40-Thread Xeon PC Build for Less Than the Price of a Broadwell-E Core I7 | Hacker News Reader

40-Thread Xeon PC Build for Less Than the Price of a Broadwell-E Core I7

techspot.com

99 pointsFjolsvith32 comments

Their use of Intel ES (engineering sample) chips seems a bit questionable, though I've read that people usually have success with them.

From http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/processors/00...:

-Intel ES Processors are the sole property of Intel.

-Intel ES Processors are Intel Confidential.

-Intel ES Processors are provided by Intel under nondisclosure and/or special loan agreement terms with restrictions on the recipient's handling and use.

-Intel ES Processors are not for sale or re-sale.

-Intel ES Processors may not have passed commercial regulatory requirements.

-ES Processors are not covered under Intel warranty and are generally not supported by Intel

They're also occasionally earlier steppings of the chip than the production version and may have some hidden issues. Caveat emptor.

What would be interesting is the "NDA" spec updates for these chips.

The trick is the Xeons are an older generation and/or Engineering Samples rather than retail processors.

The result is more, slower threads.

For some workloads, that's a good trade-off. Probably not for videogames, though, where single-thread performance is still very important. Games haven't really utilized more than one CPU well until quite recently. Even a quad core is overkill.

And gaming or workstation loads are exactly what the -E(nthusiast) CPU's target, lower core counts than the Xeon equivalents, higher clock speeds of the mainstream counterparts, but also has the additional I/O capabilities of the Xeon chips (more PCIe lanes is important for multi-GPU setups or where you have loads of PCIe cards installed, like NVMe SSD's).

Some games won't even start without three hardware threads these days. My FX-8350 is the minimum/recommended CPU for this generation. Game developers have gotten much better at multithreading, and once DX12/Vulkan really takes off dual cores will look very weak.

A huge problem is that modern browsers and the modern web are massive CPU hogs these days and just a few stubborn windows/tabs can pretty easily occupy an entire core even at idle.

I built one of the dual E5-2570 PCs, put in a GTX 1080 and all latest games run very good on maximum graphics settings.

I get the same results as what I see in other tests with GTX 1080 and 6700K. So I can't confirm that there would be any real performance impact on games with such a setup... Even if I get lower results, it is marginal and way over 60FPS (2560 resolution)

You will probably get the same results with an i5-2500k too. Most games don't use that many cores.

Yeah, I still have a 2500k at 4.6 with no over-volting on air. I wish I had an m2 SSD, but with the GTX1080 and a new 4K IPS TV which also does 120hz at 1080p (Vizio p55-c1, but read the rtings.com review about the lack of true 4:4:4 chroma if you're considering this one), it's been great for 4K and fast action gaming at high frame rates. Has no problem holding 120fps at 1080 with max settings in Overwatch, though I tone some effects down to make it less distracting and easier to spot baddies.

It's crazy to me that this old CPU is still all I need, but the ROI from an upgrade just wasn't worth it. Going from 2X Radeon 6870 to the GTX1080 was a huge performance boost, though, and I'll never deal with multi-GPU again if I can avoid it.

Still running an AMD Phenom II x6 1050T ... which is approaching 7 years old ... and oddly, at 2.8GHZ -- just a tad overclocked to 3ghz, it still manages to run everything I've thrown at it with my R9-380.

Is there anything new I should try that would throw it under?

4k 60hz gaming, or the Rift. I'm not sure how intense Remember Me is, but a friend told me he noticed occasional tearing on that game with his new rig that was using an older R9 2xx-X until he got his GTX 1080s in the mail.

Ah, I have no screen for 4k and am holding off for the time being. I just don't see the cost/benefit paying off for a bit, as I'm still very happy with my first-gen 42" plasma I use in my bedroom @ 720p, though I must admit, vs. the 1080p 50" in my living room, I can't tell much difference anymore, so I'm definitely getting blinder...

