Xeon D anyone?

[Zarathustra[H]]

Has anyone else been following the news on these?

They seem pretty awesome.

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14nm Broadwell Xeons with 4 cores at 2.25Ghz or 8 cores at 2.0ghz, HT on both, and a reported ~5.5% IPC increase over haswell xeons, utilizing dual channel registered DDR4 maxing out at 128GB, but also with compatibility for DDR3L.

SOC with integrated dual 10Gbe ethernet and 2 gigabit ethernet, plus all the regular Sata and uSB stuff.

All of the above in a 45W TDP package, which is amazing, considering the 10gig ethernet typically takes 13-17W on its own.

And it's no slouch either, performing faster than a dual L5520 in the tests I have seen.

The downside is that they are not socketed designs, so you are buying the CPU and motherboard together, but on the flip side, rumored pricing seems surprisingly reasonable at $600 - $1000, which is rather amazing inand of itself considering that the price of a dual channel Intel 10GBe adapter on it's own is a very large chunk of this.

Thus far the only announced products I have seen are mini-ITX versions by Supermicro and an extended ITX version by Asrock Rack neither of which really fir the bill for me as I need more expansion.

The SOC maxes out at 24 total PCIe 3 channels + 8 additional PCIe 2 channels.

I'd like to see an ATX or EATX version with all 8x slots, where 3 of them are 8x PCIe 3 electrically and two are PCIe 2 4x electrically (or maybe 1 4x and 3 1x would work)

or maybe instead utilize some of those lanes for an on board LSI RAID controller (preferably one that can be reflashed as an HBA with IT firmware for ZFS use)

Has anyone else been eye balling these for your ESXi (or other virtualization) setups?

I like my 2x L5640, but it is 2x 60W, plus the power for the gigabit controllers, plus the power for the 10gbe controller...

I kind of wish these Xeon D's had been an option when I was upgrading my server last year...

 

[Quix]

Looks like the sort of thing you'd want to deploy to a cloud farm. Low cost, good performance and easy to replace. Install 200 units and go.

 

[lopoetve]

I'm eyeballing them for expansion, but not totally sold yet. Want to see street prices after a few months

 

[dasaint]

When These hit the market my plan is to replace my lab with them.... These things will be small/portable and AWESOME! I do think tho from a vSphere perspective we need them to have at least some form of active cooling... lately its been about the passive style which im not a huge fan of... Just a little fan can make a 10c Difference on a chip and that difference can be towards longevity of the board/cpu.

And ill pay the 10$ for the flipping fan if u dig.

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

When These hit the market my plan is to replace my lab with them.... These things will be small/portable and AWESOME! I do think tho from a vSphere perspective we need them to have at least some form of active cooling... lately its been about the passive style which im not a huge fan of... Just a little fan can make a 10c Difference on a chip and that difference can be towards longevity of the board/cpu.

And ill pay the 10$ for the flipping fan if u dig.

Yeah, it cant be too hard to stick one on there. It's not like I haven't done that a million time to various devices without fans over the years, but if in a case with good airflow, it might not even be necessary.

 

[dasaint]

Yeah, it cant be too hard to stick one on there. It's not like I haven't done that a million time to various devices without fans over the years, but if in a case with good airflow, it might not even be necessary.

The problem with that is Mini-ITX Formfactors... and good airflow sometimes dont hit the same line...

Examples are like the Synology Servers where if they had the right idea they woulda done it to lower cpu temps on their 1815+ and other types of systems... but say i wanted to put one in a Antec ISK-110 for portability... no airflow in that bad boy....

Smaller Case usually = Bad Airflow....

 

[lopoetve]

Some of the pics I've seen of the SuperMicro boards have fans on them.

 

[dasaint]

I have seen both i just have that preference to have it...

I wonder how VSAN type stuff would work with the M.2 SSD Style but i wonder if it would still be classified as an AHCI controller...

 

[lopoetve]

Use a PCIE SSD

Still have problems with the spinning disks - I'm sure those are still AHCI.

 

[longblock454]

I was anxious until:

"Estimated prices for the motherboards put them in the $800-$1000 bracket with the CPU"

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

I was anxious until:

"Estimated prices for the motherboards put them in the $800-$1000 bracket with the CPU"

Which is surprisingly reasonable if you add up the cost of a haswell 8 core xeon, supermicro motherboard, and a dual port 10 gigabit ethernet controller!

