Xeon Owners Club

[Toothless]

You either pay for the power of what's out currently or stay behind a decade. Not much in between.

 

[Dr. Dro]

Rysen 9 5950X ??? That's threadripper territory. 45000 on passmark ? damn !!! I'm the type to buy 6 of my Corsair 520hx PS's for 40$ with bad caps... and recap them.
I don't even buy cases , find them in the bin (pix) , made the front cover out of 1/8" aluminum with a hacksaw and file (he he).
I would like a Rysen , but could hook up the whole neighborhood with workstations for that price.

"Old junk" (note that I use this term jokingly, since these are largely retired and discarded server spares) has never been faster

Trust me I've been quite tempted to buy a E5-2696 v4 now that they've gone down to $150 ish on eBay, the Broadwell flagship is quite a bit faster than my processor but end of the day, I don't really need it, so I'm budgeting elsewhere. I don't think the supply of Broadwell chips is going to dry out any time soon anyway, we still often see X5680 CPUs available and I owned an ES of that one made in 2009 in the past.

A 22 core 44 thread proc for such a low price is indeed an amazing deal... but it's definitely not without its (sometimes grave) shortcomings. It's all about balancing what you want, what you need and what you can spend

 

[80-watt Hamster]

"Old junk" (note that I use this term jokingly, since these are largely retired and discarded server spares) has never been faster

Trust me I've been quite tempted to buy a E5-2696 v4 now that they've gone down to $150 ish on eBay, the Broadwell flagship is quite a bit faster than my processor but end of the day, I don't really need it, so I'm budgeting elsewhere. I don't think the supply of Broadwell chips is going to dry out any time soon anyway, we still often see X5680 CPUs available and I owned an ES of that one made in 2009 in the past.

A 22 core 44 thread proc for such a low price is indeed an amazing deal... but it's definitely not without its (sometimes grave) shortcomings. It's all about balancing what you want, what you need and what you can spend

And if you can find/afford the MB. That's what's stopping me from jumping into X79/99/299; chips are cheap but boards are not.

 

[Dr. Dro]

And if you can find/afford the MB. That's what's stopping me from jumping into X79/99/299; chips are cheap but boards are not.

Yup! The motherboard is the biggest problem, especially if you don't want a Chinese recycled board. I've bought my motherboard at the tail end of the second-wave X99's availability (a Gigabyte X99 Ultra Gaming) as it was back in 2017, but i've noticed that they're getting increasingly difficult to find and when you do, the prices make it completely not worth it vs. a cheap AM4 motherboard + a faster anyway Ryzen chip.

 

[lexluthermiester]

chips are cheap but boards are not.

That depends on what you're looking for and where you live. If you're looking to OC, then yes, boards are pricey. But if you're happy with stock performance, there are a lot of affordable options still available.

 

[80-watt Hamster]

That depends on what you're looking for and where you live. If you're looking to OC, then yes, boards are pricey. But if you're happy with stock performance, there are a lot of affordable options still available.

Turns out you're right, at least for X79/99. Just glanced at eBay and they're not nearly as bad as I remember. X99 has the better pricing right now, interestingly enough. That's not actually true on closer inspection.

 

[lexluthermiester]

That's not actually true on closer inspection.

I disagree, I'm logged into Ebay ATM and did quick search and there are a fair number of good choices for X79 and X99.

X79 Motherboard for sale | eBay

Get the best deals for X79 Motherboard at eBay.com. We have a great online selection at the lowest prices with Fast & Free shipping on many items!

www.ebay.com

X99 Motherboard for sale | eBay

Get the best deals for X99 Motherboard at eBay.com. We have a great online selection at the lowest prices with Fast & Free shipping on many items!

www.ebay.com

X299 however was indeed skimp on affordable offerings.

x299 motherboard for sale | eBay

Get the best deals for x299 motherboard at eBay.com. We have a great online selection at the lowest prices with Fast & Free shipping on many items!

www.ebay.com

I've been buying the Machinist brand for a while now as they have proven to be solid. There's no OCing but the stock experience is good as is the quality. So when I say there are good choices available, this what I mean.

 

[Dr. Dro]

I disagree, I'm logged into Ebay ATM and did quick search and there are a fair number of good choices for X79 and X99.

X79 Motherboard for sale | eBay

Get the best deals for X79 Motherboard at eBay.com. We have a great online selection at the lowest prices with Fast & Free shipping on many items!

www.ebay.com

X99 Motherboard for sale | eBay

Get the best deals for X99 Motherboard at eBay.com. We have a great online selection at the lowest prices with Fast & Free shipping on many items!

www.ebay.com

X299 however was indeed skimp on affordable offerings.

x299 motherboard for sale | eBay

Get the best deals for x299 motherboard at eBay.com. We have a great online selection at the lowest prices with Fast & Free shipping on many items!

www.ebay.com

I've been buying the Machinist brand for a while now as they have proven to be solid. There's no OCing but the stock experience is good as is the quality. So when I say there are good choices available, this what I mean.

