Virtualization Server: AMD X8 FX-8350 is it OK?

[Peroxyde]

Hi,

I am going to build a machine to serve as virtualization server. It's a home setup to learn
about Hyper-V 2012 and KVM. I think of using the following components. Can you please advise me if it is suitable:

- AMD X8 FX-8350

- Gigabyte 990FXA-UD3

- 2 x 16GB Patriot Viper3 2 x (2 x 8GB) DDR3 1866

The reason I choose 2 kits of (8GB x 2) RAM instead of a 8GB x 4 kit is because my local store has a 30% promotion off on these kits.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

 

[2is]

Should be fine, especially for home use to tinker with

 

[Cerb]

I would get a cheaper mobo, like a 970 one. I really don't see what you're getting for another $30-50 with the 990FX ones. Even the 970 boards have more perks than such a machine should need, but the much cheaper ones do give up amenities that could be useful during the machine's lifespan, such as SATA ports, multiple PCI-e >=8x slots (useful if you want to add a RAID or HBA controller), and USB 3.0.

On one hand, it will probably be a little overkill (you could get by OK with a Core i3-3xxx, FX-4300, or FX-6300). On the other hand, it will be a nice test box, and getting the beefy CPU and more RAM now could be nice when it comes time to re-purpose it.

If you think you really need a FX-8350, you're wrong. If you want an FX-8350, however, and might be able to use it well down the road, it's not a bad option at all.

 

[Ayah]

Should be fine, especially for home use to tinker with

ditto. Won't win the speed race, but should be more than enough.
Don't need to use a 4-piece kit. Unless you're going for benchmarking records, matched sticks aren't important.

 

[bgt]

the 990 uses more energy also. 970 has enough possibilities.

 

[Peroxyde]

I would get a cheaper mobo, like a 970 one. I really don't see what you're getting for another $30-50 with the 990FX ones. Even the 970 boards have more perks than such a machine should need, but the much cheaper ones do give up amenities that could be useful during the machine's lifespan, such as SATA ports, multiple PCI-e >=8x slots (useful if you want to add a RAID or HBA controller), and USB 3.0.

On one hand, it will probably be a little overkill (you could get by OK with a Core i3-3xxx, FX-4300, or FX-6300). On the other hand, it will be a nice test box, and getting the beefy CPU and more RAM now could be nice when it comes time to re-purpose it.

If you think you really need a FX-8350, you're wrong. If you want an FX-8350, however, and might be able to use it well down the road, it's not a bad option at all.

Hi,

I don't know well the chipset. If 970 can fulfill the job. Can you please advise a reliable 970 motherboard? This machine will just sit in a corner, no monitor. There is nothing glamorous in there besides the virtualization servers. Reliability is more important than features.

As for the CPU, I think of that AMD X8 just thinking that 8 cores do more threads than lesser models. May be the FX-8320 would do as well as the FX-8350 for my case.

Was thinking of i7 3770 Ivy Bridge + Z77 board. But finally I go for AMD mainly b/c this saves me arounnd $150.

My concern is the heat. I will buy the Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo. These FX-83xx are 125w beast, I wonder if that would be enough, the server will actually sit idle most of the time (exercise machine, no serious load).

Thanks for any advice

 

[Jimzz]

This is a good 970 board for less than $100...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813157280


And yes the 8320 should work just as well.

 

[Rvenger]

I would recommend anything that has more than 4 phases for a 8350. My FX-8150 @ 4ghz throttled like crazy on a Biostar TA970XE and you could hear the chokes squealing when it was throttling. MSI 990XA-GD55 is a great budget option.

 

[Headfoot]

Agreed on the 8320 instead of 8350

 

[Peroxyde]

I would recommend anything that has more than 4 phases for a 8350. My FX-8150 @ 4ghz throttled like crazy on a Biostar TA970XE and you could hear the chokes squealing when it was throttling. MSI 990XA-GD55 is a great budget option.

What does that means 4 phases? Where do I check that in the specs of the motherboard?

 

[Cerb]

Was thinking of i7 3770 Ivy Bridge + Z77 board. But finally I go for AMD mainly b/c this saves me arounnd $150.

Both the 6- and 8-core FX models get you more threads for your money. For a virtualization testbed, that can be handy.

My concern is the heat. I will buy the Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo. These FX-83xx are 125w beast, I wonder if that would be enough, the server will actually sit idle most of the time (exercise machine, no serious load).

Idle will be 10-20W more than an Intel, depending on PSU and mobo. The 125W only comes in to play when all modules are loaded, which shouldn't be too often.

What does that means 4 phases? Where do I check that in the specs of the motherboard?

