
Building a 32-Thread Xeon Monster PC for Cheaper Than a Haswell-E Core I7 - elbigbad
http://www.techspot.com/review/1155-affordable-dual-xeon-pc/
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xemdetia
This completely overlooks the wonderful D-1541 (only 8 cores/16 threads)
through D-1587 (16 cores/32 threads) series of embedded xeons that run at ~45W
to ~65W compared to 115W of the E5-2670 (which this article says to run 2x
of!).

[http://ark.intel.com/products/93365/Intel-Xeon-
Processor-D-1...](http://ark.intel.com/products/93365/Intel-Xeon-
Processor-D-1587-24M-Cache-1_70-GHz?q=D-1587)

If you need just a ton of cores there are more efficient things out there! Not
to mention that the D-1541 is available in Mini-ITX with 6 SATA 6.0GBps.

While I am not selling these things I have been drooling over them for a
while, there are some great guides on tinkertry.com where they demonstrate
this server: [https://tinkertry.com/superserver-first-
impressions](https://tinkertry.com/superserver-first-impressions).

~~~
fweespee_ch
A D-1587 setup like this won't cost you ~$1k in hardware.

It might save you $200 a year in electricity costs, but if it costs me +$2k,
well, yeah. I'm not going to run this setup 10 years.

~~~
xemdetia
I am definitely more an outlier here. I am very happy to run machines 6 or 7
years as they move from primary system to network appliance. The other main
feature I really like about the D-1541 and D-1587 is that they are mini ITX
form factor (which fits in most ATX derivative cases) and it is small enough
to easily transport from place to place, where the i7 is much too cumbersome
to do. My goal is to have a system I am completely comfortable throwing in a
backpack or the back of my car and move my entire VM infrastructure to the job
at hand- A cloud in the pocket if you will.

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jyxent
I built a workstation using 2 E5-2670s about a month ago. I'm pretty happy
with it so far. I did need to repin to get the second EPS connector on my
power supply, but my power supply wattage was overkill otherwise.

One nice thing is that DDR3 ECC RAM is extremely cheap. I bought 32GB of RAM
for $60, and have since seen 64GB for $85.

Also, it will boost to 3GHz on all cores at once, as long as it stays cool
enough.

~~~
coreyoconnor
I did a similar build. I had no clue other people were thinking the same. The
entire build I was super nervous. I kept worry I was buying components for a
system that wouldn't be worth it. "How can this be so cheap?" I kept
wondering. Admittedly, I went for _used_ E5-2687Ws from ebay. Which increased
the risk IMO.

My experience mirrors the article and your experience. Fantastic value for a
really great workstation! I happily run several VMs for dev work, the usual
IDEs and switch between games with zero issues. I picked Noctua coolers, same
as the article, and the noise level is also excellent.

~~~
jyxent
My motherboard, RAM, and processors were all used. I wasn't concerned too much
about the RAM or processors, but I've seen a lot of posts about people getting
bent CPU pins on used motherboards. Luckily, everything was working for me
when I got it.

I was initially considering a new Xeon E3 system, because I wanted to have ECC
memory, but the price on these used components had a significantly better
price/performance ratio. Whenever I decide to update to a new system, I'll be
looking at something like this again before I consider something new.

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Terribledactyl
I went down a similar route last year. Bought a used 2009 Mac Pro, firmware
upgrade to make it just like the 2012. Took out the two quad core, (and thanks
to the firmware update) put in two x5675. Two GTX 970s (flashed to thermal
limit of 150W) and 4x HGST 6TB. Fast PCIe SSD. Ubuntu 14.04 and ZFS.

It's a really interesting box to program concurrent and distributed algorithms
on. Latency between 2 processors vs 1, HT, etc.

