Xeon E5-2407 Dual on Supermicro X9DBL-iF Board Question

[mistro]

I have a system with dual quad core Xeon E5-2407 at 2.2GHz processors, 32gigs of RAM, and two 1T hard drives on a Supermicro 1356 X9DBL-iF motherboard. I work in an animation studio where I do 3D environments. This machine was just sitting in the studio for months and no one knows where it came from so I decided to try and use it since it's the only PC in there and I'm the only PC user. I'm gonna give it a shot but I am very curious about the system and how far I can go with it.

It had a RAID setup but I took it out because I had trouble getting windows setup due to the hard drives not showing up during installation. I was able to install windows 7 on one of the hard drives and it is working fine. I do plan on putting RAID back for performance reasons but I want to learn how to maintain and fix it myself if anything happens in the future. I also plan on putting in a EVGA Geforce GTX 760 card because I hate onboard video.

I know it is a lower end Xeon processor without hyperthreading and it is used mostly for servers but I'm not making a big deal about getting 3.5+GHz because I'm optimistic about the fact it has 2 processors and my programs are well multithreaded. My system at home is 32bit XP q6600 quad core at 2.4GHz and no hyperthreading with 3.25 gigs of RAM and I'm doing just fine with what I do. I will be using it for simple modelling. and light 3D rendering. I been searching the net and I'm having a hard time finding user reviews about this system. Can anyone who know about this system share your experience please? I would like to learn more about its capabilities.

 

[Robert Pankiw]

I'm not sure what your question is exactly. You just want to learn more about RAID? Well, aside from being sure you're using a supported level of RAID (0, 1, 5, 10) Link I'm not sure how better to answer.

Have you tested the SATA ports to know that they all work? Same thing goes for the hard drives.

If all the ports work, all the drives work, and you still can't get RAID to work, try contacting Super Micro.
The board is listed as supported SATA RAID with Windows 7 SP1 Link The legend is at the bottom, the 'N' means "SATA (with RAID, Intel code base)".

 

[mistro]

Thank you but no the question is not about RAID. It's about the System and what it's capabilities are. As stated towards the end of my post, I'm looking for user experience and knowledge of this system (anounced in the title). I will revisit the RAID questions I have at another time in another thread. Thanks again.

 

[Robert Pankiw]

Hm.. I may not have been the best person to answer, in that case.
All the best!

 

[bambiboom]

mistro,

You can quantify the performance of your overall system , by using benchmark tests that will quantify performance in a comparative sense- the numbers are compared to all other systems tested.

My favorite is Passmark Performance Test and you can download a free trial. I recommend buying it as you can retest your system with each change.

In general, my intuition is that your system will not be extremely satisfying for 3D modeling / animation. The 2.2GHz clock speed and lack of hyperthreading does not produce a high computational power >

[Dual CPU] Intel Xeon E5-2407 @ 2.20GHz Score=7371 Ranking=95 Cost /Performance=13.96 $527.98*

In Passmark, there are two systems listied for Xeon E5-2407 systems. Both are running Windows Server 2012. One machine has 2 CPU's and scores are

Rating = 303.1 CPU=7371, 2D=337, 3D=28.3 Mem=974 Disk=956

For a system comparison, the HP z420 single quad core Xeon E5-1620 system [24GB ECC1600, Quadro 4000, Samsung 840] that I use for 3D CAD >

Rating = 3815 CPU=8985, 2D=767, 3D=2044 Mem=2523 Disk=2986

> and I still am frustrated in slow navigation of large (over 30MB) Sketchup models in 3D.

Compare these results even to to a single Xeon E3-1230 V3 >

Intel Xeon E3-1270 v3 @ 3.50GHz Sc=10175 Ra=34 C/P=29.07 $349.99

Where the computational power is about 30% higher and, I would suggest, the clock speed would present a much better working experience.

The graphics card is also critical in the system equation. You mention adding a GTX 750 in future, and that is probably a good card, but the selection will be better if related to performance in the exact application. In Maya for example, a $175 Firepro V4900 far outperforms a $1,000 GTX Titan.

My suggestion is, if possible, load even a trial version of the programs you will be using, try them, run Passmark Performance Test and see if there is potential for the system to be useful but I expect that, even with a good graphics card, as the polygons increase, modeling / animation in a professional environment could be frustrating.