The short answer is that it means spreading the load of voltage regulation across more devices, so each is under a lower load. Half of it is marketing.

The GA-970A-D3 looks pretty good, to me. The GA-78LMT-USB3 looks like a good lower-budget option, but one thing I'm not sure of is what effect the chipset has on idle power usage, if any.

 

[Dadofamunky]

I don't think you could go wrong with that at all, with the right motherboard and plenty of RAM.

 

[Peroxyde]

The GA-970A-D3 looks pretty good, to me.

Hi Cerb,

Thanks very much for your suggestion. Coincidentally this board has a discount at my local store. Costs me $75 (including 3 years direct exchange warranty). Half price of the Gigabyte 990FXA-UD3 I planned initially.

(GA-970A-D3 + FX-8320 + Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo) cost me less than the i7 3770 alone ?!? Will pickup the parts this weekend. I hope that there is no trap there because the difference in price is quite puzzling.

Now if you don't mind another silly question.

The GA-970A-D3 has two slots of PCI-Express 2.0 . I am going to connect a video card: Asus EN210 SILENT/DI/1GD2

Is there a recommended PCI-Express 2.0 slot to connect that video card?

Thanks in advance for any help.

 

[daveybrat]

Even though the AMD 8-Core processors run hot, it'll be just fine under a Hyper 212 Evo cooler.

And good call on the FX 8320, you don't need to spend the extra dough on the 8350 in my opinion.

 

[2is]

Hi Cerb,

Thanks very much for your suggestion. Coincidentally this board has a discount at my local store. Costs me $75 (including 3 years direct exchange warranty). Half price of the Gigabyte 990FXA-UD3 I planned initially.

(GA-970A-D3 + FX-8320 + Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo) cost me less than the i7 3770 alone ?!? Will pickup the parts this weekend. I hope that there is no trap there because the difference in price is quite puzzling.

Now if you don't mind another silly question.

The GA-970A-D3 has two slots of PCI-Express 2.0 . I am going to connect a video card: Asus EN210 SILENT/DI/1GD2

Is there a recommended PCI-Express 2.0 slot to connect that video card?

Thanks in advance for any help.

You'll want to use the one closest to the CPU socket.

 

[Cerb]

^ That.

But, to elaborate a little, the mobo actually has 1 PCI slot that is 16x, and one that is 4x, but 16x in size. PCI-e cards are compatible either way. You could plug a 1x card into a 16x slot, or, if it will fit, a 16x card into a 1x slot. It will just only use 1 lane. Some boards have implemented open-backed PCI-e slots in past, but the common thing to do today is to have a physical 16x-sized slot with not all of the lanes implemented.

The slot farthest from the CPU is one like that, electrically a 4x. The difference only really matters for gaming cards (PCI-e 2.0 4x is 2GB/s both ways), and drive controllers (in that it is still very common for desktop boards to only support a video card in the main 16x slot, so a RAID controller or HBA, at 4x or 8x, may or may not work in the first 16x slot).

 

[Peroxyde]

Hi friends,

I would like to thanks everybody who helped in this thread. I went exactly as you advised. AMD-FX8320, Gigabyte 970A-D3. A fortunate timing coincided with some store promotions on these parts allowed me to save $200 compared to the i7-3770 I initially planned. I put the saving towards extended warranty for Motherboard and RAM, better heat sinks and fans. And also a case, Fractal Design Define R4.

This case is absolutely wonderful, heavy, quiet, cable management, everything breaths quality. Cases at similar price at Antec and Cooler Master looks light and less finished.

I have done with the assembling. Memtest86+ 5.0RC1 rans for may be two days and no error. I was concerned about the heat and indeed the VRM area was uncomfortably hot. I solved the issue with a low tech solution by just "hanging" a fan to blow to the area.

https://www.box.com/s/p6d1bvjykjhuvdprsvn8

 

[Cerb]

The VRMs will pretty much always remain uncomfortably hot. Most of those chips are made to handle temperatures of 120-150C. The CPU fan and case exhaust fan will be plenty to keep them within safe temperature ranges.

 

[bijomaru78]

Hi

Sorry to revive this thread, but I've found it while researching a build for a Hyper-V test/learning environment.

I was wondering how happy you are with the CPU choice and how many different VMs are you running?

Any word of advice following your build? I'm planning to use a more expensive mobo, Crosshair V Formula Z, as it will also be my custom case build for normal use (dual OS).

Thanks in advance!

