Thinking to build workstation on Precision R5500, what are the requirements?

janiashvili · Jun 21, 2016

Greetings good people!

I'm 3D artist and been thinking to build a PC for such use at home, and meanwhile lately been mesmerized by used Xeon prices (LGA1366 in particular) on eBay, so took a look at fitting motherboards, well cheapest is PowerEdge R410 motherboard for as low as 30$, and it got one problem - it wasn't made with graphics in mind, and got only 8x powered 16x PCIe with supposedly only 25W power

However I've found refurbished precision R5500s for $40, so basically its price with double xeons plus decent more than enough ECC memory won't exceed $100 altogether, all used parts, however as I know such servers need their proprietary PSU-s (and as I've found to power one unit you need one AC power adapter, one 1Kw power supply unit(where the hell it gonna use it?), one power distribution unit), and some other parts to make it run (one that I think I know is something called control panel) which all those would cost approximately additional hundred bucks...

So... In other words - does somebody know what parts are required to make R5500 motherboard run?

And is there a workaround in case for PSU? Well, if I'll buy one nVidia Tesla one day... Then I may need 1 Kw

Otherwise, even including those additional costs, this rig seems to be quite satisfying, as 8 core 16 thread even for 2.4 GHz per core is quite enough for my needs, and I'd would upgrade to 6 core 3GHzs as their prices drop down later on

What do you think my good readers?

janiashvili · Jun 22, 2016

Bump?

bambiboom · Jun 22, 2016

janiashvili,

I'm hoping I understand correctly. Do you have a complete R5500? Or do you have only the motherboard?

If you have a complete R5500: The specification of the R5500 is higher than the T5500- the power supply of the R5500 is 1100W - and can have a redundant whereas the T5500 has only 875W. The R5500 is specified to use two GPU's totaling 450W. At the time they were new, the Quadro 6000 (6GB) was the most powerful GPU and used 225W, but in the R5500 you you add a Tesla C2050 or even have a pair of C207s which were 225W each. 450W.

So , I would say that you need never worry about the power supply. Modern GPU's use far less power.

A note about Teslas: If you intend to use a Tesla, it has to have the same chipset as the the Quadro it's paired with. I use a Quadro K4200 in my main visualization system, so If I added a Tesla, it would would have to be a Kepler series- such as K20.

Before any investment, be sure that the noise the R5500 is acceptable where it is to be placed. It may really roar.

If you have only the motherboard, My recommendation would be to instead buy a lower specification but working and complete workstation and upgrade. The reason is that the R5500 motherboard is a 2U server format- and will have to go into a server chassis. The chassis, power supply, heatsinks, RAM will add up purchased one by one, and the system could be amazingly noisy. I have a Dell Powerdege 1950 server (tower form) and it has to be run in a separate room. I think it will be less expensive- and quieter- to buy a T5500 and just change the CPU, GPU and Drives than buying all the parts separately.

For example, here a T5500 that I upgraded:

Purchased for $171:

Dell Precision T5500 (2011) (Original): Xeon E5620 quad core @ 2.4 / 2.6 GHz > 6GB DDR3 ECC Reg 1333 > Quadro FX 580 (512MB) > Dell PERC 6/i SAS /SATA controller > Seagate Cheetah 15K 146GB and 300GB > Windows 7 Professional 64-bit
[ Passmark system rating = 1479 / CPU = 4067 / 2D= 520 / 3D= 311 / Mem= 1473 / Disk= 1208]

and eventually became:

Dell Precision T5500[/b] (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= 3550 / Mem= 1785 / Disk= 2649] (12.30.15)

The original T5500 was in really excellent condition and with the E5620 was usable immediately. The upgraded version is a serious system as it's 12-core /24 threads @ 3.33 /3.6GHz- modern speeds and the PERC H310 gives it a 6GB's disk system.

