Ryzen 3950x or Dual Xeon Gold 6138?

[marsb007]

I‘m having a hard time debating between these two systems.

Ryzen 3950x
Gigabyte x570 aorus master
128 gb ecc udimm
10 Gbe SFP+
2x 500gb WD Red SSD
3x 18tb WD Enterprise drives

2x Xeon Gold 6138
Supermicro X11DPH-T LGA 3647 Motherboard
256 gb LRDimm
same drives as above

The Ryzen has better single core performance, not as many cores, but runs on consumer grade mobo. I’ve had it for some time now and it’s being repurposed (no additional cost)… Not sure if Gigabyte implements ECC memory correctly though. It runs quiet, draws about 108 watts. Mainly used for Plex and file storage, a few VMs and 4-5 other apps. Memory gets a little low with the VMs… I’m maxed out on RAM.

For about $500 I can get the Xeon platform. It’s a little older, but vastly more cores (even though I don’t really need), runs ECC correctly, and has IPMI. Crappy fan control, and will likely have to mess with fan filters or get a separate fan controller so it doesn’t sound like a train in my home office. It has plenty of room to get more RAM in the future. Likely draws more watts than the Ryzen.

Assuming the $500 is not really a concern, which system is better?

Also for the 6138s, passive coolers or go for the massive Noctuas? That would add a little more to the cost…

 

[artlessknave]

Assuming the $500 is not really a concern, which system is better?

no contest. get the supported hardware. the gigabyte board is not on the list.

the ONLY reason to use the gigabyte is because you already have it.

 

[neofusion]

no contest. get the supported hardware. the gigabyte board is not on the list.

When you say "supported hardware", what do you mean? Supported by whom?
What list do you refer to?

the ONLY reason to use the gigabyte is because you already have it.

I'd argue that is an excellent reasonif you understand the limitations it confers.

 

[Etorix]

Assuming the $500 is not really a concern, which system is better?

Please define "better"…

In terms of performance, support and enterprise-grade features, the dual Xeon wins hands down.
In terms of suitability to a small home server (3 drives only?), the Ryzen may have a point. To be reasonably confident about ECC support, get a server motherboard: AsRock Rack X470D4U / X570D4U / B550D4U; Gigabyte MC12-LE0.

Also for the 6138s, passive coolers or go for the massive Noctuas? That would add a little more to the cost…

That depends in which case/chassis you'd put it. In a server rack, go for passive coolers and the matching screaming fans. In a tower case, go for Noctuas NH-U12S DX-3647 (check compatibility, and mind they will blow upwards rather than to the back) or NH-D9 DX-3647 4U (blow to the back).
The board actually provides fan control, through IPMI.

 

[ChrisRJ]

Please define "better"…

That is indeed the critical question. And it is completely dependent on the use-case incl. its details.

 

[artlessknave]

Supported by whom?

truenas. from the recommended hardware lists, and by the forums. if you build on hardware known to have issues and actively recommended against by the senior forum members, you are far less likely to get help from the forums, because the solution to those problems was already given and ignored.
you have to remember that these are all volunteers, and who wants to waste time fixing the same issues over and over again when simply following the recommendations tends to eliminate issues from ever occuring. obviously, this isnt all issues, but it covers repeat issues like using a realtek NIC and either it not being detected or it working like garbage, because the realtek NICs are garbage 90% of the time, or the cheap SATA PCIe adapters that mangle data and mangle disk access.

its definitely hard to beat "I already have it" price wise, but you literally asked what is best if price is not a concern, and that's always going to be "buy recommended hardware"
the gigabyte board isn't terribly far from the compatibility lists. at least it has an intl nic (the realtek 2.5 will be useless) but its clearly a gaming board, and those are simply not designed for server applications. just not having IPMI, for example, is a massive managability loss. server boards are built with different componennts, aimed at 24/7 reliable operation.

ultimately, the decision is yours, but you are asking for opinions and that is mine, largely constructed from reading nearly all the resources on the forums and having had to tell people that their data is dead. also, i work as a backup admin, so data integrity is very much something I think about.

 

[marsb007]

So I pulled the trigger and this is what I ended up with:

Supermicro x11dph-t
2x Xeon gold 6138 (40 cores)
2x Noctua 120mm coolers
512 gb ecc ram
PCIe NVME adapter
PCIe 10gbe fiber
2x 2tb nvme drives (vm and apps)
2x 500gb wd red ssd (boot)
3x wd hc550 18tb drives (main storage)
4x 140mm Noctua fans
4x 92mm Noctua fans (coolers)
Nvidia 3060 12gb video card for transcoding

With all of this I was drawing about 150-170 watts idle. When I was actually using the server I was hovering around 220-240 watts, peaking at around 320 watts.

It also sounded like a plane was about to take off next to me. Given this is my home office, I simply could not tolerate the added fan noise, nevermind the 2-2.5x higher power consumption/extra heat.

The 2 older Xeons have about the same cpu performance as my 1 Ryzen 3950x. PCIe lanes or not, I am not planning on having anything more than what I listed above, so frankly I realized I was pretty much going down (or at least sideways) in compute power, but down in everything else.

Needless to say, after tinkering with different configurations for two days, I’m going to bring everything back and go back to my Ryzen setup. I wish I had slightly more memory, but not at the upfront monetary cost, continued electricity costs and added noise.

I am using ECC memory with the Ryzen, it idles at 108 watts and never sees above 140-150 watts even with load. I do have a backup of important files in several other places, so I’ll take my chances at this point… ohh, and it’s obviously something that I already have and don’t need to spend additional on.

Thank you all for the prior suggestions. Sometimes you just have to take the journey yourself…