 

[peanuthead]

Which is surprisingly reasonable if you add up the cost of a haswell 8 core xeon, supermicro motherboard, and a dual port 10 gigabit ethernet controller!

I agree but too rich for my blood for a home lab.

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

I agree but too rich for my blood for a home lab.

Well, yeah, I'm not going to spend it either right now. I spent $750 on my dual L5640, motherboard and 96GB RAM just last year, so realistically I'm not in the market, but that power efficiency would be nice

 

[QHalo]

Been looking at these myself for an AF VSAN.

 

[Cerulean]

OP wants the D

 

[Riccochet]

One of these would make a nice replacement for my jet engine 2950. Less power, heat and noise.

But will the wife approve the purchase? Oh, this argument shall be joyous!

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

One of these would make a nice replacement for my jet engine 2950. Less power, heat and noise.

But will the wife approve the purchase? Oh, this argument shall be joyous!

How close is the jet engine to where she hangs out on a daily basis.

I find our significant others typically have lower noise/inconvenience tolerance for our hobbies than we do, so arguments like "power efficient" and "quiet" can go a long way.


Especially if that 2950 sounds anything like my HP DL180 G6 did

I had it in the basement and could hear it two stories up in the upstairs master bedroom with all the doors closed inbetween!

Needless to say it is dismantled now I'll give anyone who wants it a good deal

 

[Riccochet]

How close is the jet engine to where she hangs out on a daily basis.

I find our significant others typically have lower noise/inconvenience tolerance for our hobbies than we do, so arguments like "power efficient" and "quiet" can go a long way.


Especially if that 2950 sounds anything like my HP DL180 G6 did

I had it in the basement and could hear it two stories up in the upstairs master bedroom with all the doors closed inbetween!

Needless to say it is dismantled now I'll give anyone who wants it a good deal

lol! It's in my office closet. So, while I can tolerate it, she complains sometimes when I start working on it and the fans kick in to "mother of god loud" mode.

I have a C1100 that was turned on once .... once. Wife comes in "what the hell is that noise?!?" Pretty sure my neighbor called asking if I was building a plane.

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

So, I got a renewed interest in one of these after measuring my current server's power draw with a Kill-A-Watt.

280W at the wall during typical use.

I think I may have over provisioned more than I was planning, especially since I have never seen overall load exceed 20%

I guess I don't really need the 12 cores, and could easily go down to the 8 cores in the 1540. The clock speeds may be low, but the IPC is much improved over my LGA1366 Xeons.

The price for the SOC Board + CPU + Stuff is right, but what's stopping me is the ridiculous cost to get all the RAM I need.

I'd like to have at least the 96GB I have now, but I figure I could get away with 64GB...

If ECC DDR4 modules were cheaper...

 

[dasaint]

So, I got a renewed interest in one of these after measuring my current server's power draw with a Kill-A-Watt.

280W at the wall during typical use.

I think I may have over provisioned more than I was planning, especially since I have never seen overall load exceed 20%

I guess I don't really need the 12 cores, and could easily go down to the 8 cores in the 1540. The clock speeds may be low, but the IPC is much improved over my LGA1366 Xeons.

The price for the SOC Board + CPU + Stuff is right, but what's stopping me is the ridiculous cost to get all the RAM I need.

I'd like to have at least the 96GB I have now, but I figure I could get away with 64GB...

If ECC DDR4 modules were cheaper...

Agreed on the DDR4....

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

Agreed on the DDR4....

Yeah, it's too bad they aren't like some of the Haswell Xeons with both DDR3 and DDR4 memory controllers built in.

It would make for an easier upgrade path

 

[lopoetve]

The smaller one supports DDR3.

 

[dasaint]

I think that was a glitch if you look at the SuperMicro webpage now it only lists DDR4 before it was saying DDR3L but now it doesnt...

 

[QHalo]

Only DDR4.

 

[lopoetve]

I think that was a glitch if you look at the SuperMicro webpage now it only lists DDR4 before it was saying DDR3L but now it doesnt...

Dangit, there were a few other sites reporting the DDR3L as well

 

[dasaint]

IIR DDR3L and DDR4 have the same pinouts but i would probably use DDR4 anyways from a speed/density perspective. DDR3L i dont think has reached to 32GB DIMMS.... and i would be buying 32GB DIMMs to deal with long term approach..

1 Board - 2 32GB DIMMS each per starter setup... then when time came past and prices dropped get the other 32s and increase....

Based on ETA costs would be about $2000 per config (Board + RAM) since i got all the rest of the goods like PSU/Case/Etc.