However, you mention being satisfied with a Q6600 system and it appears there is more potential in that system- On Passmark, there is an overclocked (3.0GHz) Q6600 system with a GTX 660 and Intel SSD>

Rating = 2306 CPU=4136, 2D=499, 3D=3912 Mem=986 Disk=2404

> and that kind of performance would be in the realm of usefulness.

My thought is you might add a reasonable level used Quadro or Firepro and use the 2407 system as a rendering engine where reliability in continuous running is more important than speed, and that will release your faster system for modeling.

Only you can know, and you can only know by trying it.

Cheers,

BambiBoom

HP z420 (2014) > Xeon E5-1620 quad core @ 3.6 / 3.8GHz > 24GB ECC 1600 RAM > Quadro 4000 (2GB)> Samsung 840 SSD 250GB /Western Digital WD1003FZEX 1TB> M-Audio 192 sound card > AE3000 USB WiFi > HP 2711X, 27" 1920 X 1080 > Windows 7 Ultimate 64 > Autodesk Building Design Suite, Inventor , Solidworks, Adobe CS MC, Corel Technical Design Sketchup, WordP Office, MS Office

Dell Precision T5400 (2008) > 2X Xeon X5460 quad core @3.16GHz > 16GB ECC 667> Quadro FX 4800 (1.5GB) > WD RE4 500GB / Seagate Barracuda 500GB > M-Audio 2496 Sound Card / Linksys 600N WiFi > Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit > (earlier versions) AutoCad, Revit, Solidworks, Sketchup, Corel Technical Designer, Adobe CS MC, WordP Office, MS Office [Passmark system rating = 1859, 2D= 512 / 3D=1097]

 

[mistro]

Thanks BambiBoom for taking time to reply with that info.
My Q6600 is not overclocked. It is at 2.4GHz and has no hyperthreading. I can't say I'm thoroughly satisfied because I'm still running a NVIDIA 9800GT but I can still crank out some decent renders. Just not as fast as if I had 8 cores and a better GPU. So I would optimistically say 3D modeling should be doable in this case. Besides, Sketchup has not had a real upgrade in almost a decade anyway (my modeling tool of choice). Just new names and a few cosmetic things so it doesn't matter how high end of a system I have for that. I will report what happens when I put the card in tomorrow and test out my software on it for the first time. Stay tuned.....

BTW I do not really listen to benchmark reports. If I asked anyone if my current home rig was good enough for 3D art, they would show me these charts with my 5 year old CPU and card at the bottom and tell me no. I know better from experience.

Thanks again.

 

[mistro]

Great News! I installed the GTX 760 2GB card today and everything is working beautifully! I even did some test renders and it is much faster than my Q6600 at home. All is well and the mystery of whether this machine can perform the tasks for me is solved.

The only thing I wonder about is the missing motherboard disc but I hesitate to install the drivers I downloaded from the Supermicro site because everything seems to work. At the same time I can't help but wonder if I may be missing out on some added performance. I never did a reformat without using the motherboard disc after installing the OS. It's Windows 7 Professional 64bit BTW. In the hardware manager under "other devices" there are numerous yellow "!". I'm used to having the mobo disc and right clicking on the device in the hardware manager and installing the files directly. But the drivers I downloaded from the site come as installers so I cannot get to individual files. Aside from that everything seems fine.

Thanks for your help.

 

[bambiboom]

mistro,

I'm very pleased to read that the system is working well. I did a bit more checking and Supermicro do really know what they're doing with server motherboards, or at least they benchmark very well. Tyan is another compnay that quietly gets things done. I saw a Tyan MB for 8- Xeon E7's ($2,600) that could use 4TB of RAM. Given that E7's are often $4,500 each and 4TB of RAM would cost perhaps $35,000, one can spend a lot on a server, maybe $80-100+K.

Probably, the dual Xeons, though not of a very high clock speed do have a lot of bandwidth and cache and so will certainly do well as compared to the Q6600, plus the GTX 760 is in effect acting in some degree as coprocessor- taking a bit of the effort off the CPU's . It should be very reliable.

Well done!

Cheers,

BambiBoom