AMD or Intel

[_Rick_]

for a small storage (and some other stuff) server.
Aiming for 12 SATA HDDs, one ATA ODD and 2 ATA SSDs.
ATX form factor (CM Stacker)

Looking for an ECC-capable setup.

Currently running i5 650 on a GigaByte P55-UD5. Experienceing kernel panics recently - suspecting the board (swapped memory, and getting some disquieting log messages from one of the NICs....maybe I'll end up just popping in an Intel PCIe NIC)

Additional requirements besides ECC:
optical audio out (Linux compatible audio chip).

IEEE1394 (I guess in the worst case I could just put in a FW800 extension card - still, less of a hassle with it being onboard)

Two LAN ports (again, decent onboard capabilities preferred)

CPU capable of being cooled without much effort (currently: Scythe Yaysa without fan)

onboard video is a bonus.

AES-NI capability of the CPU is key requirement

more SATA ports means I can cheap out on separate SATA controllers to get up to 12. Running sw RAID, so during a rebuild there will be a bunch of sequential reading and writing - want this to be bottle necked by the disks, not the bus

PCI slot for my ATA controller card. onboard ATA is a bonus, as that means I have a shorter ATA connection to the ODD.

decent PCIe support - will install a heavy duty TV card, to replace my current less than ideal PCI TV-card.



With that in mind what I found so far:
Intel:
Xeon E3 1220LV2 or Xeon E3 1225V2 - I prefer the dual core, but integrated graphics are nice for debugging
ASUS P8C WS - the only "desktop" board (sound, firewire, ATX) with official ECC/Xeon support I have found so far, at least for Ivy Bridge

AMD :
FX 4100 (cheap, ECC, but that TDP is out of this world, and still on the same process node as my aging i5 650....)
A 990FX mainboard to have some ECC support - but documentation of which one actually supports ECC is not there - and there is no one board that truly does it all.

I suppose Piledriver is to launch soon, and currently I can deal with the odd kernel panic, so if that is to bring enhancements, it might be interesting.

If anyone has experiences with building a similar system, I'd be interested.
Any other input is welcome too, especially the "you're an idiot for not just getting a new NIC and sticking to your old build" kind


PS: Dear moderation team, I hope you agree with my judgment that this thread best fits into the storage and memory area....

 

[StarTech]

PS: Dear moderation team, I hope you agree with my judgment that this thread best fits into the storage and memory area....

Why would any one think otherwise ? It barely has anything to do with motherboad features.

 

[_Rick_]

Why would any one think otherwise ? It barely has anything to do with motherboad features.

The central features being: memory and storage interfaces.
It's also about CPU's and NIC's for that matter

But the main purpose of the machine is: storage.
Aside of that it also routes traffic, streams video and plays audio, but those are rather "checkbox features" where as memory and storage are rather the defining features of the build.

 

[StarTech]

I just think you would get more useful answers there. I suspect if you had posted it in the MB forum nobody would have wondered about being in the wrong place.
I hope you get your answers here.

 

[Cerb]

Given your amount of drives and wanting some reliability, I would seriously consider an a Xeon or Opteron setup, with registered ECC (go ahead and have some protection across the board), and plenty of slots. Then either make due with integrated coaxial audio (I'm having a hard time finding optical), or add a Linux-friendly card.

A server board would probably leave you without the optical audio and firewire, but you can get 4-6 PCIe and 1-2 PCI slots easily enough, and 8-14 SATA ports (4-6 Intel/AMD, 4-8 LSI SAS/SATA).

 

[Blain]

IEEE1394 (I guess in the worst case I could just put in a FW800 extension card - still, less of a hassle with it being onboard)

You'd need 1394b

 

[_Rick_]

You'd need 1394b

Only using IEEE1394 for a CF card reader, which happens to be FW800-IEEE1394b capable, but it's not a requirement. If I were to go for a dedicated card, then I would probably go for 800, but if there's an onboard controller, I'll take whichever.


I had a look at Opterons, and they're plain too expensive. 250 on a CPU that is just idling away 24/7 is a bit over the top. Plus, they don't have a desktop compatible socket...
No, if going with AMD, it will be Bulldozer or Piledriver, for the AES-NI+ ECC combination.

On the Intel side, with S1155 there are cheaper Xeons (180-200 euro for the two I listed) but most server boards with current gen chipsets for that socket have weird form factors from what I see.
S2011 is right out of my budget (and way beyond my requirements).


From the way I'm currently looking at it, I can save around a 100 euro on the total build by going with an AMD desktop chipset, vs the C216 P8C-WS, which would make up for the slightly less rounded out board configurations.
On the other hand, I haven't really been able to get decent info what the state of ECC-support is for FX990/AM3+ boards.

Thanks for all suggestions/feedback so far.

 

[LeftSide]

If you want to go with Intel, and save money, go with the i3 on a server motherboard. It has ECC support, but no VT support.
I initially bought everything around the g540, which is a great dual core processor for the money, it was a very fast dual core with ECC support. Later I bought a XEON so I could run ESXi.

 

[_Rick_]

If you want to go with Intel, and save money, go with the i3 on a server motherboard. It has ECC support, but no VT support.

No AES acceleration on the i3s and below