I'm a big fan of LGA1366 /X58 systems and also upgraded a Precision T3500 and it's possible to buy a good working system very inexpensively:

Purchased for $53:

Precision T3500 (2011) (Original) Xeon W3530 4-core @ 2.8 /3.06GHz > 4GB (2X 2GB) DDR3-1333 ECC > GeForce 9800 GT (1GB)> WD Black 500GB
[Passmark system rating = 1963, CPU = 4482 / 2D= 609 / 3D=805 / Mem= 1409 / Disk=1048]

And upgraded for about $110 ( Drives and GPU were lying around):

Dell Precision T3500 (2011) (Rev 2) Xeon X5677 4-core @ 3.46 / 3.73GHz > 12GB (6X 2GB) DDR3-1333 ECC > Quadro 4000 (2GB) > PERC 6/i + Seagate 300GB 15K SAS ST3300657SS + WD Black 500GB > 525W PSU> Windows 7 Professional 64-bit > 2X Dell 19" LCD
[Passmark system rating = 2751> CPU = 7236 / 2D= 658 / 3D=2020 / Mem= 1875 / Disk=1221]

And though this is a single CPU system,, the T3500 can use any of the W3600 and X5600 6-cores. If you can buy a system that's going, it may be possible to actually use it some level while finding the new parts The $53 T3500 was running an hour or two after I opened the box and the performance was actually good enough as is for some tasks. There are quite few T5500's in the sub-$200 level though with a single CPU.

Depending on the budget,for example if the total cost can be $600. it's possible to move to the lower end of Xeon E5 and that could be an HP z420 ($250) adding an E5-2670 (about $60) or E5-2680 (about $110) Fro example:

HP Z420 Bios Tested 3.6 GHz CPU 8 GB RAM (B042621) > sold for $232

And to this change the CPU to E5-2670 (about $60) or E5-2680 (about $110). Those are healthy 8-cores and will produce a CPU rating higher than the two 4-cores in the R5500 or T5500 plus have 6GB/s disk and USB 3.

Let me know if in any way I actually answered your question!

Cheers,

BambiBoom

janiashvili · Jun 22, 2016

BambiBoom

The thing is that what I do have is only a motherboard, it's actually a big thing, bigger than T5500 seem to be, and as I know it requires some special parts to even complete a POST, and I have quite.. Well 120GB SSD, 1TB+half TB HDD and that's basically it, well this is my story - I've been doing my work at my workplace with 4th Gen i7 PC as my quite aged PC (yeah, Q6600) got slow even for home tasks decided to renew homestation for a cheap, tits kind of a hobby thing "build a usable PC for as low cost as possible", and if it turns out to be capable of.. Being capable I'll use it for couple years, at least as additional "Renderstation", and that I do not have neither rack nor its original shelling thought to make a custom wooden box for it, and as a moment I do not have anything except some secondary stuff such as HDD, I do not have even PSU, and question is... What parts this motherboard requires besides CPU, RAM and such basic that all the consumer products need, is its PSU more than just psu+pdu? (is it consisting of other separately bought parts?), and is it possible to use T5500 power supply for R5500? (T one seems to be at least two times cheaper, as its similar to consumer PSUs got no separate PDM), as right now I do not really need a 1100 watt PSU

And I'm located in a small country, far away from where I'm buying, so shipping costs may increase dramatically, I'm from and in Georgia(republic)

Though thanks for the pricing! Never realized that on my own.
And sorry if there are errors or,some other things in the text - mobile version seem to have some bugs that I'm unable to select or move the "cursor"

Cheers!
Some suggestions? Some advices?

bambiboom · Jun 22, 2016

janiashvili,

I like this project - it takes a good imagination and more technical bravery than I have.

It will also take study. The R5500 is complex as all the components and subsystems are separated. There is not an onboard controller for the drives and the USB and the network need individual add on cards See: https://www.google.com/search?q=image+precision+r5500&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiQxuGC_bzNAhWDvxQKHX65BpYQsAQIIA&biw=1519&bih=707&dpr=0.9#imgrc=z2b4WYOKrDUZgM%3A

1. Have a good look at the R5500 manual (104 pages): http://topics-cdn.dell.com/pdf/precision-r5500_Service%20Manual_en-us.pdf

Sorry, there doesn't seem to be a version in Georgian.

2. Make an accurate diagram of the mounting points of the motherboard.

You will need:

3. > to understand the wiring.
__ The easiest solution would be to buy an R550 power supply with the wiring harness.

__ It may be possible to use a Precision T7500 power supply and wiring harness, which will be more common to to buy. The key are the numerous connectors, which could be common and yet still have a few missing. The USB card appears to have connectors for the header I don't remember seeing. However, the R5500 In the US at least, used power supplies often include the wiring harness, or they are sold separately.

