Devin Johnston Posted February 13, 2014 Share Posted February 13, 2014 I'm having a new machine built and I want to use the Xeon E5-2687W V2 in a dual processor configuration but my IT guy is telling me they don't make a motherboard yet that will fully support it. Could he be wrong, is there something out there that will work? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zdravko Barisic Posted February 13, 2014 Share Posted February 13, 2014 (edited) This is the first one, I found http://www.asrock.com/support/cpu.asp?s=2011&u=654 https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/Z9PED8_WS/#support By similar search you can find for all other mobos vendor. IT guys usually pretend very clever and smart! Good luck! ... This could be great money value for Xeon http://www.asrock.com/Server/overview.asp?cat=CPU&Model=EP2C602/D16 Edited February 13, 2014 by okmijun Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dimitris Tolios Posted February 13, 2014 Share Posted February 13, 2014 All C602 boards should support them. If it is an older C602 board already running with SB-E Xeons, or older stock ordered by the vendor a few months before the V2s came out, might require a bios upgrade. You should be able to find the required bios version in the manufacturer's support website. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RyderSK Posted February 13, 2014 Share Posted February 13, 2014 This is the first one, I found https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/Z9PED8_WS/#support I suggest this Asus as well, I had it home in my hands year ago and it's really nice board, it's bit more pricey than the popular Micro one, but it's much more workstation oriented compared to the server counterparts. Only drawback is the CEB format, which is here identical to E-ATX but with slightly different holes array, with little engineering play you can comfortably fit it into regular Big tower case (like Fractal XL R2). As Dimitris mentioned, only uefi(bios) update is necessary. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devin Johnston Posted February 13, 2014 Author Share Posted February 13, 2014 What about the SuperMicro MBD-X9DAi-O? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RyderSK Posted February 13, 2014 Share Posted February 13, 2014 (edited) Up to your sympathy but the Asus is imho much superior board both by build and features. By build it has better position of dimm slots enabling to keep big tower coolers directly next to each other in horizontal position (for example two Noctuas NH-D14 sharing 3 fans in row around two blocks), such air coolers would be obstructed in the Micro. This is non-issue if you plan on water cooling but that is over-kill a bit for these Xeons. By features, the Asus is simply workstation board by nature, featuring 4xPCIe16 slots, which you might not need, but it's 4x vs 3x. It has 6x SATA3 (6gb) vs 2x SATA3 which on other hand, is quite handy as you do want the bandwith if you plan on keeping more than two harddisks. It seems better overal to me on all fronts. Edited February 13, 2014 by RyderSK Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devin Johnston Posted February 13, 2014 Author Share Posted February 13, 2014 Juraj are you running Xeon E5-2687W V2's on the Asus? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RyderSK Posted February 13, 2014 Share Posted February 13, 2014 (edited) Juraj are you running Xeon E5-2687W V2's on the Asus? I don't own the board now, I only had it for brief time when I found really good deal on previous gen 2660 which proved to be error on e-shop's part and I've returned it all together. Since then I've only build few 3930k/4930k i7s. I'll build such setup probably very soon though. Have you checked the first link ? The E5 2687W V2 is directly listed in supported section. https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/Z9PED8_WS/#support Here is how the board look in regular Fractal XL case with Corsair close looped system: Here is air-cooled version I mentioned is possible: It's extremely popular board with enthuasiasts building over-the-top machines, which is scenario that much closer to rendering workstation than server-board build up machine. Edited February 13, 2014 by RyderSK Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zdravko Barisic Posted February 14, 2014 Share Posted February 14, 2014 .... It's extremely popular board with enthuasiasts building over-the-top machines, which is scenario that much closer to rendering workstation than server-board build up machine. +1 ........ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devin Johnston Posted February 14, 2014 Author Share Posted February 14, 2014 Zdravko & Juraj you guys were spot on with that Asus board, my IT guy had to admit it was much better than the SM we were going to get. Any other suggestions on this build? I'm going to put in a Quadro K5000, 32 Gigs of ram, and a Samsung 840 SSD along with a secondary drive that needs to be at least 2TB but I haven't picked that yet. The second drive is mainly for storage but I do use it as a temp drive for video editing, usually 720p but sometimes we do 1080p. