Stuck in a quandary....

Y

ythe1300

Weaksauce
Joined
Dec 16, 2011
Messages
117
Hi guys, I'm looking for some input. I been doing more and more with VMs lately, pretty light weight stuff mostly for testing things, and a couple of light weight servers. Anyway I was playing around with the idea of getting an E3-1270 to replace my 3570K. I know on a instructions per cycle level they are the same, however the 1270 has Hyper Threading and the 3570K doesn't.

My motherboard should be able to support this swap, but the chips are going for around $170 on fleaby... Which leads me into my problem.. I can get a "Refurbished" i5 System off Newegg with an i5 from the same generation as mine for the near the same price or less than the cost of a used Xeon E3 and I would have a system that's not my main to play with.
​
I know it would need more RAM if i went with the refurb but I have a 4X4gb kit that I could shove in if I found one with 4 slots. This would allow me run my VMs and not have to turn them off when I'm playing games or doing windows updates.

Let me know what you all think, or if you have any other ideas and if this is even the right area to post this.

CPU Compatiblity list - http://www.gigabyte.co.za/Motherboard/GA-H77-DS3H-rev-10#support-cpu

Xeon E3 - http://www.ebay.com/itm/CPU-Intel-X...876952?hash=item3616361498:g:1BUAAOSwB-1Yn-HG

A couple of systems like I would be looking at instead of the Xeon.
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIAAJ24DK4882

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIAAJ25244883
 
Last edited:
As an eBay Associate, HardForum may earn from qualifying purchases.
They may be the same socket and even the same generation, but Xeon CPUs won't always work in mainboards meant for Core i3/i5/i7 units. Depends on how the mainboard manufacturer programmed the bios, etc. Anyways, I can't see putting that much money into a Sandy Bridge system for components that can't be moved to a new system later (i.e., GPU or storage, sure; CPU or RAM, no).

Regardless, if you're serious about learning/running VMs a second dedicated system is definitely the way to go. You don't mention what hypervisor you're planning on using (ESXi, Hyper-V, KVM, etc.), which can affect the hardware available to use (e.g., ESXi's hardware compatibility is much more limited than KVM, which can run on most anything modern Linux can). Also, I'd stay away from the old socket 1366 systems and the like that are really cheap right now. They generally suck huge amounts of power and are not at all quiet.
 
Sorry for the lack of specificity, I'm going to be using the system mainly for testing ESXi and KVM, I have very little interest in Hyper-V. My motherboard has the E3-1270 v2 Xeon on it's compatibility list. Noise isn't an issue as I can shove the system in another room, but I would care a little about the power usage. I'll have to look over the hardware requirements for ESXi.

Thank you fort he reply.
 
What are your power limits? I only ask because you can find servers in your price range (</= ~$170) which will better suit the environment and probably give you an upgrade path if you need.

I'm running DL380 G6's (yes 1366). While I wouldn't call them eco friendly they aren't horrible either only drawing about ~250W each. I have yet to see what the draw is after putting in some lower wattage cpu's. If you don't run them 24/7 this shouldn't be too big of a deal and you may be able to shave a few watts by removing hardware you don't want running at the time (extra cpu's, hdd's). You can also look at their list and put in lower wattage cpu's.

otherwise maybe save up a bit more to make a second system that is more power friendly?

If you are interested, I can get my kill-o-watt meter to give some numbers.
 
Last edited:
If you plan on learning ESXi for serious work purposes a second server is a good idea because you can play with things like vMotion (moving running VMs from one server to another).

You can also build up the second server to learn how to set up iSCSI and SAN support for ESXi.

I use an old i5-2500 as a Hyper-V box holding my domain controller VM and vCenter (not the vCSA appliance) for my ESXi server.
 
Outlaw85 said:
What are your power limits? I only ask because you can find servers in your price range (</= ~$170) which will better suit the environment and probably give you an upgrade path if you need.

I'm running DL380 G6's (yes 1366). While I wouldn't call them eco friendly they aren't horrible either only drawing about ~250W each. I have yet to see what the draw is after putting in some lower wattage cpu's. If you don't run them 24/7 this shouldn't be too big of a deal and you may be able to shave a few watts by removing hardware you don't want running at the time (extra cpu's, hdd's). You can also look at their list and put in lower wattage cpu's.

otherwise maybe save up a bit more to make a second system that is more power friendly?

If you are interested, I can get my kill-o-watt meter to give some numbers.
Click to expand...