Do these boards actually contain a X99 chipset, though? Some models have been known for using other chipsets somehow wired for these processors that they were never intended to be used with. For example, some Chinese X79 that actually come with H61 or X99 with a B85 in.

 

[N/A]

Mine has Intel C612. the $79 ones are guaranteed to have B85/H81 and such, like the following
amazing how much cheaper the 10 core is. All core unlockable to 3.50 - 3.80 Ghz mind you.

 

[Dr. Dro]

Mine has Intel C612. the $79 ones are guaranteed to have B85/H81 and such, like the following
amazing how much cheaper the 10 core is. All core unlockable to 3.50 - 3.80 Ghz mind you.

View attachment 261630

C612 is nice. It's the server version of the X99. But the other ones I wouldn't be very comfortable with

I've already tested a Xeon v4 with my board, I owned an E5-1607 v4 a few years back, it's a very simple 4-core, 4-thread chip with no turbo (static 3.1 GHz), but it worked nicely. After I got my OLED and the next-gen GPU, might just go after a 2699 v4 proper and do an overhaul of this build. I do not use it much, must admit.

 

[80-watt Hamster]

C612 is nice. It's the server version of the X99. But the other ones I wouldn't be very comfortable with

I've already tested a Xeon v4 with my board, I owned an E5-1607 v4 a few years back, it's a very simple 4-core, 4-thread chip with no turbo (static 3.1 GHz), but it worked nicely. After I got my OLED and the next-gen GPU, might just go after a 2699 v4 proper and do an overhaul of this build. I do not use it much, must admit.

The 14-core V4s seem to sell for decent money. It's tempting to grab one (and the associated board) to play with as another cruncher.

 

[Toothless]

Honestly, if you don't see a reason to have that many cores, I wouldn't go big. Gotta have a use case to make it worth it!

 

[80-watt Hamster]

Honestly, if you don't see a reason to have that many cores, I wouldn't go big. Gotta have a use case to make it worth it!

WCG, of course.

 

[Toothless]

WCG, of course.

If, they want to, yes. I'll always support someone doing some compute for science.

 

[Magic Cube]

I did buy used Fujitsu R940 Power workstation couple months ago. Always wanted to have dual cpu platform. I have been upgrading it with faster parts, just for fun.

Original configuration was:
-Single Intel Xeon E5-2620 V3
-4x 4GB DDR4 ram
-Quadro K2200 4GB

Now configuration is:
-Intel Xeon E5-2666 V3 x2
-8x 8GB DDR4 2133MHz ram
-Still using Quadro K2200
-Silverstone KR02 x2 cpu heatsinks
-Replaced original Sunon high RPM ball bearing fans with Fractal Design Venturi 120mm

Also bought Intel Xeon E5-2660 V4 x2, which won't boot in this machine(too old revision motherboard). Purley C612 platform should support Broadwell EP, but this one just won't. I did modify bios file with Broadwell microcodes and updated microcodes using Fujitsu's/Kontron's bios update tools, but it won't still boot. Those V4 processors do boot on my Huananzhi X99TF if tried separately. Also too bad this can't be modded with turbo mod driver. You can play with microcodes, bios update tools have option for microcode update. But you can't flash modified bios, there is somekind security check. Probably you could flash modified bios via external flasher, but I this motherboard has 16 pin bios chip, so those cheapest programmers are useless for this.

 

[lexluthermiester]

Do these boards actually contain a X99 chipset, though? Some models have been known for using other chipsets somehow wired for these processors that they were never intended to be used with. For example, some Chinese X79 that actually come with H61 or X99 with a B85 in.

I have not seen this. Don't think it happens, at least not very often. To my knowledge there is no way to sneak in one chipset for another and have the drivers work properly. No saying it's not been tried, just that I haven't seen it with the Machinist brand specifically. However, even if it has, we're talking about what is effectively the "Southbridge" chip of a system that handles peripherals and whatnot. As long as it worked properly, there's really no problem as the "X79" and "X99" functionality of the platform is mostly CPU-side.

Mine has Intel C612. the $79 ones are guaranteed to have B85/H81 and such, like the following
amazing how much cheaper the 10 core is. All core unlockable to 3.50 - 3.80 Ghz mind you.

View attachment 261630

And that 10 core should be your focus unless you have a specific use for more cores, as was mentioned above by another user.

