Supermicro/Xeon for a Desktop Workstation?

[cyberjock]

??? I didn't think statements of fact were worth warnings. It's more like saying "the sky is blue". :)

You have received a moderator warning for reminding us what we already know. ;)

 

[jgreco]

Well, they sky is solid gray here, so ...hm

 

[ewhac]

What you really want to do is just buy a cheaper PC and play the greatest games from 10 years ago. I remember Quake III Arena required a pretty hefty box and graphics when it came out but it runs pretty well on my laptop with Intel graphics.

Why do you think I've been adding a pile of new purchases to my GOG.com account? (BTW, you were aware that GOG.com is having a sale as of this writing?)

But even some of those are starting to show issues. One game in particular, FRACT OSC, stutters very badly, which is puzzling given that it's going for the flat polygonal TRON aesthetic. Same with InFlux, which can't possibly be more intrinsically demanding than Oblivion, which runs great.

 

[cyberjock]

/me runs to gog.com and starts buying games.

 

[Roman]

I've seen some weird lags with older games on multicore platforms.

 

[sremick]

After finishing my FreeNAS build, I too have been inspired to use similar tech towards a new workstation. As I don't care about gaming (that's what my console is for), overclocking and I'll either be running Linux or FreeBSD (yes, you heard me) on the desktop, a lot of the logic seems to apply.

I'm currently considering the same CPU as my FreeNAS server and the SuperMicro X10SAT motherboard. And ECC RAM, of course.

 

[jgreco]

Depending on your graphic requirements, that may not work out quite that way. Please do be aware that most of the servery Supermicro boards have their own built-in video and you use an E3-12x0 CPU with them, while for a workstation class board, it is giving you the CPU video because that's leaps and bounds better for any use where there's graphics involved. So for the X10SAT you probably want an E3-12x5 CPU. Now if you're going to add a graphics card anyways, then that doesn't matter...

 

[sremick]

Depending on your graphic requirements, that may not work out quite that way. Please do be aware that most of the servery Supermicro boards have their own built-in video and you use an E3-12x0 CPU with them, while for a workstation class board, it is giving you the CPU video because that's leaps and bounds better for any use where there's graphics involved. So for the X10SAT you probably want an E3-12x5 CPU. Now if you're going to add a graphics card anyways, then that doesn't matter...

Good info to share. I did notice on SuperMicro's site that with this motherboard I'd either need a CPU w/ integrated graphics or a separate graphics card. While I don't intend to game, I still intended to use a basic nVidia graphics card so wouldn't be needing on-CPU graphics. :)

 

[jgreco]

Is there a reason why you'd do that? Personally speaking, and bear in mind that I date way back to when windowing systems visibly drew the screen so to me virtually anything's "fast" these days, I am pretty impressed with the built-in graphics on the Toshiba Satellite P55's we picked up last year (i5-4200U Haswell CPU) has Intel HD 4400 graphics on there and it plays a pretty amazing game of Quake III Arena in high resolution. That's definitely more graphic-intense than anything else I would do on a laptop or probably even a PC, so I deem it better-than-necessary.

 

[Ericloewe]

Good info to share. I did notice on SuperMicro's site that with this motherboard I'd either need a CPU w/ integrated graphics or a separate graphics card. While I don't intend to game, I still intended to use a basic nVidia graphics card so wouldn't be needing on-CPU graphics. :)

Why would you bother with a crummy discrete graphics card if the iGPU is just as good?

 

[Roman]

If gaming is not intended, no gaming card is required. There are also some workstation cards like the Quadro series with CUDA cores. Intel HD 4x00 will handle anything below that quite well. The IGP draws very little power compared to dedicated graphics cards.

 

[DJ9]

Why would you bother with a crummy discrete graphics card if the iGPU is just as good?

You still can't ctrl-alt-F1 to council with Intel discrete graphics, unless it's been fixed finally in 10.1.

 

[ewhac]

Personally speaking, and bear in mind that I date way back to when windowing systems visibly drew the screen so to me virtually anything's "fast" these days, I am pretty impressed with the built-in graphics on the Toshiba Satellite P55's we picked up last year (i5-4200U Haswell CPU) has Intel HD 4400 graphics on there and it plays a pretty amazing game of Quake III Arena in high resolution. That's definitely more graphic-intense than anything else I would do on a laptop or probably even a PC, so I deem it better-than-necessary.

