only pick it up to sell it (which I honestly would do if I were you).

[poseidon95]

7 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

These aren't great desktop systems, thats why their cheap. No audio, loud, use a good amount of power, no s3 sleep, bad gpu support. A desktop i5 is much better at modeling.

I already have an i5 desktop and a much better laptop even. Never had a rack server though hence why im so interested in this, maybe not just for modelling but for also being a server in future. I looked at r710 which comes with E5505 but I dont think thats as good as the x5650.

Sound is not that much of an issue for me and power consumption is also not important atm as my bills include electricity (up to a point).

 

2 minutes ago, kelvinhall05 said:

Absolutely, even if you only pick it up to sell it (which I honestly would do if I were you).

Think im gonna go for it then post it here, theres only one in stock and its claimed to be an ex "business" server

[Electronics Wizardy]

1 minute ago, poseidon95 said:

I already have an i5 desktop and a much better laptop even. Never had a rack server though hence why im so interested in this, maybe not just for modelling but for also being a server in future. I looked at r710 which comes with E5505 but I dont think thats as good as the x5650.

Sound is not that much of an issue for me and power consumption is also not important atm as my bills include electricity (up to a point).

 

Think im gonna go for it then post it here, theres only one in stock and its claimed to be an ex "business" server

For a home server, ram is much more important so id focus on that before cpu's, cpu's are cheap and easy to add

 

Also do you plan on using this for storage? If so a c2100 or r510 are much better for storage as they can hold many more drives.

[NoxiousOdor]

That is a good deal yes, just be sure that you get a modular psu you will need it

[poseidon95]

4 minutes ago, WhisperingKnickers said:

That is a good deal yes, just be sure that you get a modular psu you will need it

It comes with a psu just needs a kettle power lead. Or do i need another one? 

6 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Also do you plan on using this for storage? If so a c2100 or r510 are much better for storage as they can hold many more drives.

I will hold probably around 4/5 3.5" drives but not more. However do you have a recommendation for a fast boot drive like an m2 or is a plextor m6e an option  ? Or is that useless with Windows server OS ?

[Electronics Wizardy]

1 minute ago, poseidon95 said:

It comes with a psu just needs a kettle power lead. Or do i need another one? 

I will hold probably around 4/5 3.5" drives but not more. However do you have a recommendation for a fast boot drive like an m2 or is a plextor m6e an option  ? Or is that useless with Windows server OS ?

Normal iec power cord, nothing special

 

A ssd is always nice to have, but depends on use.

 

 

Id suggest using a hypervisor and a vm for every application. That way its easier to manage. You can use hyper-v version of windows server(its free) or proxmox, or esxi.

[poseidon95]

5 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

 

 

Id suggest using a hypervisor and a vm for every application. That way its easier to manage. You can use hyper-v version of windows server(its free) or proxmox, or esxi.

I'll need to learn about all of this once I'm waiting on the delivery ?.

 

Thanks 

[poseidon95]

On 14/02/2018 at 11:44 PM, kelvinhall05 said:

Absolutely, even if you only pick it up to sell it (which I honestly would do if I were you).

 

On 15/02/2018 at 12:04 AM, Electronics Wizardy said:

Normal iec power cord, nothing special

 

 

On 14/02/2018 at 11:36 PM, Crunchy Dragon said:

Sounds pretty good!

 

 

On 14/02/2018 at 11:52 PM, WhisperingKnickers said:

That is a good deal yes, just be sure that you get a modular psu you will need it

Received it and Im more than pleased with it, it is super loud but I will probably compromise the 2U shape and fit custom cpu coolers. 

 

Came with and idrac express and a raid card on a pcie riser. Also included 4 hot swappable cages, front fascia and a front diagnose lcd.

 

Of course I forgot that I needed a VGA cable at first but oh well...