Anyone mind looking over these spec for me? It's for my primary workstation primarily using 3ds max, Vray Adv 3.5 and photoshop. I am thinking a Xeon build would be wise for my main computer as I've found them to be quite robust. This will give me 56 buckets. Wish the new AMD CPUs were out but I need this sooner unfortunately.
Asus Z10PE-D16 WS mobo or D8 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UWFFp2lORs) its newer and appears to support the NVMe SSDs - I saw the option in the BIOS in the video. 2x Intel Xeon E5-2680v4 2.4GHz 14cores 76.8GB/s memory bandwidth Ideally 256GB RDIMM ECC DDR4 2400MHz - the quantity will most likely be determined by cost but I'm a little unsure if I went with the D16, can I (for the sake of economy) fill 8 of the 16 slots with 128GB of 2400MHz RAM, and then double that later (if required) without sacrificing any bandwidth? I've read conflicting information about optimizing the RAM:
GTX 1080ti GPU founders edition - I'm gonna get one anyway despite it not being on the approved list Samsung 960 EVO 500GB m2 SSD (I believe that I would need the D8 to use thtis) Corsair HX1000i PSU (in case I get another GPU) Coolermaster Seidon 120V 86.2 CFM Liquid CPU cooler x 2
The reasoning for the large amount of memory is based on the amount I tended to use when using a single Xeon setup with 128GB RAM. I tend to multitask, and don't always want to close PS if I've got some large comps open.
Memory - I'm still trying to figure out whether I can use 8 dimms per CPU and not loose performance from 2400MHz modules.
I'm using a NAS for storage. Could possibly RAID the primary SSD or have a separate one for scratch. I have a 1TB WD Black HDD that I will utilize too.
That's a nice spec and a nicer motherboard. 16gb of ddr4 2133 is over $100usd used a stick rightt now. I have been eyeing a couple of QS V3'S for my supermicro x10drg. The high core 2.4'ish GHz seems like a fair trade off. Obviously would prefer 2.7ghz plus and high cores but the price jumps. I have been running 128gb on x9 board and at $50 for a stick of ddr3 I am tempted to go to 256. Still running the 2670's but again tempted by a couple of 269x, 12 core >2.4ghz chips.
I know absolutely nothing about your proposed mobo, but I do have an Asus dual Opteron server board. Honestly, it's been one headache after another. To cut to the chase, I've only purchased Supermicro boards since and I've had great luck with all of them.
The Asus z9pe-ws d8 and z10pe-ws d8 are the shiznit for dual e5 workstation boards. The only bell they are missing is 10gbe ethernet.
The supermicro X9DAI or X10DAI or DRI would be the comparable boards.
Asus has been very good about supporting ES/QS chips with their z9 boards and they come with usb 3 and sound on the z9 whereas the SM x9 boards are usb 2.0 only. The SM has IPMI if you are on a network. The Asus has dual BIO's, overclocking (minor) and just about any end user feature you might want.
I've got the x9drg-qf and x10drg-qf boards which are a pain in the ass because of the bigger than atx needs an 11 pci slot enclosure but I like having room for 4 compute cards plus extras. I have built out my x9drg with a stack of ssds, 128gb and a pair of 2760's in a lian li case. It is a beast. The x10drg is still in the box as I havent purchase the hardware for building it up yet.
I will probably retire my x9 to be my esxi box and virtualize all the things on it and run the x10 as my workstation but it takes me forever to collect the money to get up and running.