Dual Xeon Motherboard (Socket 2011) recommendation

The Z9PE-D8 looks more like a workstation board. It has audio, for instance. The D16 is much more server board with a quad NIC card. Not something too useful in a home environment.

The Asrock has a low end video built-in. That would be good for a headless server, but for a workstation I think I would stick with the D8. If you can find a genuine Intel motherboard, that would be the most stable choice usually.

Spartan70NL,

The ASUS Z9PE-D8 is a good choice from the viewpoint of producing good CPU benchmark scores. On Passmark baselines, the best CPU result is using a Lenovo D30 and the two Xeon E5-2670's have a score of 20855. Second place is the ASUS Z9PA-D8 EUR 287 @ amazon.de) at 20817, 3rd ASRock EP2C602 (EUR 325) (20795), 4th Supermicro X9DRL-3F/IF (20697), a server motherboard without PCIe x16, and 5th Supermicro X9DAi (EUR 568)(20694).

Motherboard Layout: Have a good look though at the various choices to ensure that you can use the PCIe slots as required. If you are having two double-height GPU's, a PCIe SSD, PCIe soundcard, and Network card, the arrangement of the slots is essential to be correct because the double height GPUs will cover the adjacent slot. the ASRock is not good as the first x16 slot is too close to RAM slots. On the ASUS Z9PA, the first slot next to the RAM slots is x8 but the card can not be longer than the slot as it will not clear another set of RAM slots. GPU 1 and GPU 2 will both cover the other two x8 slots, so there is not a slot to fit the OCZ Revodrive or the soundcard. The Z9PA is ATX and really, an E-ATX format is necessary. Looking at that situation, the Supermicro X9DAi, which is the larger E-ATX format has the best board layout, with 3X PCIe x16 with three x8 slots between and proper clearance in from of the first x8- which could be used by the Revodrive.

RAM: If you are using two CPU's, the RAM will need to be PC3-12800R, that is DDR3-1600 ECC registered. The registered RAM has a parity check that acts a kind of buffer to, in effect, synchronize the two processors.

The Xeon E5-2670 /2680/2690 series was excellent and are fantastic bargains today, thanks to a large number that were cycled out of servers by firms such as facebook and google.

I use, for analysis, simulation, and rendering, a dual Xeon E5-2690 system that performs very well and was very economical. This was based on buying a used HP z620 for $270 US, the two processors ($4,100 new) for $306, 64GB of RAM for $128, and so on. I re-used a Quadro K2200 from another system with a Tesla M2090 6GB GPU coprocessor ($86) and the 3D visualization performs similarly to a Quadro M5000 8GB- a $1,900 GPU. The total cost was about $1,300 and at the moment has the highest system for an HP z620.

What kind of work are you doing?

Cheers,

BambiBoom

CAD / 3D Modeling / Graphic Design:

HP z420 (2015) (Rev 3) > Xeon E5-1660 v2 (6-core @ 3.7 / 4.0GHz) / 32GB DDR3 -1866 ECC RAM / Quadro K4200 (4GB) / Samsung SM951 M.2 256GB AHCI + Intel 730 480GB (9SSDSC2BP480G4R5) + Western Digital Black WD1003FZEX 1TB> M-Audio 192 sound card > 600W PSU> > Windows 7 Professional 64-bit > Logitech z2300 2.1 speakers > 2X Dell Ultrasharp U2715H (2560 X 1440)
[ Passmark Rating = 5581 > CPU= 14046 / 2D= 838 / 3D= 4694 / Mem= 2777 / Disk= 11559] [6.12.16]

Analysis / Simulation / Rendering:

HP z620 (2012) (Rev 3) 2X Xeon E5-2690 (8-core @ 2.9 / 3.8GHz) / 64GB DDR3-1600 ECC reg) / Quadro K2200 (4GB) + Tesla M2090 (6GB) / HP Z Turbo Drive (256GB) + Samsung 850 Evo 250GB + Seagate Constellation ES.3 (1TB) / Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium PCIe sound card / 800W / Windows 7 Professional 64-bit > Logitech z313 2.1 speakers > HP 2711x (27" 1980 X 1080)
[ Passmark System Rating= 5675 / CPU= 22625 / 2D= 815 / 3D = 3580 / Mem = 2522 / Disk = 12640 ] 9.25.16
[ Cinebench R15: OpenGL= 119.23 fps / CPU = 2209 cb / Single core 130 cb / MP Ratio 16.84x] 10.31.16

Spartan 70NL,

You're very welcome.