But the power consumption is bad. I want to switch to a new Xeon D if/when
this system dies. Or maybe 4x ODROID 8 cores so I can play with networking.

~~~
blacksmith_tb
I also did a slightly less ambitious build myself, my craigslisted Mac Pro
only had the single CPU tray, so I have to be content with a single hex-core
upgrade (and only a single GTX 750 Ti SC). 32GB of ECC is nice, but the lights
flicker when it powers up, which makes the lower-power Xeons look appealing.

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KaiserPro
For those who want pre-built system, the first gen HP z620s use the E5-26
__series of procs.

ebay is your friend here.

Lots of USB, really solid case and PSU.

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jwr
Funny how prices are region-dependent. I just checked and E5-2670 retails for…
wait for it — between $2000 and $2150 here (EU, or more precisely Poland).

No cheap workstation for me, I'm afraid.

~~~
ju-st
It's the same with used Thinkpads, they are dirt cheap in the US too. I
suppose European companies don't do four year leases on their hardware...

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jerryhuang100
the keys here are these xeon cpus are "used" and their power consumption is
also monstrous, compared to new-gen cpus (along with mb or other components)

also i'm always suspicious about the life span of these used cpus as cpu gets
busted much more often than any other components (next to hd, my experience).

at the end i guess the total cost for such xeon monster pc might be much
higher (including replacement, power consumption....) compared to new systems.

~~~
MatthaeusHarris
What are you doing to your CPUs? In my experience, CPUs are reliable enough to
be nearly beyond reproach when troubleshooting a broken machine.

~~~
B1FF_PSUVM
There are things such as electromigration that mean that solid-state stuff
_can_ wear out.

(Electrons are being pushed around by electric fields higher than 1 MV/m, and
do smash into things ...)

I'm not complaining about my seven year old machines, but I'm not too sanguine
about the current crop lasting as long ...

~~~
timthorn
Indeed - and smaller feature sizes increase that risk.

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joss82
Niiice!

I wonder how it behaves in games. Did anyone try it yet?

Also, the Xeon E5-2670 is still priced at 1900+ euros in Europe at the
moment...

~~~
paulmd
There are benchmarks on page 7. To summarize, it's slower than a 4690K in all
cases, and running it in 2-CPU mode is slower than 1-CPU mode in all cases.
Still beats AMD's high-end FX-8350 processor in all cases, amusingly enough.

That's pretty much what you'd expect. Gaming performance is strongly
correlated with single-threaded performance. Many games are essentially
single-threaded and even when they're multi-threaded they are still subject to
Amdahl's Law. Certain parts of games cannot be multithreaded (eg all draw-
calls must be made from a single thread in all APIs prior to DX12 and Vulkan)
and they tend to limit overall performance.

So with narrow exceptions, single-thread performance is king. The best example
of this is the G3258 - it's not really that powerful a processor, but it can
be overclocked to really extreme levels and keep up in many games just through
sheer single-threaded performance.

Going across multiple processors is also particularly brutal because of
greatly increased thread and cache synchronization costs. So again, not really
a surprise that it's actually slower.

If you need more than a 4790K or 6700K can deliver, your next stop is the
5820K or other -E series processors. But not many games really need or can
make good advantage of more than 4 threads, and even fewer need more than 8.

~~~
bubuga
> Still beats AMD's high-end FX-8350 processor in all cases, amusingly enough.

A brand-new AMD FX-8350 costs around $160, while a Intel Xeon e5 2670 is sold
for $1560 (newegg prices)

The Xeon isn't 10x the processor that the AMD FX is. Not by a long shot.

~~~
paulmd
Yes, while workstation chips are insanely expensive (from a consumer
perspective) they do often underperform enthusiast chips like the Core i5
series.

The point here is that the FX-8350 _does not_. An older workstation-class chip
outperforms it pretty handily. And once we move into consumer-class chips, its
Ivy Bridge class equivalents totally outclass it, as do even its Sandy Bridge
class predecessors. The Bulldozer architecture is absurdly bad for gaming
usage, and should never be recommended, full stop. Single-threaded performance
pushes frames, not multi-core performance.

The AMD equivalent is likely several times as much as the FX processor as
well. Not quite as much as the Intel, certainly, but not $160.

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rasz_pl
cpu is $60, but mobo will kill you :(

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xchaotic
But can it run Crysis?