 

[Socket2011]

"Old junk" (note that I use this term jokingly, since these are largely retired and discarded server spares) has never been faster

Trust me I've been quite tempted to buy a E5-2696 v4 now that they've gone down to $150 ish on eBay, the Broadwell flagship is quite a bit faster than my processor but end of the day, I don't really need it, so I'm budgeting elsewhere. I don't think the supply of Broadwell chips is going to dry out any time soon anyway, we still often see X5680 CPUs available and I owned an ES of that one made in 2009 in the past.

A 22 core 44 thread proc for such a low price is indeed an amazing deal... but it's definitely not without its (sometimes grave) shortcomings. It's all about balancing what you want, what you need and what you can spend

"Old junk" ... while I do ANY thing on the internet ..1-2%. I like it. 3 synths with 64 voices each .... 5% , for 55 $. I could get that 22 core "beauty" for 120$ , but my current 14 core does whatever I want effortlessly (while I surf or stream) . not 10 years behind , but just 5. Intel shit the bed for 5 years ... just recently went to 10nm process. AMD rules !! V4 actually does TSX well , my VM linux uses X cores differently than bombed out W10. works way better than a V3 (i just upgraded from one). I noticed my 12 core V3 used 115w all cores turbo. My 14 core V4 just uses 92w all core turbo. My deal is to have
a silent HTPC , the V4 is a dream. Seems Intel DID get better power efficiency from the 14mn "shrink" .. i'm pleased.
Wow , v4 2680 is cooler than my kids core duo at full throttle. he he... actually have 2 duo's in the house , they surf perfect with SSD's. NO delay.

Strange ... while slamming all 14 cores with a core burner .... I notice any other thing (including the VM) is totally unaffected. First chip that I've bought that acted like this. Cool !!

 

[Marstg]

Got a Dell Precision T5810 with a Xeon E5-1650 v3 for very cheap. Quite nice.
Broadwell chips are quite the premium over the Haswell ones.

 

[Magic Cube]

What i forgot from my earlier post: This Fujitsu came with DVD drive(removed), somekind of ID-card reader(removed). Also replaced those pesky plastic PCI-E slot fasteners with screws. I did add 500GB Samsung 850 SSD and Asus Wifi card.

In future I may add m.2 NVME drive with pci-e adapter to see if it works. If I remember correctly in Fujitsu sparepart site have PCI-E SSD's listed, so I think those should work without any modding. I am interested if I can add it to the slot in upper right corner. It's location is so weird, so I have to try it. Also I may change K2200 to something else. I would like to have a passive vga card, but PCI-E card slots have side cooling fan. My Accelero Mono(in K2200) won't with in with side fan installed. And I want to keep that side fan.

OnePlus Nord N100 has bad quality camerasensor. But atleast phone was cheap->drop it to floor and if it breaks I wouldn't care. My phone usage is so small that my battery lasts about more than week.

Picture of Fujitsu R940 Power. PCI-E card fan is on floor.

 

[Marstg]

@Magic Cube check the specs of the server first and try and update the bios. Just because certain PCIe SKUs were available doesn't automatically mean it will boot from nvme : those PCIe ssds might have legacy OP-ROMs to make them bootable on older systems just like Samsung 950 Pro SSDs had to be able to boot on non UEFI systems. One popular option with T5810 was a Micron P420m PCIe ssds that would go up to 1.4 TB in size.

 

[Socket2011]

Ebay motherboards are "slightly" cheap (pix 1). That ASUS P9X79 (120$) + 16gb mem. + E5-2658V2 went for $170USD. X79 should (but doesn't) fully support NVME. ASUS could update
the BIOS to do so , since there are hacked NVME capable BIOS updates out in the wild.
X99 boards support NVME but limit the onboard option to 2 pci-e lanes ... slow !! I had to buy a Startech PEX4M2E1. It has PS buffering for the NVME and a LED output for just the card.
Went from 1500mb/s to 3500mb/s with the addon card. EBAY has the Samsung PM981 MZ-VLB2560 for 25-35$.
Search the GA-X99-UD3P-"CF" , "munimetal" has thousands of these for 99$ , they are custom boards for Transource (mir-sco650) PC's. Flash the standard F23 bios and V4's boot right up. Best to flash
with the Q-FLASH plus usb port - right to F23 ,before you even put the CPU in.
So , 99 for the board , 50-60 for the CPU , and some used DDR4 .... good to go for under 200....
Ebay also has (thousands) of E5-2680 V4's with "Fifakingdom" @ 60+$ , good 15 core die with one core disabled - I have no idea why ... binning ???