4. > an SAS/ SATA RAID controller card. This is important. There needs to be a workaround (substitute) to the backplane which will run the drives from a PCIe SAS /SATA controller card. If the controller card was not included, you will need to to buy one. It may be easier to buy an R5500 backplane with card and all the cables, but then you'd need the R5500 chassis. A Dell PERC 6/i and H310 are the contemporary ones to the R5500, (my T5500 arrived with a 6/i) but I think the R5500 were usually sold with the much faster H310. Remember you will have to use the R5500 system BIOS and that BIOS has to recognize the controller as the boot drive. I had some difficulty when I changed the 6/i in the T5500 to an H310 even though I had updated the BIOS -both system and onboard BIOS and loaded the H310 drivers and chipset update. Servers boot form the onboard controller BIOS, so that has to be compatible with the system BIOS to boot. The 6/i is very inexpensive ($15 in the US) but not very fast and the H310 is reasonable and quite fast- I bought an H310 for the Precision T3500 a few weeks ago for $31 but they are more often $40-60. Remember that the R5500 BIOS will only accept certain controllers. I think it will have to be a controller that was sold new with the R5500. This is the only one I could find ($70)

http://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-Dell-PowerEdge-R5500-Precision-R5500-SAS-Backplane-PWSR5500-HDC09-/181545720880?hash=item2a44f7dc30:g:KTwAAOSw8cNUNWrT

5. > The special card to provide USB ports and a USB header panel to mount on the case to plug into. It might be possible to run a couple of USB lines externally and simple add a hub to each external line. I would suggest having at least 6 or 8 USB ports. Here's a used one in the US ($30):

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-Preciosion-R5500-Frontpanel-USB-871PT-0871PT-With-Cables-2HXRC-N078X-/351749836865?hash=item51e5ec9041:g:jjUAAOSwuhhXUbfE

I would advise using the R5500 one as the system BIOS may only run when the R5500 fronplane i sused.

5. > a power switch. Get one from a Dell Precision T7500 which should support a similar load.

6. > at least 4 or 5 case fans. Choose them after you design the case.

7. > A fan controller ( I think) It's possible it's motherboard controller and that case you may need a fan control header.

8. > a set of standard motherboard standoff posts and attachments.

[b9.[/b] > two CPU fan /heatsinks

10. > RAM memory: this uses DDR3-1066 or 1333 ECC registered. The X58 chipset is triple channel so install in sets of 3 modules according to the sequence in the manual. Usually the larger modules will go in slots 1,2,3 and the next size in 4,5,6- that kind of thing. Servers are particular about memory. Buy very carefully, the exact designation. Do not buy low -power.

11. > A network card fro LAN /Ethernet and switch connection (CAT 5)

12. > to design the case. A case can be made in wood, and I think you can get standard dimensions that correspond to the server chassis designation- is it a 2U? . Study photos of the R5500 case for the layout and keep in mind the need to have good airflow that is focused on the CPU heatsinks and possibly use special fans for the RAM. If you could find a used R5500 case and power supply /harness, that would save days and days of work and fabrication.

This is very complex, technical and craft project, but if you separate the tasks, it's possible. Buying and upgrading a used LGA1366 Precision would be very much easier- a couple of days total few hours instead of - I'm guessing- a month of researching buying, design, adaptation, fabrication, and configuration. I still believe it will be more expensive as the special drive controller, USB, and network cards ( if you don't have those- will be cost more than the motherboard.

Can you buy from Ebay Germany? They will have everything.

But, I believe you would spend less money and weeks less time with something like:

HP z600 workstation - 24 GB RAM - 2* Xeon X5550 > sold for EUR 182,00

That system might be possible to use very quickly as it is. It has two 4-core Xeons @ 2.66 /3.06GHz, 24GB RAM, and if the work is only 2D, even the Quadro NVS 205 would work- and there are two of them. Most importantly- no headaches. You can concentrate on the work.

Cheers,

BambiBoom

tariq_mir · Jul 30, 2018

bambiboom :

janiashvili,

I'm hoping I understand correctly. Do you have a complete R5500? Or do you have only the motherboard?

If you have a complete R5500: The specification of the R5500 is higher than the T5500- the power supply of the R5500 is 1100W - and can have a redundant whereas the T5500 has only 875W. The R5500 is specified to use two GPU's totaling 450W. At the time they were new, the Quadro 6000 (6GB) was the most powerful GPU and used 225W, but in the R5500 you you add a Tesla C2050 or even have a pair of C207s which were 225W each. 450W.

So , I would say that you need never worry about the power supply. Modern GPU's use far less power.