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RyderSK Posted February 14, 2014 Share Posted February 14, 2014 Not much to add, just that I am quite jealous, will be a very nice, extremely powerful build :- ) Regarding ram, to utilize full quad-channel potential (although it's nothing drastic imho) it's necessary to equip all 8 dimm slots. This means if you were to take 32GB ram, you would need 8x4GB, which is quite impractical as you couldn't upgrade it later (also 8GB modules ar slightly faster and more cost efficient). While ram has been cheaper before, I think it might be worth to simply go for 64GB directly, and equip 8x8gb. The board supports both ECC registered and regular non-registered ram. While I think it's tempting to think of ECC as being higher quality modules and the ECC to be worthy feature, it is in fact not for rendering and workstation purposes. There's no sort of error that would affect anything in workstation let alone rendering processes and the main benefit of registered ram outside of ECC is capacity, but since you won't go over 64 (and not 128-512 where it would become necessity) this can be disregarded and premium price avoided. Any serious brand is ok, my personal favourite is regular Kingston, they happen to have quite minimal return rate in e-shops, which I justify as mark of quality. Pick low-profile modules if you'll keep air cooling (as they would obstruct the fans around tower blocks), if by chance you'll go water cooling route, it doesn't matter. The passive blocks around ram modules don't matter either, you won't be overclocking them anyway. Recently the price of 1600Mhz and 1866Mhz is almost identical, so you try to get the latter, CL8-9 is preferable and 1.35V voltage is nice. The Samsung SSD is no-brainer, I think almost everyone around here already has one or few and I am extremely satisfied with it :- ) Going through Vertex2-3 from OCZ, Intel 520, Corsair Force, Crucial M4 (I liked this one a lot) it is now the fastest I own and it's quite noticeable. 256GB 840 Pro that is. I haven't bought any TB for last 2 years, I don't really know which ones are good. Nothing against the K5000, if the budget allows, it's nice to have one :- ) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest dialog Posted February 14, 2014 Share Posted February 14, 2014 We are running dual E5-2680's @2.80 GHz in our new BOXX station... the price vs. performance savings does not justify anything more than this processor (according to the speed tests and recommendations by boxx). We have 64GB of ram that have come in handy on almost every project now as this thing is an absolute beast. We have done up to 20,000 pixel renders, some with 2 3DS Max scenes going at once at 14,000 pixels and sometimes 3 3DS Max scenes rendering 4K resolution at once. The speed at which these processors can render is amazing. I personally would go with these processors and upgrade to the K6000 card with the savings on the processors. Best computer I have ever ran... hands down 64GB is the way to go... we are always pushing the limits as to what the computers can do... dont scrimp on RAM Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zdravko Barisic Posted February 14, 2014 Share Posted February 14, 2014 ... 64GB is the way to go... we are always pushing the limits as to what the computers can do... dont scrimp on RAM Agree, again. 32GB is good enough, BUT for serious multitasking with large scale projects, 64GB is a must. Even saving on graphic, and buying Quadro K4000, egz... Also, having 64GB of RAM, would give the great advantage of switching OFF page file! I do like that, for a year, no issues at all, without PF. MAX has more life, indeed, as there is no any cashing into HDD, everything goes straight into RAM. Have a nice play with new monster! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RyderSK Posted February 14, 2014 Share Posted February 14, 2014 We are running dual E5-2680's @2.80 GHz in our new BOXX station... the price vs. performance savings does not justify anything more than this processor (according to the speed tests and recommendations by boxx). This is up to discussion. E5-2680 V2: 2.8GHz (3.6Ghz turbo) 10cores/20threads 115W $1,899.99 E5-2687w V2: 3.4Ghz (4 Ghz turbo) 8 cores/16threads 150W $2,199.99 The price difference is mere 300 dollars per CPU, so 600 dollars total, which, isn't that much compared at this price range for whole workstation. They do in fact, offer identical multithreading performance at stock speeds, but the latter, 2687w, is incredibly superior in all the other tasks which aren't, which is majority of tasks done in Workstation. I therefore think it's good choice to go with 2687W v2 for general purpose workstation, as it won't be sacrificing general performance but still keeping high