​

 

[Dr. Dro]

"Old junk" ... while I do ANY thing on the internet ..1-2%. I like it. 3 synths with 64 voices each .... 5% , for 55 $. I could get that 22 core "beauty" for 120$ , but my current 14 core does whatever I want effortlessly (while I surf or stream) . not 10 years behind , but just 5. Intel shit the bed for 5 years ... just recently went to 10nm process. AMD rules !! V4 actually does TSX well , my VM linux uses X cores differently than bombed out W10. works way better than a V3 (i just upgraded from one). I noticed my 12 core V3 used 115w all cores turbo. My 14 core V4 just uses 92w all core turbo. My deal is to have
a silent HTPC , the V4 is a dream. Seems Intel DID get better power efficiency from the 14mn "shrink" .. i'm pleased.
Wow , v4 2680 is cooler than my kids core duo at full throttle. he he... actually have 2 duo's in the house , they surf perfect with SSD's. NO delay.

Strange ... while slamming all 14 cores with a core burner .... I notice any other thing (including the VM) is totally unaffected. First chip that I've bought that acted like this. Cool !!

Yeah, these old parts are often given way less credit than they are due. But they are still very much obsolete. I own an E8600 (which is the fastest Core 2 Duo model), and it's a rather decent, if rather unassuming CPU. I've had some fun with it.

Internet browsing should largely not be a significant challenge for these CPUs, they were designed to host webpages for potentially thousands of users simultaneously, after all.

Ebay motherboards are "slightly" cheap (pix 1). That ASUS P9X79 (120$) + 16gb mem. + E5-2658V2 went for $170USD. X79 should (but doesn't) fully support NVME. ASUS could update
the BIOS to do so , since there are hacked NVME capable BIOS updates out in the wild.
X99 boards support NVME but limit the onboard option to 2 pci-e lanes ... slow !! I had to buy a Startech PEX4M2E1. It has PS buffering for the NVME and a LED output for just the card.
Went from 1500mb/s to 3500mb/s with the addon card. EBAY has the Samsung PM981 MZ-VLB2560 for 25-35$.
...
Ebay also has (thousands) of E5-2680 V4's with "Fifakingdom" @ 60+$ , good 15 core die with one core disabled - I have no idea why ... binning ???

Second-wave X99 motherboards should support PCIe 3.0 NVMe correctly, my Gigabyte Ultra Gaming does.

Unless it is a high-cache variant, it's a fully enabled 14-core die. I believe the E5-2680 v4 is such a processor, designated "Medium core count" (MCC), Broadwell-EP HCC is a 24-core die. These are the die configurations for Haswell-EP (v3) and Broadwell-EP (v4) Xeons:

The E5-2699 v4 was demoted from 24 to 22 cores (possibly for yield reasons) and such an unit was never released in a production state, however an A0-stepping (ES0) prototype with QDF code QHYH does exist and has been very coveted by homelab enthusiasts. I believe I've read somewhere that Intel only made one tray of these for validation purposes (so about 1000 units) about and most have been sold off circa 2017, I almost purchased one back then, but because of the higher price tag I was afraid of customs, hindsight is 20/20 as I ended up not needing to pay much tax on my chip, but I am not disappointed in my 4669 v3, it has its own charm and is finalized "refresh" silicon after all.

 

[Socket2011]

"obsolete" huh ??? What is the purpose of Rysen 9 or threadripper power ? To create and run more useless "features" forced on the masses.
If " enthusiasts" want 225W TDP processors and 1200W PS's in a coming age of scarcity , let them burn up with the rest of the earth !
I'm not quite a "luddite" , but in the past few years ... both web content and software has not only become bloated but outright irritating.
One example - the Nvidia driver package. 100meg of the actual drivers and a gig of spyware that benefits "them".
Another example of a "solution in search of a problem". IOT , anyone ... what a scam !

Most web pages are just a collection of 3rd party crap and redirects . A website in the early 21'st century did not need to connect to 50 IP's to show us
100kb actual content. So ... we have been scammed into paying the bills (with 1200w PS's) to facilitate a bunch of BS , which does not serve us.
Get the 1Gig fast internet connection , only to have 95% of that bandwidth consumed by content that benefits "them' , and we pay for it. BS !!

PS - I did research the full V3 and 4 die configs , I even know the errata of both families. I did not want a 24 core die that had 8 disabled cores ! (2697a)

 

[Toothless]

NVIDIA drivers are in the 700MB range, and has Experience includes in case people want to use it. Optional to have it installed.

Ad blockers help with net traffic..

Higher clocks = more power. My 1680v2 will eat 200w easily and it's an Ivy Bridge 8-core.

You see the new Xeons? 350w TDP. You're going to pay for the cores and clocks and that's what pushing for performance does.

You can't exclude older techs when I had a x5675 pull over 300w alone.

Also, Ivy Bridge will not support PCI boot media. Haswell was first official and it wasn't til Skylake that NVME properly worked. (I totally don't have boards and drives and tested this multiple times)

 

[lexluthermiester]

Rysen 9

Ryzen is spelled with a "Z".