I would really be interested in what type of power these units are pulling. If they are at 250w idle that seems like pretty high power usage for what I will be doing with them. I have looked at some of the available refurbs on NewEgg and they are pretty cheap for the hardware they are packing. But 250w would end up being like $260 if I let run 24/7 that's more than my water-heater. :(

I'm more apt to get something with lower power draw if I'm going to let it run all the time.

I wonder how something like this would do with ESXi, (NewEgg Link HP 8300 USDT)

I also have a Lenovo laptop with an i3-2XXX in it, I wonder how that would be have as a fail-over for esxi... I may try that out as I wouldn't have to spend anything on that.


rtangwai said:
If you plan on learning ESXi for serious work purposes a second server is a good idea because you can play with things like vMotion (moving running VMs from one server to another).

You can also build up the second server to learn how to set up iSCSI and SAN support for ESXi.

I use an old i5-2500 as a Hyper-V box holding my domain controller VM and vCenter (not the vCSA appliance) for my ESXi server.
Click to expand...

We have ESXi at work, but it (thankfully) has been rock solid the entire time I've been there, I've never even had to restore from a backup or snapshot for instance.

That being said this always makes me nervous as I have only read how to do the recovery tasks.

Seeing as I can't (/won't) experiment on productions systems, I really want to try these things out, I'm planning on setting up an iSCSI target on my home freeNAS box for storage and testing out all the things I can't do at work.


Thanks for all the input so far, I'm going to figure out what else I can' turn off in my house to make up for the power difference if I get one of those 1366 systems.
 
I'll try to get some numbers tomorrow/night depending on whats going on. It's our first really nice weekend and we have some yard work to do. I'll try to get a few variations for reference. 250 is about idle though. I want to say that was shortly after power up.

Like you and BlueLineSwinger said though, they certainly aren't the most power efficient. For your budget, I would search the FS/T section here. A lot of excellent sellers and really good deals.

To the ESXi part, could you get the company to pay for a small 2 node (minimum) configuration as a lab environment (in the datacenter/closet.. etc of course)? Depending on the size of the company, it would be recommended anyways for application/stability/functionality testing.


Flipping this around to put my capacity management hat on (what I do at work). Do you have an idea of workloads you would have? or just looking to clone a few vms for simulation? Like rtangwai is doing, you could get some basic cheap hardware as long as it supports virtualization. Something like a 2 node with 4core and 8GB or 16GB ram each. This would be more than enough to test, just keep in mind, the lower the spec, the longer it may take. If you are going to do testing with workloads, that can change things obviously.

That linked 8300, I think someone has one listed in the FS/T section and said they were doing this very thing. It would be more than enough if what I said above is true. Since you already have the laptop, as long as you don't need the data/or is already backed up. It's worth a try. Because it's a laptop, there MAY be compatibility issues but free is free and it's part of the learning.

Not sure if this applies to all of the elite 8xxx series, but looks like there is a nic support issue with vmware. I skimmed the doc and looks like it goes over workaround- http://www.yoyoclouds.com/2012/08/create-your-own-custom-esxi-image-using.html
You may want to add a nic card anyways (check support first) to do setups more like work (separate nic for mgmt, vmotion,iscsi..etc).

*update*
Found this- https://hardforum.com/threads/fs-i5-ivybridge-ddr3-ram-dell-latitude-e6330-gtx580-etc.1925557/
2x i5-3470 plus ram for sale. May be able to get a good bundle deal (i've never worked with seller). Would just need to find supported boards, which may just need to be searched. I'll start you off :) https://pcpartpicker.com/b/TJgscf
 
Last edited:
Update.
This is on my 2x DL380 G6 servers
Specs-
HST1- 2x L5638
HST1- 72GB
HST1- 2x 146GB SAS

HST2- 2x E5540
HST2- 72GB
HST2- 3x1TB SATA

2x L5638

--1PSU Physically installed / 2PSU Physically installed, only 1 powered
-1.48Amp / 1.48Amp (1.47-1.51)
-180Watt (173-190) / 173Watt (171-189)

--2PSU
-1.59Amp
-185Watt (no flux)
--VMs
3 VMs using about 7% CPU, 44% Mem (using vCenter performance tab)

IDLE (ESXI only)
--1PSU
-1.06Amp (1.01-1.09) / 1.06Amp (1.03-1.09)
-125Watt (119-130) / 125Watt (120-133)
--2PSU
-1.13Amp (1.12-1.24)
-131Watt (130-135)

================================================================================

2x E5540

--1PSU Physically installed / 2PSU Physically installed, only 1 powered
-1.3Amp / 1.39Amp (1.3-1.54)
-150Watt (146-165) / 160Watt (154-183)

--2PSU
-1.47Amp
-168Watt (158-181)
--VMs
1 VM using about 2.5% CPU, 27% Mem (using vCenter performance tab)
During 2 VM vmotion
-1.78Amp
-198Watt
--4VMs using about 8% CPU, 67% Mem (using vCenter performance tab)
-1.7Amp
-195Watt

Anything in ( ) is the fluctuation numbers. The number before is what was displayed the most. Unfortunately I couldn't get comparison numbers for idle on the E5540 because I need to get the storage setup in the SAN first. I was unable to vmotion my xpenology/plex vm because of this. If you need more clarification or numbers, please let me know.

