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General Category => General CG Discussion => Hardware => Topic started by: Majeranek on 2016-09-21, 12:33:40

Title: New workstation (Xeon E5-2683v3 OEM or E5-2680v1)
Post by: Majeranek on 2016-09-21, 12:33:40
Hi guys,

In upcoming weeks I want to buy a new workstation. Currently I'm working on overclocked i7-5820k (around 1200 points in Cinebench R15). I would make this one a render node after that.
My budget is around 1900€ so I think to make that with some used Xeon CPU-s. Initally I was focused on E5-2780v1 but after some reading I decided to switch to E5-2683v3 OEMs.
This is how it would look like:

1x Motherboard Asus Z9PE-D8 WS - 430€
2x Procesor Intel Xeon E5-2683v3 OEM - 640€
2x BeQuiet Pure Rock - 65€
8x Crucial DDR3 1600MHz 8gb - 280€
1x SSD Goodram 240GB - 72€
1x Zasilacz Corsair AX760 - 175€
1x Zalman R1 - 42€
1x some used GPU to run viewports smoothly - 140€
1x HDD WD Blue 1TB - 56€

All of it sums up to 1900€
What do you think of that configuration?
Title: Re: New workstation (Xeon E5-2683v3 OEM or E5-2680v1)
Post by: Juraj on 2016-09-21, 13:41:36
Quote
2x Procesor Intel Xeon E5-2683v3 OEM - 640€

This is really good price. I built such WS for a friend a 3 weeks ago (I think), and he bought OEM 2683v3 for 600 +/- euro each.
But I went and checked eBay and lo-behold, you can now get oem/retail for half the price :- ). Good deal !

Quote
8x Crucial DDR3 1600MHz 8gb - 280€

You need DDR4 and ECC. Buffered or Non. Single/dual/quad-rank (not channel).

Quote
1x SSD Goodram 240GB

What ? Buy 500GB Samsung EVO for 149 euro. It's the only TLC based SSD on market which doesn't suffer TLC drawbacks (mostly because of 3D Vnand, others use small amounts of MLC cache to compensate).
Buying anything else is unwise. 240 (which is like 200 in practice after all) is too little for today.

Quote
1x Zasilacz Corsair AX760 - 175€

I wondered what zasilacz is supposed to be for a moment :- D
Great choice (It's Seasonic rebranded ). If you need money to upgrade from 240 to 500GB buy only golden PSU and save 70 euros here. But I highly approve of high-end psus.

Quote
1x HDD WD Blue 1TB - 56€

What can you fit on 1TB ? Buy at least the 2TB version for 30 more euros.

Title: Re: New workstation (Xeon E5-2683v3 OEM or E5-2680v1)
Post by: Jann on 2016-09-21, 14:08:55
And for V3 or V4 Xeon you need Asus Z10PE-D8 WS or other socket 2011-3 board ;)
Title: Re: New workstation (Xeon E5-2683v3 OEM or E5-2680v1)
Post by: Majeranek on 2016-09-21, 14:42:00
Thank for the information!

Quote
Quote
8x Crucial DDR3 1600MHz 8gb - 280€

You need DDR4 and ECC. Buffered or Non. Single/dual/quad-rank (not channel).

You're right. I've found some in similar price.

Quote
Quote
1x SSD Goodram 240GB

What ? Buy 500GB Samsung EVO for 149 euro. It's the only TLC based SSD on market which doesn't suffer TLC drawbacks (mostly because of 3D Vnand, others use small amounts of MLC cache to compensate).
Buying anything else is unwise. 240 (which is like 200 in practice after all) is too little for today.

Thanks for the advice.

Quote
Quote
1x Zasilacz Corsair AX760 - 175€

I wondered what zasilacz is supposed to be for a moment :- D
Great choice (It's Seasonic rebranded ). If you need money to upgrade from 240 to 500GB buy only golden PSU and save 70 euros here. But I highly approve of high-end psus.

I forgot to translate that. Zasilacz means PSU in polish. :)

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1x HDD WD Blue 1TB - 56€

What can you fit on 1TB ? Buy at least the 2TB version for 30 more euros.

Yeah, I was thinking of that too. 2TB will be better.

Quote
And for V3 or V4 Xeon you need Asus Z10PE-D8 WS or other socket 2011-3 board ;)

I missed that. You're right, so the motherboard will be around 85€ more expensive.
Title: Re: New workstation (Xeon E5-2683v3 OEM or E5-2680v1)
Post by: Juraj on 2016-09-21, 16:15:37
Totally blind :- D Didn't even catch that myself.

