Finalized Server Upgrade

[Ericloewe]

Anyway, am I right in that this is the cheapest unbuffered kit? http://www.amazon.com/dp/B018CZWVVU/?tag=ozlp-20

Don't know about "cheapest", but it's compatible. Pricing doesn't seem outrageous, though.

 

[djdwosk97]

Don't know about "cheapest", but it's compatible. Pricing doesn't seem outrageous, though.

I don't necessarily mean 'cheapest', but not over priced like all the others, which appear to be $200~. Are there any advantages to Registered RAM and/or are there any boards that support it that aren't a fortune (i.e. would it make sense to go with registered and put that $30 towards a better board that supports registered memory)?

 

[Ericloewe]

Are there any advantages to Registered RAM and/or are there any boards that support it that aren't a fortune (i.e. would it make sense to go with registered and put that $30 towards a better board that supports registered memory)?

Registered DIMMs have the address lines decoupled from the memory controller using registers (hence the name), allowing for more ICs to connect to the same controller. LRDIMMs decouple all the lines.

LGA 115x CPUs do not support RDIMMs at all.
As for LGA 2011 CPUs, Xeon E5-16xx CPUs support RDIMMs and UDIMMs and Xeon E5-2xxx support UDIMMs, RDIMMs and LRDIMMs.

 

[djdwosk97]

Registered DIMMs have the address lines decoupled from the memory controller using registers (hence the name), allowing for more ICs to connect to the same controller. LRDIMMs decouple all the lines.

LGA 115x CPUs do not support RDIMMs at all.
As for LGA 2011 CPUs, Xeon E5-16xx CPUs support RDIMMs and UDIMMs and Xeon E5-2xxx support UDIMMs, RDIMMs and LRDIMMs.

Is X99 able to take full advantage of ECC memory? Because I'm thinking, if I go Skylake then I'll have to spend an extra $40 for non-registered RAM and another $40~ for an ssd (unless I can find a decent used ssd for the boot device). Alternatively, I can put that $80~ towards a Xeon E5 + X99 board. Specifically this one: http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/X99M Extreme4/

"supports Quad Channel DDR4 3000+(OC), Supports ECC*, RDIMM Memory (*ECC is supported with Intel® Xeon® processors)"

E5-2603v3 + x99 board + 16gb registered ECC +8800GT I have lying around for initial setup - $500~
vs.
i3-6100 + X11SSM-F-O + 16gb unbuffered ECC + SSD - $510~

The downside to the X99 platform that I see is that it's clocked significantly lower (which may or may not be an issue? if my main use is Plex).

 

[Ericloewe]

Is X99 able to take full advantage of ECC memory? Because I'm thinking, if I go Skylake then I'll have to spend an extra $40 for non-registered RAM and another $40~ for an ssd (unless I can find a decent used ssd for the boot device). Alternatively, I can put that $80~ towards a Xeon E5 + X99 board. Specifically this one: http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/X99M Extreme4/

"supports Quad Channel DDR4 3000+(OC), Supports ECC*, RDIMM Memory (*ECC is supported with Intel® Xeon® processors)"

E5-2603v3 + x99 board + 16gb registered ECC +8800GT I have lying around for initial setup - $500~
vs.
i3-6100 + X11SSM-F-O + 16gb unbuffered ECC + SSD - $510~

The downside to the X99 platform that I see is that it's clocked significantly lower (which may or may not be an issue? if my main use is Plex).

I certainly hope ECC works as it should. My workstation is an ASRock X99 WS with a Xeon E5-1650 v3. I haven't been able to validate ECC yet...

To be honest, for a server, I'd stick with what is pretty much guaranteed to work.

 

[djdwosk97]

I certainly hope ECC works as it should. My workstation is an ASRock X99 WS with a Xeon E5-1650 v3. I haven't been able to validate ECC yet...

To be honest, for a server, I'd stick with what is pretty much guaranteed to work.

Why wouldn't it work? and a 2603v3 would give me more room to grow (I believe Plex would benefit more from the extra cores than it would be hindered by the lower clock speed).

 

[Ericloewe]

Why wouldn't it work? and a 2603v3 would give me more room to grow (I believe Plex would benefit more from the extra cores than it would be hindered by the lower clock speed).

ECC I mean.

 

[djdwosk97]

ECC I mean.

Well, unless I'm mistaken X99 has full support for ECC memory.

I'm still kind of all over the place and can't really decide which way to go....I was originally going to go with a Haswell i3 ECC setup as it would be substantially cheaper ($350 vs. $500), but then decided to go Skylake due to the 32gb of RAM limitation (not that it would necessarily ever be a limiting factor for me personally). What would I ever really need more than 32gb of RAM for? If I'm just using it as a plex server and maybe a weekly backup of a few system would 32gb be sufficient pretty much forever -- until the whole server is antiquated and read to be replaced (assuming I'll have up to four clients streaming at any one time and 40tb of storage).