Would like opinions on a new but kind of odd build and some help picking a motherboard

right now i would either sell that case or mod it to fit a bigger board and get a socket 2011 mobo with dual e5-2670s (they are only 70$ a peice right now!) or keep your old rig and upgrade it a bit with maybe dual x5680s and a new gpu

the mobo will run about 350 used. but curently their is NO better deal than a e5 2670 and they are NICE cpus i run two myself

kogo50,

If you're interested in LGA1366, Supermicro has a bewilderingly large number of variants of LGA1366 motherboards. Dual CPU motherboards are typically E-ATX to accommodate not only the two CPU's but often 16 RAM slots. Since the extra CPU adds PCIe lanes, there are usually more PCIe slots as well. There are ATX- dual Xeon boards, but they look very cramped and I would think would require a careful CPU cooler choice that wouldn't collide with the RAM. There is a Supermicro ATX 1366 dual board with dual GPU slots which accomplishes it by having only 6 RAM slots.

However, if you're making a change or motherboard, there are great advantages to LGA 2011. This would mean you can sell the T5500 intact and apply the value to a newer and more versatile technology. There is a Supermicro dual LGA2011 motherboard that is ATX, although it has only a single GPU slot.

Supermicro also make "Superworkstations" for LGA1366, LGA2011, and LGA2011-3. The great feature of these besides the excellent server-grade motherboards is that they include the case, motherboard, massive power supply, and arrive with dual CPU coolers, so you just plug in the CPU's, RAM, GPU, and drives. These typically support two 150W GPU's and the variants have useful features such as hot swap drive bays. This is much simpler than sourcing parts from all over, assembling, wiring, etc. So, everything is new except you can use highly depreciated CPU's. They're supposed to be very quiet as well. This is what I'll be doing for my next system.

With a Supermicro SuperWorkstation SYS-7038A-I Dual LGA2011 900W Mid-Tower Workstation Barebone System (Black) $650- you could add a pair of Xeon E5-2680's, which are 8-core @ 2.7 /3.5GHz and these days about $150-180 each. That's about $1,000 and then add a RAID controller, for example a used LSI MR9260-8i, plus the RAM. GPU, drives, and etc.

If the E5-2670 2.6 /3.3GHz is sufficient, then you can make even shorter work of the project and save a bit by considering a used Dell Precision T7600. Quite a few were sold with E5-2670's. The one in the link for $999 has two E5-2670's, 16GB of RAM, and usefully, a PERC H310 RAID controller- that was a $300 option and those are quite fast. I added an H310 to my T5500 and without other changes the disk score went from 1940 to 2649. There were also a lot of HP z620's with E5-2670. Overall, the Superworkstation being a new basic system and E5-2680's seems a bit more attractive approach.

Performance should be very good. The average CPU score on Passmark for a pair of E5-2680's is 18926 (top score 20974), and for a pair of X5650's, 11735 (top score 17375). The single-threaded performance of an X5650 is 1235 and for an E5-2680, it's 1709.

Cheers,

BambiBoom

Modeling:

1. HP z420 (2015) > Xeon E5-1660 v2 (6-core @ 3.7 / 4.0GHz) > 32GB DDR3 1866 ECC RAM > Quadro K4200 (4GB) > Intel 730 480GB (9SSDSC2BP480G4R5) > Western Digital Black WD1003FZEX 1TB> M-Audio 192 sound card > 600W PSU> > Windows 7 Professional 64-bit > Logitech z2300 speakers > 2X Dell Ultrasharp U2715H (2560 X 1440)>
[ Passmark Rating = 5064 > CPU= 13989 / 2D= 819 / 3D= 4596 / Mem= 2772 / Disk= 4555] [Cinebench R15 > CPU = 1014 OpenGL= 126.59 FPS] 7.8.15

Pending upgrade: HP /LSI 9212-4i PCIe SAS /SATA HBA RAID controller, 2X Seagate Constellation ES.3 1TB (RAID 1)


Rendering:

2. Dell Precision T5500 (2011) (Revised) > 2X Xeon X5680 (6 -core @ 3.33 / 3.6GHz), 48GB DDR3 1333 ECC Reg. > Quadro K2200 (4GB ) > PERC H310 / Samsung 840 250GB / WD RE4 Enterprise 1TB > M-Audio 192 sound card > Logitech z313 > 875W PSU > Windows 7 Professional 64> HP 2711x (27", 1920 X 1080)
[ Passmark system rating = 3844 / CPU = 15047 / 2D= 662 / 3D= 3500 / Mem= 1785 / Disk= 2649] (12.30.15)

kogo50,

With this kind of system, a good sized mid tower will work, but if you have the space a full tower is easier to work on.

Here's one that I llke, that can use E-ATX boards, the Thermaltake Urban ($175), The interesting feature are the double doors- one has a window to the motherboard and the other opens to reveal the stack of 8 drives. A great solution to drive access. Very clean-looking and has well-thought out air flow for cooling.

Cheers,

BambiBoom