BTW, if you find D16 WS for same price as D8 WS, motherboard, buy the D16 WS. OEM is supposedly final stepping, but every other stepping had better compatibility with D16.

Also, D16 entered market later, and had no faulty revision. D8 had and some shops still carry it, some of those can't be just updated in bios. Asus of course replaces them for free but it's hassle to go through. D16 is guaranteed to work 100perc.
Title: Re: New workstation (Xeon E5-2683v3 OEM or E5-2680v1)
Post by: agentdark45 on 2016-09-21, 17:08:10
Damn, nice find on those CPU's! Any idea what frequency they run at under full load?

I managed to pick up a 12 core Xeon just over a year ago for ~£500 which runs at 3.1ghz under full load.
Title: Re: New workstation (Xeon E5-2683v3 OEM or E5-2680v1)
Post by: Majeranek on 2016-09-22, 20:43:39
Totally blind :- D Didn't even catch that myself.

BTW, if you find D16 WS for same price as D8 WS, motherboard, buy the D16 WS. OEM is supposedly final stepping, but every other stepping had better compatibility with D16.

Also, D16 entered market later, and had no faulty revision. D8 had and some shops still carry it, some of those can't be just updated in bios. Asus of course replaces them for free but it's hassle to go through. D16 is guaranteed to work 100perc.

I found those D16 motherboards, but there are two versions "Z10PE-D16" and "Z10PE-D16 WS Int". Is there any difference?
Title: Re: New workstation (Xeon E5-2683v3 OEM or E5-2680v1)
Post by: Juraj on 2016-09-23, 07:46:21
There are 5 versions of this board, D8 WS, D16 WS, D8, D16 and D16/4L.

As usual, the WS in Asus products always refers to "workstation", so they include every feature there might be need for (more of everything, plus soundcard,etc..). They are also of slightly better build quality. Server versions (non-WS) can be bough cheaper and are of smaller form factor.
The WS range kicks ass so much that there should almost never be a reason to go for server options, the savings are insignificant for the benefits.
Title: Re: New workstation (Xeon E5-2683v3 OEM or E5-2680v1)
Post by: Majeranek on 2016-10-02, 22:53:37
I decided to go for something like this:

1x Asus Z10PA-D8 WS or Z10PE-D8 WS
2x Intel Xeon E5-2683v3
2x SilentiumPC Fortis 3 (I don't know if I will fit those two?)
4x DDR4 ECC 8gb
1x SSD Samsung Evo 850 500GB
1x PSU Corsair AX760
1x GPU
1x HDD 2TB
1x Fractal Design Define R5 or Fractal Design Define XL R2 - Here I'm having a problem. I didn't see that z10pe-d8 ws motherboard is EEB and I don't know if I can fit it in those cases so I changed to Z10PA-D8.

I own Z10PA-D16 WS, I never buy server boards, only their workstation counterparts.

In other topic you said that you've got that motherboards. I can't find anything like this :/
Title: Re: New workstation (Xeon E5-2683v3 OEM or E5-2680v1)
Post by: Juraj on 2016-10-03, 11:19:44
What topic ? This is how my Z10PE-D16 WS with v4 Xeons, I will be building 3rd one this week. Z10PE-D8 WS would look almost the same, and also require XL case.

Title: Re: New workstation (Xeon E5-2683v3 OEM or E5-2680v1)
Post by: Fluss on 2016-10-03, 11:20:40

I own Z10PA-D16 WS, I never buy server boards, only their workstation counterparts.

In other topic you said that you've got that motherboards. I can't find anything like this :/

I think it's a mistake -> Z10PE-D16 WS
Title: Re: New workstation (Xeon E5-2683v3 OEM or E5-2680v1)
Post by: Majeranek on 2016-10-03, 14:24:03
What topic ? This is how my Z10PE-D16 WS with v4 Xeons, I will be building 3rd one this week. Z10PE-D8 WS would look almost the same, and also require XL case.