I have a 42 inch 4k@60hz Seiki I got for a couple hundred bucks last year, I'm happy with it as my sole monitor (replacing two others). It's not as good as others for gaming but good enough. At that size the pixel density is roughly the same as my smaller 1080 and 1200 monitors it replaced so it really does end up feeling like 4 screens, while having more vertical pixels than my 1900x1200 that I had on its side. I could probably live with a 720 plasma as a TV but not as a monitor I do work on...

It still makes a surprisingly decent bedroom television; for computer use, I agree -- resolution is just too low for comfort.

On the last page they discuss this point. Even if buying through new egg, they're saying that 2 of the Xeons ($700 each) still makes an attractive alternative to the single HEDT chip. It really depends on your workload. This stuff is hugely overkill for gaming, and overkill in a way that won't get you more usable performance in games. As mentioned, right now the i7-6700k plus more video cards would be better for gaming, which is largely based on single-threaded performance, IPC, and having a few fast cores.

I did this recently, costs/specs:

Case + Mobo + Heatsinks + PSU: $740

2x E5-2670v1 (8c/16t ea, not ES): $120

128GB DDR3 Ram: $240

6x 4TB 2.5in Disks: $650

Total cost: $1750

Motherboard has 2x 10GbE, 16x port LSI SAS/SATA controller. Case is a 2U, 24x 2.5in bay, with 2x 920W Platinum quiet PSUs. With a larger budget 256GB of ram and 2x 14c/28t CPUs are pretty reasonable (~$1000 more)

128GB RAM for $270? How is this possible?

Presumably used, just like the processors.

Go nuts: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Samsung-128GB-16x-8GB-RAM-2RX4-PC3L-...

It was actually on sale for $237.50 when I bought it.

Inspired by that other Techspot article: http://www.techspot.com/review/1155-affordable-dual-xeon-pc/ I also did a same type of build on the cheap, getting a Dell T5600 case/mb/PS + 2x E5-2670s +64GB RAM for ~$1,000

For multi-threaded use it absolutely destroys a consumer setup such as an overclocked 4790k.

what dual LGA2011 motherboard has a 2x 10GbE?

http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/xeon/c600/x9d... for up to E5-2600v2 (this is the one I have), and someting like: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157... for E5-2600v3/4

According to Linus Tech Tips on the Wan Show the reason why the Broadwell-E is so unattractive when compared to Xeon chips is that they don't want to cannibalize their Xeon processors for workstation so the 6950X is something that you don't get much of a tangible performance boost per $. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wfj-Rq9bX40 and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-9N6rzQ_3M#

at 14nm Intel does 16 cores on the same silicon at it was doing 4 core at 32nm. If Intel had competition, those 16 cores would be at the same price of $300 everywhere. Moore law just doesn't work that efficiently without competition.

On the other (far more practical, IMO) end of the spectrum, I'm impressed by the $200 35W quad core i5-6600T (http://ark.intel.com/products/88200). To me that's the sweet spot in a home/workstation setting.

TDP aside, you can get a used E5-2670v1 (8c/16t) @ 2.6Ghz for $60... The low-power "L" model Xeon's are also available.

Nice. Just in the last week or so I've been considering building a new, proper desktop/workstation (I work at home and a rMBP and Thinkpad are my primary "workstations" now) for my primary use. I'll have to look into more but a pair of these and a motherboard they'll fit in (that'll support a ton of RAM) might be a good starting point. Thanks.

Interesting option, especially if you live in a cold climate :)

Hard to imagine a cooling setup for these that is not at least a bit noisy, especially since most affordable PSUs and fans will be meant for servers and therefore noisy. Good if you have a ventilated closet nearby, not so good otherwise.

I have 2 of them running in the closet next to my bed, can barely hear it if I'm not maxing out the CPU. At max fan speed, sure, it's pretty darn loud. One could do better with a large case and larger, quieter fans.

Does anyone know of any other high thread count builds on the cheap?

> a single copy of HandBrake can't fully utilize 40-threads

That's it. I prefer a few fast threads instead of bunch of slow ones. That's why Xeons are server CPUs and workstation editions (W) ussually have much less threads - it's hard to utilize all of them.

You could make a very nice 'private cloud' with this machine, or even a 20-core setup if 64GB of RAM is what's going to bottleneck you.

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