Powerful server / workstation build

[chx]

1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc

Gaming, testing in RAM databases, programming...

2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?

I am trying to squeeze myself into $1500.

3) Which country do you live in? If the U.S, please tell us the state and city if possible.

I live in Canada but I am frequently enough in the US, Denver, Colorado.

4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. The word "Everything" is not a valid answer. Please list out all the parts you'll need.

CPU, RAM, cooler, HDD, SDD, video card.

5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
6) Will you be overclocking?

not if I can help it.

7) What is the max resolution of your monitor? What size is it?

I have an IBM T221 @ 3840 x 2400 and a vanilla 42" 1080p LCD on the wall.

8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?

March.

9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? USB 3.0? SATA 6Gb/s? eSATA? Onboard video (as a backup or main GPU)? etc.

RAM. Lots and lots of RAM. The idea below contains 48GB. If I could find a good 64GB build I might go with that.

10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If yes, what OS? Is it 32bit or 64bit?

Linux. 64 bit.

1. ASUS Z8NA-D6C MB ($200-ish)
2. 48GB RAM ( 3 * KVR1066D3Q8R7SK2 is only $400 or so)
3. two quad core LGA 1366 Xeons (I will see what can I find on eBay at 80W or below and $150 max each, at worst, Intel Xeon E3 1220 on Newegg is $210)
4. two Noctua NH-U9DX 1366 coolers ($120, I checked the http://download.intel.com/design/processor/designex/320837.pdf socket clearance size and it seems to me the socket is 104 * 104 mm while the Noctua is 96*90 mm with fan)
5. GIGABYTE GV-R777D5-1GD or GV-R685OC-1GD ($160)
6. two Hitachi 5K3000 2TB (likely RAID1) ($240)
7. Intel 320 40GB ($90)

So hopefully less than $1500. I have an Antec SOLO and an OCZ 550W Fatal1ty PSU already. I am undecided yet whether to pick a Radeon 7770 or a Radeon 6850 but I am leaning towards the 6850.

I plan to run Linux on this and use a VM to play games occassionally. I am fairly certain this machine will have enough oomph to cope with the speed penalty of the VM

What do you think? Did I miss something obvious...?

 

[Dangman]

My main question: Do you want us to link U.S stores or Canadian stores?


A few things:
1) The Xeon E3 1220 will not work since it's a socket LGA1155 CPU. If you want to stick with that motherboard, grab the Xeon E5504 or E5506 at the least.

2) Don't pay more than $145 for any HD 6850. Otherwise, you're better off with the HD 6870 can be found for around $165 to $180 these days. I can't recommend the HD 7770 at the moment considering that HD 6870 is faster and can be had for around the same pricing as the HD 7770. This will definitely change in the next few months as stocks of HD 6870 cards dry up and therefore go up in price. But right now, the HD 6870 is the better bang for the buck card over the HD 7770.

3) 40GB is very limiting in a SSD. Not to mention that while super reliable, that SSD isn't that fast compared to other SSDs. I recommend grabbing the Crucial M4 64GB SSD instead. Just as reliable, has more space, and doesn't cost that much more than that 40GB:
$105 - Crucial M4 CT064M4SSD2 2.5" 64GB SSD

4) Might want to think about replacing that PSU as well: The quality of that PSU is so-so at best.

 

[chx]

Any mix of Canadian and US online works.

I am not particularly married to that motherboard but going with >32GB of RAM requires more than 4 DIMM slots. This means LGA 1366 (six slots even on single socket MBs) or LGA 2011 (eight DIMM slots). Given the abudance of good, affordable LGA 1366 CPUs on eBay ( http://www.ebay.com/itm/220923832735 E5506 for $110) and the possibility to use two of them, I had doubts that a single Sandy Bridge E could deliver a better bang for the buck. The $210 BOXDX79TO is certainly a nice price with the possibility of 64GB RAM, so perhaps I will go with that and an i7-3820. Actually digging into this, it seems the SB architecture is 15% faster clock-for-clock than the Nehalem and so four Sandy Bridge cores at 3.6GHz roughly equals four Nehalems at 4.15 GHz and so this would be roughly equivalent to eight Nehalems at 2.13GHz but not many programs can utilize eight cores so actually the SB will win. Interesting! And there's the turbo as well which might help with 1-2 core workloads (=games).

There's some money to be won by having one socket and so only one cooler, too. The SOLO fits 160mm high coolers so a single Noctua NH-D14 SE2011 will do. Small coolers FTW

As for the video card, I was trying to find quieter ones (yes, I am crazy but I think this setup doesn't need to be loud) but then I found manufacturer refurbished Asus EAH6870 DC for $181 so that might work.

Thanks for that SSD idea, indeed looks better.

 

[Dangman]

Actually digging into this, it seems the SB architecture is 15% faster clock-for-clock than the Nehalem and so four Sandy Bridge cores at 3.6GHz roughly equals four Nehalems at 4.15 GHz and so this will be faster than eight Nehalems at 2.13GHz (especially given that not many programs use eight cores). Interesting.

With applications that do use more than four cores, that eight Nehalems will actually outperform the SB CPUs. But if the programming and database in RAM testing you're doing isn't particularly heavily multi-threaded, you should be fine with the i7-3820.

As for the RAM itself, I recommend this RAM:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231485

As for the motherboard, do as much research as possible on whatever eight DIMM X79 mobo you're planning to buy. As a new platform, they are suffering some teething issues.

As for the video card, I was trying to find quieter ones (yes, I am crazy but I think this setup doesn't need to be loud) but then I found manufacturer refurbished Asus EAH6870 DC for $181 so that might work.

Yeah $180 is about the max I'd recommend paying for the HD 6870 considering that the faster GTX 560 TI can be had for around $215.

 

[chx]

VT-d is not a CPU thing but a chipset one? http://www.intel.com/support/processors/xeon5k/sb/CS-031637.htm Still, http://news.softpedia.com/news/Intel-s-First-Sandy-Bridge-E-CPUs-Will-Lack-VT-d-Support-224919.shtml it seems the first SB-E disabled VT-d but the i7-3820 is listed http://ark.intel.com/products/63698/Intel-Core-i7-3820-Processor-(10M-Cache-3_60-GHz) as having VT-d while the other two SB-E isn't. This is very confusing.

http://wiki.xen.org/wiki/VTd_HowTo look, ASUS Z8NA-D6 (dual processor nehalem board) works. Per wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGA_2011 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGA_2011 says all except C1 stepping but the i7-3820 never had a C1 stepping.

Edit: http://siphon9.net/loune/2011/01/list-of-sandy-bridge-lga1155-h67p67-motherboards-that-support-vt-d/ this is the most colossal flustercuck I have ever seen... however the Intel DQ67SW is only $125 so if I go with 32GB, that's fine.

Hrm, only 32GB? With a 8GB stick going for $60, stripping two only yields $120 which basically allows for a second SSD but not more than that.