 

[B0D_Mr4ZU]

hello,
I wanted to revive the thread also

I managed to get
AMD fx-8320
asus sabertooth 990fx r2.0
crucial 1600 cl9 4+4GB ram
ATI HD5870

I wanted to use this build for visualization (as my bachelors thesis), some gpgpu/opencl, and also for games (I couldn't resist of course )

I would like to know, if you used any patches for hypervisors. Because of AMDs little different approach with the CPU architecture and the fact, that more software is fine-tuned for intel cpus. The thing is FX-8320 cpu is made of 4 modules, they both have 2 integer cores and 2 128bit FPUs but one L2 cache. This means that FX-8320 has 8 real cores, but software need to be tuned to be efficiently computed. (similar to intels hyper threading but with real cores) So both cores in a module need to work on "similar task" to run efficiently.
Did you get any experiences with this? I would really like to hear about your setup and how is it performing.

Thank you

 

[creativedotit]

I would like to know, if you used any patches for hypervisors. Because of AMDs little different approach with the CPU architecture and the fact, that more software is fine-tuned for intel cpus. The thing is FX-8320 cpu is made of 4 modules, they both have 2 integer cores and 2 128bit FPUs but one L2 cache. This means that FX-8320 has 8 real cores, but software need to be tuned to be efficiently computed. (similar to intels hyper threading but with real cores) So both cores in a module need to work on "similar task" to run efficiently.
Did you get any experiences with this? I would really like to hear about your setup and how is it performing.

Thank you

For this point absolutely do not worry:

8 AMD real cores are way far better than 4+4 Intel Hyperthreading at same frequency. For Hypervisors (and generically multitasking) at least. In fact for instance in Virtualbox isn't advised to assign to a vm more cores than real CPU cores. Hyperthreading never convinced me and many others. Also you said it: it's just an added FPU per core, but sharing the same cache and pipeline, so it's more a bottleneck than helpful compared to real cores (in fact AMD FX 8320 achieves a better floating point benchmark than an i7 4th generation). AMD keeps it simple, but this can mean more power sometimes (IMO). I personally use AMD on all my rented servers i use for virtualization. And for the same price at OVH I can rent an Intel HT powered server (see ovh.com's hosting gamma vs. enterprise gamma), So it's not a budget point, I pick AMD just for this reason: more real cores. (I tried also an Intel before and I wasn't happy of the server performance under - multitasking based - cpu load)

Regarding instructions sets also, AMD is widely used for virtualization too and the FX exposes a good feature set for Hypervisors:

http://www.amd.com/en-us/products/processors/desktop/fx

AMD Virtualization™ (AMD-V&#8482 Technology with IOMMU

Silicon feature-set enhancements designed to improve the performance, reliability and security of existing and future virtualization environments by allowing virtualized applications with direct and rapid access to their allocated memory.
IOMMU is an extension to AMD64 architecture to support address translation and access protection on DMA transfers
Security for User Level application and Virtual Machine guest operating system
Address translation and access control
Device isolation
Device assignment in virtualized systems
Security and trusted boot support
Unified interrupt management
Benefit: Helps virtualization software to run more securely and efficiently enabling a better experience when dealing with virtual systems

PS. most binary software is not tuned for a specific CPU family. You can tune a software for a CPU when you compile it (on a compiled OS or with a specific compiler libraries), but generically a binary package distributed by a vendor is complied with a super-backward-compatible (read "obsolete") instruction set.

E.g. in linux package repositories all the software is complied with a standard instruction set called "x86" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X86) for 32bits architectures or "amd64" for 64bits (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X86-64, yes let's remember that AMD was the first to introduce 64bit arch, like with FX the first to bring 8 real cores at so affordable price) this is valid also for windows .exe binaries you can install on a real machine or vm, they are complied to use a standard cpu instruction subset. Exceptions are rare and very specific.

 

[TurtleCrusher]

My FX-8350 runs very cool with an Arctic Freezer Pro 7 with the stock paste. I've never seen it break 56C even with prime on all cores.

 

[soccerballtux]

I would recommend anything that has more than 4 phases for a 8350. My FX-8150 @ 4ghz throttled like crazy on a Biostar TA970XE and you could hear the chokes squealing when it was throttling. MSI 990XA-GD55 is a great budget option.

my 970A-UD3P has the phases but not the cooling, neither does the 990FXA so I glued a fan onto my VRM heatsink. The heatsink they put on 8 years ago were much better.

 

[soccerballtux]

My FX-8350 runs very cool with an Arctic Freezer Pro 7 with the stock paste. I've never seen it break 56C even with prime on all cores.

sounds like the user isn't doing anything significant

 

[TurtleCrusher]

sounds like the user isn't doing anything significant

Pfft, prime95 lit up temps on my C2Q. Is there a different temp barometer? A program using 100% of 8 cores is generally rare. When I play Starcraft 2 temps never break 47C despite two cores loaded to the max.