I think a i9-10980xe will be perfect for what i need but ive been told its not, help?

so for context, this is not for my main pc, this is for one of 3 servers in the rack im currently building, this will be the 2nd most powerful multipurpose server, the server will be a primary nas over my poweredge as well as a gaming machine for when friends are over, as well as just a workstation and vm hosting server, and i was looking at the i9-10980xe, ive always wanted one because its super cool, as well as it meets every requirement i have, but my friend who is a huge nerd in expensive hardware told me that i shouldnt get it, heres my requirements:

-48+ pcie lanes
-18+ cores
-256gb+ ddr4 ram support (with 8x32gb support)
-atleast 4 pcie x16 slots on the motherboard
-2019 or newer
-can game well at 1080/1440p ultra/high
-must be a single cpu
-must fit on an eatx or smaller board

im trying to stay within 1000 usd budget, gpus and drives and ram not included, i really think the
i9-10980xe with a asus pro ws sage ll x299 is perfect for this, but hes insisting it isnt, he recommended i come here so i did, can anyone help me?

everyone is going to have an opinion, i would say that seems like a nice system for your needs except i would not use an ASUS mainboard if someone gave me one for free. also, if NAS is important to you, you should use ECC RAM.

Ah yes ecc, i would use it but sadly it is not supported on the 10980xe, and may i ask, why wouldnt you use an asus board? ive used plenty, as well as just asus stuff in general it has never failed me of diappointed me, whats your experiances?

You can use unbuffered ecc

oh, i didnt know that, thanks, i will, can i put heatsinks on bare ram? i do overclocking of my ram a lot and i think in a rack the ram might get a bit hot

I wouldn’t go ever spec on ECC, you just start getting transparently corrected errors overflowing your bandwidth and you think it’s stable but it’s just actually slower

ECC usually tops out at 3200mhz

As long as you have good airflow in the case it should be fine, registered is the one that gets hot

i typically like to get 2666 ram when in high capacity as its often loads cheaper, so thats why i would overclock a bit

What application do you use that needs 256GB of ram

NAS and vms, at the same time, as well as rendering and server hosting

When you have that much ram the odds of getting a flipped bit are exponentially higher because you have more bits that can be flipped, so ECC and not overclocking ram are both important

alright, thanks, would you agree that the 10980xe would be perfect for my use case?

Depends on how much you can get the system for, have you looked into Thread ripper pro 5965wx system that might be better

well, i would be able to get a -9-10980xe and a asus pro ws sage ll x299 for like 700-850, would that work?

Yeah that’s cheaper than the TR pro route

Have you looked into xeons might be cheaper

yea, xeons just dont have the capabilitys i need, also there a pain in the ass for what i need, i used to use xeons, funny how a desktop processor has better sever like features then some xeons lol

i debated threadripper but i was like, i dont really need threadripper but i need more then a basic first gen but not like a second gen, which is more expensive

a W-2295 is identical to an i9-10980XE, except it supports ECC and 4x more RAM.

its also 3x the price, used

I think that the w3175Xs are like 250$ right now, overclockable

where i live there still over a grand even used

Greetings! The forums says to welcome you to the forum so welcome to the forums.

Playing with tech that you find cool should be equally considered in homelab along with function IMO. Or you can go full LGR and have a bunch of hardware primarily good for retro gaming.

Indeed everyone will have their own opinion. I wouldn’t say it’s not capable of doing what you want but it wouldn’t be my personal choice. I 2nd the threadripper option myself.

Do you already have a plan laid out for host OS, device pass-through ect?

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