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

IIR DDR3L and DDR4 have the same pinouts but i would probably use DDR4 anyways from a speed/density perspective. DDR3L i dont think has reached to 32GB DIMMS.... and i would be buying 32GB DIMMs to deal with long term approach..

1 Board - 2 32GB DIMMS each per starter setup... then when time came past and prices dropped get the other 32s and increase....

Based on ETA costs would be about $2000 per config (Board + RAM) since i got all the rest of the goods like PSU/Case/Etc.

Yeah, a little bit hefty of investment for a ~$30 per month electric savings

 

[dasaint]

30 * 12 = 360 * 5 years = 1800$ = savings.... it almost pays for itself

 

[PigLover]

30 * 12 = 360 * 5 years = 1800$ = savings.... it almost pays for itself

All based on 5 year use. Personally I've never gone 5 years before the itch for newer/faster/better pushed me into a replacement. Closer to 2, maybe 3.

 

[dasaint]

All based on 5 year use. Personally I've never gone 5 years before the itch for newer/faster/better pushed me into a replacement. Closer to 2, maybe 3.

Tru Dat.. lately tho my lab has actually lasted me about 4ish years now so im quite happy with it Xeon L5639's i added more cores from the beginning use to be L5520s but it was a minor upgrade... and ram was always my slowdown factor... i could see these lasting me 5 if i wanted to look at it like that... but in reality we all got the toys.

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

30 * 12 = 360 * 5 years = 1800$ = savings.... it almost pays for itself

Not if you consider the time value of money

In capital budgeting problems we use something called PV (or NPV in some cases).




Assume that I have the cash on hand, and my options are to put it in a savings account, at 1% return, or buy a new server and pocket the savings differences.

At the 1% rate, the present value of a 5 year monthly cashflow of $30 is $1755.03

At this rate, a $2000 investment would break even in 5.72 years.





If on the other hand, I am willing to instead take that upfront investment and stick it in an IRA with a guesstimated market return of 4% these figures change.

At the 4% rate, the present value of a 5 year monthly cashflow of$30 is $1628.97

At this rate a $2000 investment would break even in 6.29 years.



Now lets assume that I don't have the cash on hand, and I put that $2000 on a credit card with a decent 10% APR rate, and use the $30 per month to pay off the credit card.

Now my present value of my $30 monthly cash flow is $1411.96, and my $2000 break even is 8.14 years.



Let's assume my credit card rate isn't that great, but instead is pretty average, at 25% APR

Now my present value of my $30 monthly cash flow over 5 years is only $1022.10, and my $2000 investment fails to break even, as the $30 winds up maxing out the PV at ~$1440 after about ~51 years

All based on 5 year use. Personally I've never gone 5 years before the itch for newer/faster/better pushed me into a replacement. Closer to 2, maybe 3.

Good point.


Lets put some further limitations on this. Lets say the server will only be around for a compromize 3 years.

If I have the cash on hand, and my alternative investment is a savings account, the most I should spend on a server today for a $30 per month electric bill savings is: $1063.52

If I have the cash on hand, and my alternative is a 4% market investment, the most I should spend is: $1016.12

If I don't have the cash on hand, but have the decent credit card rate, the most I should spend is: $929.74

if I don't ahve the cash on hand, but have an average credit card rate, the most I should spend is: $754.53


And all of this is moot, as I think I miscalculated my power savings. They actually would wind up being much lower, as I was having a silly moment and comparing the power use of my server with its 14 hard drives, 6 SSD's and 2 SAS HBA's to the power use of the Xeon D without any of that. (The SOC is great with its built in NIC's in th epower envelope, but I'd still need to add the HBA's and drives. I was also using winter power rates, which here in Massachusetts are higher than the summer, so the annual average would be lower.

Real savings would more likely be $10 to $15, which would mean for this to make financial sense, I'd have to find a MUCH cheaper server



Considering I have the cash on hand, and don't really want to open an IRA (I use my 401k for retirement savings) that means my upgrade budget is ~$350 to ~$530.

That being said, if I could sell my 2 L5640's, current server motherboard and 96GB of RAM for ~$750 on the FS/FT that brings my total budget to $1100 to ~$1280.


And for that money I'd need to find a Xeon CPU with at least 8 cores and 45W or less TDP, a matching motherboard, and at least 64GB of RAM. Not impossible, but not easy either. And who knows if I'd actually be sucessful in selling my current parts