Three years ago, NVIDIA was trying to convince Apple to stop using Q3A as a benchmark, as it was so zarking old (dunno if they succeeded). OpenGL has grown by leaps and bounds since then, and now the "proper" way to write performant OpenGL and OpenGLES apps is very different from when Q3A was written. And despite graphics accelerators continuing to advance, Q3A frame rates plateaued several years ago. Point being: Running Q3A well is no longer a good metric for measuring the studliness of your graphics.

So, yes, if you're not planning on developing or playing games, Intel integrated graphics is perfectly great. OTOH, if you're planning on playing stuff like Skyrim or Destiny or the latest Call of Battlefield, you will need dedicated graphics support from AMD or NVIDIA. And if that's what you're into and are planning to do (as I am), then there's nothing wrong with that.

You still can't ctrl-alt-F1 to [console] with Intel discrete graphics, unless it's been fixed finally in 10.1.

Really? That seems an odd shortcoming for *BSD. That's been working in Linux since forever (at least until systemd gets its grubby little claws all over it).

 

[DJ9]

It's something specific to *BSD, can't recall what it is at the moment. (KMS perhaps?)

 

[Roman]

Does anyone have experience with Dell Precision T1700 (SFF) Workstation?

 

[TimNZ]

The X9SAE is the same board I run on my workstation with a 1230 v2, 16GB of ECC memory. I tossed in a GTX 750Ti SC and it actually plays games via Steam on Linux well. Also no issues with FreeBSD or PC-BSD. I never got around trying Windows, mainly cause I'm to cheap to pay for another license and I hate loading drivers / updates forever.

This is similar to what I'm considering - X10SAE (or maybe the cheaper X10SLL-F), Xeon X3-1241 v3, but I'm having trouble identifying compatible RAM - any tips? I'm also interested in general comments on how well the workstation board/cpu is working for you.

My reason for Xeon/ECC is because I value data integrity highly, and my current consumer motherboard seems to have developed a fault which is randomly corrupting data going to the hard drives - approximately 10 bytes per 150GB of data, which has corrupted system images and similar. I don't play games, but I process high volumes of wedding photos, which I consider fairly important information.

 

[Roman]

(or maybe the cheaper X10SLL-F), Xeon X3-1241 v3, but I'm having trouble identifying compatible RAM - any tips?

Crucial DIMM 8GB, DDR3L-1600, CL11, ECC (CT102472BD160B) or Samsung equivalent or that Micron thing that Supermicro recommends.
BTW, have a look at: http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/Xeon/C220/X10SAT.cfm
Read also this paper: ftp://ml.persy.com/info/SupermicroEMEA2013/EMEA13_UP_MB.pdf
Notice that you should pick a board with x16 slot for graphics if you are attempting to build a workstation. Read the specs carefully.
Don't buy CPUs with integrated graphics either. It's not proper hardware for servers nor for workstations.

general comments on how well the workstation board/cpu is working for you.

I own an X10SLM+-LN4F board w/ Intel Xeon X3-1241 v3. Works fine so far.

My reason for Xeon/ECC is because I value data integrity highly, and my current consumer motherboard seems to have developed a fault which is randomly corrupting data going to the hard drives

Nothing special about E3 Xeons. All HP, Dell, etc. workstations use that kind of architecture. It's not all about ECC RAM, it's the overall package, too, that matters.

 

[TimNZ]

Thanks Roman, much appreciated. Any reason you recommend the X10SAT board? It has a few more features than others and a much higher price, but happy to pay it for reliability or compatibility. I'll read that pdf soon.

RAM link is handy, newegg has it - is it known to work well with the MB? Unfortunately newegg won't ship it to New Zealand where I live, but it will ship motherboard and CPU. I've read the motherboards are fussy with RAM, are there specific models of RAM from Samsung/Micron that are recommended by the forum?

I know it's all about the system, not just the RAM. ECC support kindof indicates some effort towards data integrity, that's my theory anyway.

 

[Roman]

I didn't know that the SAT costs much more. I doesn't come with legacy PCI slots, etc. though. The higher price may be caused by the Thunderbolt.

Not 100% sure but it should be Samsung M391B1G73QH0-YK0.

 

[TimNZ]

Ah cool, I'll look at the various models and decide which has the ports and such. Thanks for the memory reference, I'll check that out too.