1st Dual Socket Build Advice

[Collider]

Very interested in building a dual socket machine for hobby, and need some advice as this will be my first dual socket build.

Older server CPU's & Mobo can be had on eBay for budget price. So Thinking about getting a dual Socket G34 Motherboard like this:
http://www.supermicro.com/Aplus/motherboard/Opteron6000/SR56x0/H8DGU-F.cfm

.. and a couple of Opterons to go with it.

According to Supermicro's manual it looks like the motherboard accepts a 20pin + 2 x 8pin CPU cables, so it looks like it will work with ATX PSU:
http://www.supermicro.com/Aplus/support/resources/results.cfm

2-8 Connector Definitions - Power Connectors:
A 20-pin main power supply connector(JPW1) and two 8-pin CPU PWR connectors (JPW2/JPW3) on the motherboard. These power connectors meet the SSI EPS 12V specifi cation. In addition to the 20-pin ATX power connector, the 12V 8-pin CPU PWR connectors at JPW2/JPW3 must also be connected to your power supply.​

Questions:

- Maybe someone who has more experience with server motherboards, can confirm that this board will work with regular ATX PSU.

- For RAM: what is the minimum RAM configuration I can run, 1 DIMM for each CPU, etc? (don't need much RAM)

- I know that some server motherboards need their rack case to run. I think this motherboard can run without any case, which is what I plan to do just run it as open air build. Is this possible with this board?

Thanks in advance!

 

[XavierMace]

It will work with "regular" ATX power supplies if it has two 8-pin CPU cables. Which most don't. 1 Dimm per CPU is minimum, 4 per CPU is recommended. Server motherboards don't "need" a rack case to run. That said, the motherboard you linked to is not an ATX form factor. Open air is never an optimal setup.

Last but not least, what's your goal with this system? I'd personally far rather go with an Sandy Bridge-EP or Ivy Bridge-EP build than a Piledriver build.

 

[Collider]

Thanks for your reply.

I think its a relatively cheap way to get to 32 cores.

However, I'm open to Intel as well. For benefits of Sandy/Ivy Br. did you mean having PCIe 3.0, USB3.0 & SATAIII?

 

[XavierMace]

Ivy has far better IPC. You haven't said what this system is going to be used for, but there's a pretty limited number of things that would benefit from 32 cores with a minimal amount of RAM.

 

[Collider]

At the moment I just want to play around with CPU mining.

I have lots of spare DDR3, so adding more RAM and using it as a VM server is another possibility. PCIe 3.0 is not really necessary, and lack of SATAIII & USB3.0 can be addressed by adding PCIe adapters.

So I figured its not a bad setup...

 

[XavierMace]

I'm not an expert on mining so I don't know what the exact return is based off the hash rate, but here's some numbers I found:

INTEL XEON E5-2690 0 (x2) 1032 h/s @ 135 Watts
AMD OPTERON 6276 (x2) 1003 h/s @ 230 Watts

Slightly faster at the task and using 40% less power to do it, is not insignificant in my books. Assuming you pay $0.12 per kWh and are going to run 24x7, that's $105/yr in electricity cost difference between the Xeon and Opteron. Just on electricity cost alone (not factoring in mining performance), that means it will take 16 months for the Xeon's to pay for themselves with their superior efficiency over the Opterons.

 

[VirtualLarry]

If you want to do CPU mining, get Ryzen or ThreadRipper.

 

[XavierMace]

If you want to do CPU mining, get Ryzen or ThreadRipper.

Your return is going to be far better on a surplus server.