The HP motherboards are made by HP, and I assume they are designed in-house, but there is an idea in the air that they also consult Supermicro on some level. However they are designed, the performance results are very good and the integration of the system makes these very reliable and extremely quiet. There are a number of Lenovo D30's, HP z820's and Dell Precision T7600 systems with higher CPU marks than a number of ASUS ZPE-D8's.

Do have a good look at the Z9PE-D8 layout to ensure that all the peripherals will fit. I'm quite convinced that, if there are two double-height GPU's, the only PCIe slot available will be an x8 which is only usable if the card is not longer than the slot. If the intention is to add a PCIe Revodrive, soundcard and network card, I think the solution would be to use instead of the Revodrive an M.2 on an adapter card, skip the additional network card- use the onboard connections, and have an external USB sound interface. Anyway, a Samsung 960 Evo 1TB has better performance than the $1,900 US Revodrive and for $480- about 1/4th the cost.

Interesting project!

Cheers,

BambiBoom

Spartan70NL,

Sorry for my late reply.

For the Xeon E5-2670, the native RAM memory speeds are DDR3 800/1066/1333/1600 and ECC is supported..

PC3-12800R ECC = DDR3-1600 ECC registered.

The ASUS Z9PE-D8 however, supports:

8 x DIMM, Max. 64GB, DDR3 2133(O.C.)/2000(O.C.)/1866*/1600/1333/1066 MHz ECC, Non-ECC, Un-buffered Memory
Quad Channel Memory Architecture
*For Registered Memory, Max. 256GB DDR3 1866/1600/1333/1066/800 MHz
** Refer to www.asus.com for the Memory QVL (Qualified Vendors Lists).

Notice that the limited for ECC, Non-ECC, Un-buffered Memory is 64GB, but using ECC registered, the maximum is 256GB.

Because the ASUS Z9PE-D8 can use both the Xeon E5-2600 first series and the faster v2 series, for which the native RAM speed is 1866, and in respect of the 4X maximum total RAM using registered, and because all dual Xeon systems I've ever heard of use registered, consider buying for the proposed system, 4X 16GB PC3-14900R (= 64GB DDR3-1866 ECC Registered).

That means that in the future, the E5-2670's may be changed to a pair of, for example, Xeon E5-2667 v2, which are 8-core @ 3.3 /4.0GHz- and that use DDR3-1866. These are $900 US these days (2.17) but in two years, perhaps $300, just as the Xeon E5-2670 in 2012 cost $1,550 and in 2016 at one point was selling for only $65.

I am planning to sometime sell the two systems I use and buy a Supermicro Superworkstation SYS-7037A-i , which cost about $750 in the US. These provide the case, motherboard, CPU coolers, 900W power supply, have 16 RAM Slots for up to 1TB DDR3-1866, and support Xeon E5-2600 first version and v2, 3X double height GPU's. this might be a good option for your system. With these you just plug in the CPU's. RAM, GPUs, and drives and it's ready to go. And in that I would use a pair of Xeon E5-2687w v2's- 8-core @ 3.4 /4.0GHz, a Quadro P4000 8GB -these should be our soon, 128GB of RAM, a fast M.2 500GB + a 1TB SATA SSD storage drive. I can't find a price for the SYS-7037A-i in NL or DE, but you might have a look becase the Asus Z9PE-D8 in the US alone costs $524. Adding a 900W power supply, two CPU coolers, and a case will cost more than $750 and all those parts have to be researched, ordered, assembled, wired, and configured. In Passmark baselines:

1. the highest CPU score for E5-2670 is 20855 on Levono D30,
2. 2nd is ASUS Z9PA-D8 at 20817, the Z9PA-D8 by the way is much less expensive- $333, than the Z9PE-D8 at $524,
3. 3rd is ASRock EPC602 at 20795,
4. 4th is Supermicro X9DRL-3F at 20697, and
5. 5th is Supermicro X9Dai at 20694. < that is the motherboard in the Supermicro Superworkstation SYS-7037A-i

While we're on this subject, as the Lenovo D30 perofrmas so well with the E5-2670, how about:

Computer PC Lenovo Thinkstation D30 Intel Xeon E5 Nvidia quadro K4000 Windows 7 > sold for EUR 300,00 ( Objectlocatie: Mestre, Italië)- the fastest, much less expensive, and could be up and running in a few hours. Even the Quadro K4000 is a decent GPU worth EUR 300 to sell so that system costs EUR 0!

Cheers,

BambiBoom