I’m currently selecting parts for a home server. It’ll either be an r5 5600 or r5 7600.
The am4 platform is available with server grade motherboards but with those it costs just as much as an AM5 build without server grade stuff.
My biggest question however is: if I go AM4 now will the system still be receiving security fixes for the coming 3 years or more?
depends on the board manufacturer, some will. (avoid Asus, for a lot of reasons)
depending on your use case, first and second gen EPYC stuff is low cost and makes building a home server quite pleasant. instead of the compromises most people make when using desktop variants in a server role.
The board manufacturer for the am4 board would be asrock rack the specific board this one: X570D4I-2T. For am5 I had selected an ASUS board as it is one of the few that users have validated to fully support ecc error reporting.
Also I suppose I’m not just asking for board level fixes. But also x570 chipset drivers etc. It would run under linux and tbh I dont know how that is managed under linux.
the chipset and kernel patches on linux are mostly handled from AMD, and yes that stuff gets nearly eternal support. a fully decked out AM2 rig can run current linux distros.
you should be looking at EPYC. it will be an easier build just based off the minimal things you have said already, with better support for what you are trying to do.
Why do you want server grade? Just get a mobo that supports ECC and call it a day.
My two home servers run Asrock X570 Creator. I have run both server grade boards and none and unless you need IPMI it doesnt matter for home servers.
If its not home server and for a business maybe you can justify the server mobos.
REASONS TO JUST USE EPYC
OP said they are looking at ASRock Rack stuff. that will be more expensive compared to a desktop MB anyway. honestly i do not understand everyones disdain for EPYC on this forum. why would you build a home server on home gear when, for the same cost with a bit of shopping around, you can build a enterprise server?
AM4 has reg memory support nice, was not aware of that. (I dont think this is true but if it is could be worth it possibly)
EH console severs or piKVM etc (Transfers)
Lower cost for AM4 server boards?
Its almost always more expensive from what I have seen
@mutation666
my post was REASONS TO USE EPYC. not AM4 or AM5.
how did you get ‘AM4’ out of that. i literally said build a server with server gear.
Reply wasnt directly towards you. OP
Was asking why he wanted Sever grade board.
Thanks, yea I suppose that’s the most important thing. If the OS patches the severe security risks then that’s good enough for me.
I’ve looked but sp3/epyc does not end up being cheaper for me. Maybe this is due to the fact I’m limiting myself to mini-itx boards. I already have a nice case for it and I cant really return it. I’ll try to find something second hand but unless it makes a good difference I’ll probably be going am4/5.
as for @mutation666 your questions it is indeed like @Zedicus said. IPMI is nice to have. And yes I can add piKVM to am5 but it would end up costing a lot more and I do not currently need the extra power AM5 offers.
On top of that the board I selected has 8 sata ports on an ITX board. Current consumer AM5 boards with ECC support max out at a… whopping 2 sata ports.
Not to mention the single pci slot would be filled with a 10gbit ethernet card only leaving an nvme slot to add extra sata ports and one nvme for the boot drive. I do realize this is a limitation of mini-ITX. But “server grade” mini-ITX overcomes these limitations with stuff like oculink and having 10gbit on board.
The time I will actually need more than 4 sata ports is far in the future though. And by that time durable NVME drives will probably be dirt cheap. But it’s still good to know I have the option.
This is my first project like this though so I’m probably missing things or overthinking others. Feel free to call me out as that’s why I started the thread! Either way thanks for replying already
I don’t think mITX Epyc is cost effective and probably misses the point of it anyway.
You lose 4 channel memory and almost all the remaining 112 PCIe lanes.
Idle power consumption is something to think about too if it’s going to be idle most of the time.
Given Zen 3 or Zen 4, I’d be inclined to buy Zen 4 if I’m buying new.
Agreed so I’ll be picking between the two. However currently only Asus has an mITX board with ecc support. Asus isn’t exactly known for amazing software support. Not to mention the hassle with nvme to sata adapters etc I would need to do to get enough ports.
So it’s hard to pick for me. But that’s a me problem
https://www.asrockrack.com/general/productdetail.asp?Model=X570D4I-2T#Specifications
Theoretically you can get 4 SATA from 1 oculink port (there’s 2 on the board), but I’ve got no idea what kind of breakout cable you’ll need.
Edit: But you’re kinda in a weird spot between going for Zen 3 or 4. If you could wait, it’s probably better to wait for Asrock Rack to release an AM5 mITX board with the features you want.
Oh no you’re right I was talking about zen 4. that board is perfect and I wish it existed for zen 4. But it currently does not
One more vote to stay away from 1st/2nd generation EPYC, they are below sandy/ivy bridge levels of core performance.
For this one, the ASRock P/N is 14G504006300AK, OEM is JPC P4713SP10600-1. (Yeah, I’ve had to spend time on it… 
)
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