A note about Teslas: If you intend to use a Tesla, it has to have the same chipset as the the Quadro it's paired with. I use a Quadro K4200 in my main visualization system, so If I added a Tesla, it would would have to be a Kepler series- such as K20.

Before any investment, be sure that the noise the R5500 is acceptable where it is to be placed. It may really roar.

If you have only the motherboard, My recommendation would be to instead buy a lower specification but working and complete workstation and upgrade. The reason is that the R5500 motherboard is a 2U server format- and will have to go into a server chassis. The chassis, power supply, heatsinks, RAM will add up purchased one by one, and the system could be amazingly noisy. I have a Dell Powerdege 1950 server (tower form) and it has to be run in a separate room. I think it will be less expensive- and quieter- to buy a T5500 and just change the CPU, GPU and Drives than buying all the parts separately.

For example, here a T5500 that I upgraded:

Purchased for $171:

Dell Precision T5500 (2011) (Original): Xeon E5620 quad core @ 2.4 / 2.6 GHz > 6GB DDR3 ECC Reg 1333 > Quadro FX 580 (512MB) > Dell PERC 6/i SAS /SATA controller > Seagate Cheetah 15K 146GB and 300GB > Windows 7 Professional 64-bit
[ Passmark system rating = 1479 / CPU = 4067 / 2D= 520 / 3D= 311 / Mem= 1473 / Disk= 1208]

and eventually became:

Dell Precision T5500[/b] (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= 3550 / Mem= 1785 / Disk= 2649] (12.30.15)

The original T5500 was in really excellent condition and with the E5620 was usable immediately. The upgraded version is a serious system as it's 12-core /24 threads @ 3.33 /3.6GHz- modern speeds and the PERC H310 gives it a 6GB's disk system.

I'm a big fan of LGA1366 /X58 systems and also upgraded a Precision T3500 and it's possible to buy a good working system very inexpensively:

Purchased for $53:

Precision T3500 (2011) (Original) Xeon W3530 4-core @ 2.8 /3.06GHz > 4GB (2X 2GB) DDR3-1333 ECC > GeForce 9800 GT (1GB)> WD Black 500GB
[Passmark system rating = 1963, CPU = 4482 / 2D= 609 / 3D=805 / Mem= 1409 / Disk=1048]

And upgraded for about $110 ( Drives and GPU were lying around):

Dell Precision T3500 (2011) (Rev 2) Xeon X5677 4-core @ 3.46 / 3.73GHz > 12GB (6X 2GB) DDR3-1333 ECC > Quadro 4000 (2GB) > PERC 6/i + Seagate 300GB 15K SAS ST3300657SS + WD Black 500GB > 525W PSU> Windows 7 Professional 64-bit > 2X Dell 19" LCD
[Passmark system rating = 2751> CPU = 7236 / 2D= 658 / 3D=2020 / Mem= 1875 / Disk=1221]

And though this is a single CPU system,, the T3500 can use any of the W3600 and X5600 6-cores. If you can buy a system that's going, it may be possible to actually use it some level while finding the new parts The $53 T3500 was running an hour or two after I opened the box and the performance was actually good enough as is for some tasks. There are quite few T5500's in the sub-$200 level though with a single CPU.

Depending on the budget,for example if the total cost can be $600. it's possible to move to the lower end of Xeon E5 and that could be an HP z420 ($250) adding an E5-2670 (about $60) or E5-2680 (about $110) Fro example:

HP Z420 Bios Tested 3.6 GHz CPU 8 GB RAM (B042621) > sold for $232

And to this change the CPU to E5-2670 (about $60) or E5-2680 (about $110). Those are healthy 8-cores and will produce a CPU rating higher than the two 4-cores in the R5500 or T5500 plus have 6GB/s disk and USB 3.

Let me know if in any way I actually answered your question!

Cheers,

BambiBoom

>>>>>> Hi Bambiboom can you help me please?
I bought a Dell R5500 but it wont take SAS drives for some reason.
Can you help?

jriker1 · Jul 27, 2019

Other side here. I have been using SAS forever and just wanted to switch my R5500 to SATA SSD. Though they says SAS and SATA are compatible, apparently not without an adapter. I thought compatible meant the SATA would plug into the SAS backplane but apparently not. Is there an interposer or something I need?

Thanks.
JR

Deleted member 217926 · Jul 27, 2019

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Thinking to build workstation on Precision R5500, what are the requirements?

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