I'm looking for some help with possibly using a xeon cpu for gaming and engineering related workloads

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sm620

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I'm an engineering student who likes to play video games, but also wants to be able to use my computer for things like CAD and possibly machine learning purposes. I only have two GTX 1080ti's so I want to make it one computer. Theoretically I could make two computers and maybe that's what I should do, but if anybody knows a lot about this then some advice would be appreciated

I was doing some research and it seemed like ECC memory was important with calculations that could take days to finish. it's my understanding that in order to utilize the error correction feature I would need a xeon CPU. I also like to play video games, so the higher end xeon CPU's with high core counts would not be good for me. So this leaves me looking at the lower end xeons that are very similar to the current core 17/i5 CPU's.

I'm also not sure if any gaming/consumer grade motherboards fully support xeon, so advice on distinguishing xeon compatibility is needed.

My research on GPU's has basically determined that low level quadro cards are better for CAD that my GTX 1080ti's, but on some engineering forums I found a lot of people using GTX 1080ti's for machine learning and other processing(even though the GTX 1080ti does not have ECC memory) The quadro cards I think use ECC memory, but I already own two GTX 1080ti's for gaming, so I don't really want to pay for one just yet.

Thanks in advance for any help or advice that you have to offer
 
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Rogue Leader

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First things first, the past couple generations of Xeon processor DO NOT work in gaming motherboards. You need to buy a professional style board. From those boards you will lose things like SLI support (to use your 1080tis together). Low end Xeon processors are no better than their core i5 and i7 counterparts.

GPUs do not have ECC memory, even Quadros. Many CAD programs work fine on GTX cards, check their websitee for details on this.
 
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velocityg4

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As for the GPU. I'm not too familiar with your uses. The GTX 1080 Ti has decent double precision math speed of around 315 GFLOPs. It would really depend on the software you are using. For some workstation software a gaming GPU is equal to their workstation counterpart. For others a little slower or abysmal.

As for the Xeon. It can be fine for gaming. It should be roughly equivalent to an i7 of the same clock rate and core count. So, it depends on the model. If you could get your hands on one of the newer W series used in the likes of the iMac Pro or HP Z4. You can get high core counts and high turbo boost. You'd probably be better off getting an HP Z4 then adding your own GPU and PSU.

Threadripper also supports ECC memory. You just have to make sure the motherboard does. You could pair it with AMD Vega Frontier Edition. It shows good performance against a Quadro P6000 in workstation benchmarks. You'd have to look at your uses of course.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amd-radeon-vega-frontier-edition-16gb,5128-6.html

As far as dual 1080 Ti goes. Given how insane prices are on the 1080 Ti right now. You might as well buy a Titan V. Which is a computational monster. The dual 1080 Ti don't even come close. 6144 GFLOPs in double precision math.
 
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Rogue Leader

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I think he already owns 2 GTX 1080ti's based on the text of the post. Don't know how someone comes across two of those especially given GPU prices now without the rest of a system.
 
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sm620

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You're right about the SLi support. I looked around online and was unable to find one. even some of the more consumer XEON motherboards didn't mention SLi support. That could be a big problem in trying to have a gaming PC do important workloads where an error could be a big problem if I can't get ECC memory.

I'm not sure if you're right about the ECC memory on the Quadro cards though. I couldn't find anything on the Nvidia website mentioning ECC, but I found many secondary sources claiming that the Quadro P5000 and P6000 did have ECC. I'm not sure why it wouldn't be on the Nvidia datasheets. Also I bought my graphics cards before the price increases and have them on another computer

I could always just do two computers and move my hardware around depending on my current project
 
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sm620

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Yeah, I'll probably buy a nice workstation type GPU in a few years once I start working on more complicated projects. Right now I just want to have a versatile system that can do a little bit of everything because I tend to wait 4 or 5 years before upgrading the CPU/RAM/MOBO. I can always upgrade earlier than usual. My biggest concern right now is that I want to use a gaming motherboard and CPU with my two GTX 1080ti's, and I thought it would be cheaper to just go ahead and get the ECC memory support now and not have to buy another motherboard and CPU when I need it.

But if I can't get SLi support on a xeon compatible motherboard, then it might mess up my plans.
 
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Rogue Leader

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Thats where your decision point comes. A lot of people have come before you looking for the same thing. What it comes down to is if you want your workstation to do gaming or your gaming computer to do work there will always be compromises, you just need to decide whats more important.

I was wrong there are some Quadro cards that have ECC memory, for example the M5000

http://www.pny.com/nvidia-quadro-m5000

PNY is about as official as you can get other than Nvidia themselves.
 
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sm620

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I think I might just stick to a gaming computer at this point and buy different hardware as needed in the future. If I had my computer working for days on a project, the ECC memory would probably be useful, but I haven't gotten to that point yet. The Quadro cards could see volta upgrades soon, so there's no point in me buying any of those unless I really needed it now. I was hoping I could buy the motherboard and CPU for my future workstation because I'm going to need a new CPU and motherboard to run my two GTX 1080ti's in SLi. My current motherboard is an iTX board with one PCIe slot and the CPU is an i5 4670K. I'd rather not buy a new used motherboard just for SLi support because the CPU could become a limiting factor with more directX 12 games coming out.
 
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sm620

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Thanks for your help, I'm gald I didn't make the mistake of getting a xeon motherboard without SLi support. I guess I'll revisit this in the future when my work outgrows my gaming computer
 
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