rendering power. Now K5000 and K6000 will be large offer identical viewport performance due to driver, but vastly different GPU rendering capacity at hefty price difference of almost 3000 dollars. Now this investment is only worth if GPU rendering of any sort will be used. Otherwise it's moot point, there is no reason to go this high for viewport performance, because by 99perc., it will be identical. Even K4000 would provide same fps in scenes. On personal opinion, I find it really funny for BOXX to mention "price vs. performance saving" when they add up 10 000 dollar margin for building it up :- D Like, what does price even matter if you go BOXX route. You might just as well build it yourself and spend the saved money to afford the additional performance or luxury or simply buy two workstations instead of one, or go to vacation on Maldives. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
numerobis Posted February 15, 2014 Share Posted February 15, 2014 This is up to discussion. E5-2680 V2: 2.8GHz (3.6Ghz turbo) 10cores/20threads 115W $1,899.99 E5-2687w V2: 3.4Ghz (4 Ghz turbo) 8 cores/16threads 150W $2,199.99 The price difference is mere 300 dollars per CPU, so 600 dollars total, which, isn't that much compared at this price range for whole workstation. They do in fact, offer identical multithreading performance at stock speeds, but the latter, 2687w, is incredibly superior in all the other tasks which aren't, which is majority of tasks done in Workstation. If you compare the actual 8-cores to 10-cores i would say the 2690 v2 as fastest 10-core would be more suitable when you compare the prices. And i think this one would be my choice in terms of price/perfomance. Yes, you only get 3,6GHz single core turbo instead of 4GHz, but the multithreading performance is clearly better with 10x3,3GHz=33GHz compared to 8x3,6=28,8GHz. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_Xeon_microprocessors Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RyderSK Posted February 15, 2014 Share Posted February 15, 2014 If you compare the actual 8-cores to 10-cores i would say the 2690 v2 as fastest 10-core would be more suitable when you compare the prices. And i think this one would be my choice in terms of price/perfomance. Yes, you only get 3,6GHz single core turbo instead of 4GHz, but the multithreading performance is clearly better with 10x3,3GHz=33GHz compared to 8x3,6=28,8GHz. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_Xeon_microprocessors True, it's almost 10perc. multithreaded performance increase for the same cost, which is quite a lot. Still not sure if I would sacrifice the high clock of 2687w if it's main workstation, it just seems more future-proof for workstation, since even such powerful machine like this, isn't enough to provide enough rendering power alone in any commercial environment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
numerobis Posted February 15, 2014 Share Posted February 15, 2014 (edited) yes, you're right it's not an easy decision - and the 3,6Ghz look even slower when you come from an overclocked 3930K with 1GHz more single thread power... This is why i'm still on a single proc system. I'm waiting for Haswell-E with 8 cores this summer... at least 30% more (if it clocks well) Edited February 15, 2014 by numerobis Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest dialog Posted February 16, 2014 Share Posted February 16, 2014 or go to vacation on Maldives. I definitely would not mind a vacation to Maldives. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dimitris Tolios Posted February 17, 2014 Share Posted February 17, 2014 Remember that with 2P systems, you technically have 2x memory controllers (embedded on each CPU). Sharing memory between them is not seamless, so for LARGE and heavy rendering tasks and that many threads, your CPUs might get memory starved: remember, the E5-2687W is "just" a 8-core, but that translates to 16*2 threads. That leaves you with less than 1GB of RAM per thread, a bit on the low side. There have been cases where people would actually disable HyperThreading in 2P systems and get better performance exactly cause cores/threads where stagnant of RAM otherwise. The only weakness of this Asus board is the limited RAM slots, so 8GB UDIMMs can only get you to 64GB (32GB per processor / 2GB per thread). I think this is enough, but I would not go for less either. I would also stick with the E5-2687W regardless. Not all apps (I am personally) using are as scalable as rendering engines. Some of them (like Adobe) might be multithreaded, but results are diminishing past a 4-core (even my clocked 3930K is underutilized). I would either go all-the-way for 12C/24T duos if I needed all the CPU power I could get for rendering in a single box, or stick with the fastest 8C/16T. To be honest I would probably try to find a pair of E5-2667 v2, and save some $$ for that vacation trip, but that's me =) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devin Johnston Posted February 17, 2014 Author Share Posted February 17, 2014 Hmm....well I've had 2P systems for the last 11 years and I've never had a problem with performance that I noticed. Your argument makes since, I just don't know if 1 Gig per core is really that bad. I'm already pushing the budget with this system, I'd need some justification to get that much ram, are there any studies or papers on this? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dimitris Tolios Posted February 17, 2014 Share Posted February 17, 2014 (edited) Well, there is no absolute "truth" in these matters - it boils down to the details, where the "devil is". Not all scenes are equal, not all rendering threads require the same RAM. Also, I had 2P systems myself the past years, but, those did not have that fast CPUs, with that many threads...my last 2P had 2GB per thread. Also remember that older systems used to handle memory through the chipset, and not with memory controllers inside the CPU. I am not that educated in the matter, but I think there is no seamless sharing of RAM between the two CPUs, which could be the case back in the days where a 3rd player was dealing with RAM all-together. I have read about being benefited from disabling hyper threading in certain occasions more than once and issues with speed deficiencies in high-memory load scenarios have been mentioned even by autodesk, regarding the mental ray renderer and hyper-threaded CPUs - just too busy @ work right now to google it and come back with links (maybe will edit it soon). If you are pressed with money, I can give you this single advice: 32GB (16GB per CPU) might be enough. But it might not. Since Quad channel memory will have LITTLE effect to the overall performance of the machine as a 3D content workstation, at least don't rush into getting 4GB sticks so that you go 4*4GB for each CPU (for quad channel to work, you need 4x sticks for each memory controller, i.e. for each CPU). Go with 4*8GB, so that you still get dual channel memory per CPU, but at least you leave the option for 64GB (8*8GB) open in the future, without trashing the 4GB sticks. Again, Quad Channel RAM is a gimmick for 3D workstations. Edited February 17, 2014 by dtolios Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RyderSK Posted February 17, 2014 Share Posted February 17, 2014 I think 64GB is much better investment than for example pushing for K5000 Quadro. It definitely might be worth to own that card, but not if it's stretching the budget beyond acceptable level. Buying K4000 will be just as good, and leaves the budget headroom for 64GB ram and still plenty of saved buck. Additional 32GB ram set is around 350 dollars after-market price, which, while worse than few years ago is still ok-ish deal for workstation priced at current level of this thread. While I've also heard about 2p systems being bottlenecked for certain simulations, the benchmarks by Cinema and Vray seem to scale pretty linear by observation on multiple Xeons, so maybe it's not such a big deal for rendering, where the sheer brute force might get used more than fast/small multithreaded tasks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devin Johnston Posted February 19, 2014 Author Share Posted February 19, 2014 I understand the need for having the right amount of ram but I rarely run into a situation where I'm using all of my systems ram. In most cases the amount of ram I'm using on a rendering is 10 to 12 GB, and that's on a system with 24GB. It seems like getting 64 GB would be a waste of money, and also consider that my distributed render nodes only have 12 GB so even if I did need more than 32GB my nodes wouldn't be able to render it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RyderSK Posted February 19, 2014 Share Posted February 19, 2014 Well it's the ideal solution to this build and I don't think the additional 300 dollars to be much waste, it will after all benefit the whole workflow, not just single session of Max (As you could have multiple Max sessions open, PS and AE projects, all without any trace of disk swapping, making the multi-tasking to be very efficient and fast). But just as Dimitris said, it's not necessity, and lot of people run 32GB with these E5 2xxx Xeon builds in rendering and it seems to do ok. But make sure to buy 4x8GB sticks as adviced to keep future upgrade possible as the quad channel doesn't benefit 3D rendering much at all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devin Johnston Posted February 19, 2014 Author Share Posted February 19, 2014 My hesitation is due to the fact that I'm going from a Quadro 6000 to a 5000, I feel like I'm already giving up some display performance in order to keep the cost of the system below $8K. $300 isn't that much but I need some justification for asking for it beyond the ideal situation which I agree would be ideal Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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