It was in this thread:
https://forum.corona-renderer.com/index.php/topic,12958.0.html
But just like @Fluss wrote I think it's a mistake and there should Z10PE not Z10PA.
Thanks for the photo. This is what I wanted to know if I can fit that motherboard in Fractal Design Define XL case.
So I guess I've got my build setup :)
Title: Re: New workstation (Xeon E5-2683v3 OEM or E5-2680v1)
Post by: Juraj on 2016-10-03, 14:38:50
You can fit into XL R2 anything :- ). But not into Define R5 as Jann said.
Title: Re: New workstation (Xeon E5-2683v3 OEM or E5-2680v1)
Post by: Majeranek on 2016-10-03, 14:51:29
You can fit into XL R2 anything :- ). But not into Define R5 as Jann said.
One more question.
What Max TDP CPU Coolers should I put? Will be 180W Cooler enough for E5-2683v3 (on the website they're writing about 120W)

PS. Juraj, all those workstation is for your studio purpose :) ?
Title: Re: New workstation (Xeon E5-2683v3 OEM or E5-2680v1)
Post by: Juraj on 2016-10-03, 15:04:39
You can fit into XL R2 anything :- ). But not into Define R5 as Jann said.
One more question.
What Max TDP CPU Coolers should I put? Will be 180W Cooler enough for E5-2683v3 (on the website they're writing about 120W)

PS. Juraj, all those workstation is for your studio purpose :) ?

Yes, will totally suffice. They don't produce much heat by themselves, it's together two of them that does the heating :- ). Good case airflow is almost more important.

Yup, all mine. Never enough cores !
Title: Re: New workstation (Xeon E5-2683v3 OEM or E5-2680v1)
Post by: Majeranek on 2016-10-18, 17:13:43
At the end build looks like this:

1x Motherboard Asus Z10PE-D16 WS
2x CPU Intel Xeon E5-2683v3
2x SilentiumPC Fera 3 HE1224 v2
4x Crucial DDR4 ECC 2133MHz 8gb
1x SSD Samsung EVO 850 500GB
1x Corsair AX760
1x Fractal Design Define XL R2
1x HDD 2TB

One thing is missing - the GPU. I'm thinking of something second hand which will run viewports smoothly. On my current PC I have GTX 760 and it works quite fine and it costs around 100€. What do you think of that? Or maybe there is a better choice?
Title: Re: New workstation (Xeon E5-2683v3 OEM or E5-2680v1)
Post by: Majeranek on 2016-10-29, 12:39:01
I've finished my build. It runs quite nice. 3200pkt in Cinbench R15 and 58s in 1.3 Corona Benchmark.

Do you overclock your Xeon-s?
Where in that Z10PE-D16 Bios can I find anything connected with CPU Fans setup? Is there any more modern UEFI for that MB?
Also it's taking quite a lot of time for my MB to boot up. Is this normal behaviour of that model?
Title: Re: New workstation (Xeon E5-2683v3 OEM or E5-2680v1)
Post by: Jann on 2016-10-29, 22:47:57
I've finished my build. It runs quite nice. 3200pkt in Cinbench R15 and 58s in 1.3 Corona Benchmark.

Do you overclock your Xeon-s?
Where in that Z10PE-D16 Bios can I find anything connected with CPU Fans setup? Is there any more modern UEFI for that MB?
Also it's taking quite a lot of time for my MB to boot up. Is this normal behaviour of that model?
Nice results!

You generally don't overclock Xeons. Some can be overclocked a little bit using Bclock, but you risk system instability, while getting very small gain.
The bios is like that on all multi-socket boards as far as I know.
And they do boot up longer than mainstream single cpu boards, so that's normal ;)
Title: Re: New workstation (Xeon E5-2683v3 OEM or E5-2680v1)
Post by: Majeranek on 2016-10-30, 14:10:00
Thanks!

I've got weird problem with temperatures. When I open CPUID HWMonitor it shows:
SYSTIN 105°C
CPUTIN 96°C
but cores are around 35°C. How's that even possible?

I don't know why but it doesn't show any FAN and I think that CPU fans don't change their RPM.
Title: Re: New workstation (Xeon E5-2683v3 OEM or E5-2680v1)
Post by: Jann on 2016-10-31, 00:17:30
Thanks!

I've got weird problem with temperatures. When I open CPUID HWMonitor it shows:
SYSTIN 105°C
CPUTIN 96°C
but cores are around 35°C. How's that even possible?

I don't know why but it doesn't show any FAN and I think that CPU fans don't change their RPM.
Try checking temps with other software. From my time with the Z9PE-D8 WS, I remember some monitoring utilities didn't work properly with dual cpu systems.
Title: Re: New workstation (Xeon E5-2683v3 OEM or E5-2680v1)
Post by: Majeranek on 2016-10-31, 10:05:34
Try checking temps with other software. From my time with the Z9PE-D8 WS, I remember some monitoring utilities didn't work properly with dual cpu systems.

I checked with other programs and search any info about that on the Internet and it's pretty common.
But still I don't know why CPU Fans don't change their RPM... :/
Title: Re: New workstation (Xeon E5-2683v3 OEM or E5-2680v1)
Post by: sten on 2016-11-30, 21:49:44
use low RPM coolers - and be fine!