Happy Easter!
 
For comparison's sake, my E3-1230v3 w/ 32 GB RAM ECC and a single SSD runs at ~30-50 W. Currently running ~6-8 guests under ESXi (though thinking of switching to Proxmox). If you get something capable of more cores/RAM a Sandy/Ivy Bridge-E system shouldn't run too much higher.
 
Those are awesome numbers. I wish I could push that. The only problem I had is the upfront cost. I got lucky and didn't have to pay for the DL380's but at the price they're at. I would have likely picked up one or two due to the cost compared to the newer systems yet.
 
I was in a pickle virtually identical to you OP. I traded my 3570K for another 3rd gen processor with a member here. Only cost me shipping. Just post in the FS/FT, I got a ton of replied from folks when I did. I got a 3770 (VT-d and HT) for my 3570K. People want the K series for overclocking and are very willing to trade with you.
 
Outlaw85 said:
Those are awesome numbers. I wish I could push that. The only problem I had is the upfront cost. I got lucky and didn't have to pay for the DL380's but at the price they're at. I would have likely picked up one or two due to the cost compared to the newer systems yet.
Click to expand...

True, the upfront cost for my system (purchased mostly new a few years ago) was probably significantly more than what you paid. But for me the cost was worth it for the reduced power usage (CA rates), noise, and heat output. But such a like system, while still not as cheap as something based on the L5638/E5540/etc., should be significantly cheaper now.
 
BlueLineSwinger said:
True, the upfront cost for my system (purchased mostly new a few years ago) was probably significantly more than what you paid. But for me the cost was worth it for the reduced power usage (CA rates), noise, and heat output. But such a like system, while still not as cheap as something based on the L5638/E5540/etc., should be significantly cheaper now.
Click to expand...

Makes sense for you in CA.. I've read about them and it's crazy. I would definitely jump into something like that for the utility bill.. probably paid for itself in the first year :)

I can't agree more about the power. I wish it were lower, especially since I don't have much load on them. What is your system load from the perf overview in vCenter out of curiosity? To the heat/noise output (and may be different for CA, we have basements so keeping it cool without extra hvac isn't a concern. Also, at least on these 2U DL380's, the noise isn't noticeable unless standing in the doorway to the part of the basement they are in. They only really scream on bootup for a few seconds.


I did find this- http://www.ebay.com/itm/HP-Z210-SFF...047582?hash=item21245dcbde:g:AeYAAOSwol5YyDwc

Not the v3 like yours, but the CPU is only rated 3w TDP higher and should still have significant power efficiency over something like mine. Unless I missed something, might be a good budget entry level setup, no?
 
As an eBay Associate, HardForum may earn from qualifying purchases.
Wow, for the price those are hard to beat. Wasn't expecting something that cheap, especially given they come with 16 GB RAM.

Some minor quibbles though (always gotta compromise when buying used). Lack of IPMI would make it more cumbersome to get up and going, but a cheap keyboard and VGA monitor could be used. The serial ports could also be used with some type of console server for some basic management. Also, for some reason they're specced for a max of only 16 GB (despite Sandy Bridge itself having a max of 32 GB). I'd bet they will run 32 GB, but the (probable) current 4x4 GB setup means you'd have to toss all of those to upgrade to 32 GB.

One odd thing I just noticed however: Based on the photos and description here's no GPU card installed, but the E3-1230 (and any Xeon E3 that ends in zero) doesn't have an IGP. Not sure what's driving the VGA and DP ports.
 
Looking HERE. The board only supports upto 4GB dimms (x4 slots). Looks like the board is HP 614491-002 but I couldn't find any specifics in a quick search.
In the same doc it does state:
-Integrated Intel HD Graphics 2000 (on Intel Core i3/Core i5/Core i7 processors).
-Integrated Intel HD Graphics P3000 (on Intel Xeon E3-12x5 processors).

Looks to be certain CPUs that the board supports will work otherwise, to your point, you'll need a card.

With your callouts, it still seems like a decent 'lab' box for starters.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top