Hey all!
Just wondering this, as I have a spare 2011 socket CPU, plenty of ECC RAM and a spare PSU. I’d quite like to buy any reasonably priced 2011 Socket motherboard and make a spare machine.
Thanks!
Chris
here is my notes. i had a bunch of 2011 CPU’s and various DDR4 sets (ECC REG, non ECC) all come up so i went through this same thing recently.
currently socket 2011 boards are wildly over priced on the used market. making it hard to make a buck profit even if the RAM and CPU are free.
the CPU has a pretty wild effect on RAM support. (this sounds obvious but gets overlooked a lot)
the mainboard has a secondary but still vital effect on RAM support.
ECC non REG ram will function on any 2011 board but the ECC may not be supported.
ECC REG RAM actually does work on SOME 2011 boards WHEN USED WITH A XEON CPU ONLY. best results on ASRock boards. MSI second best (VERY limited success). gigabyte had zero success.
an ASRock Taichi x99 is an amazing, extremely compatible board. for the cost of a used MB only you could buy an AM4 board and CPU. it would be as fast and use 1/3rd the power.
also, if you really want to do this, and you want good RAM support, some of the chinese x99 boards are actually a really good value.
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Wow @Zedicus 
That is way better and more than I was expected, thank you so much!
I confess I had neglected to say it was REG, so even better.
I did begin by looking at the cost of a new board, ideally Intel just to remove compat problems (TrueNAS Core), but I did look at AMD and it looked like a good few hundred (UK).
I saw the chinese X99 boards, I might opt for one of those if needs be, I’ve seen a Dell server board I was thinking of getting one of those. My own confusion is that it’s generally considered DDR4, but the seller mentions DDR3.
Thanks again mate 
Reg ecc works with the 7980xe microcode on older x299 boards; I have a gigabyte Aorus master that had 384gb iirc that was nerfed with later microcode updates. Msi and ASRock ship in the bios the oldest microcodes that work, but older microcode support for 9000 and 10980xe are sketch. Never got regecc to work on the 10980xe.
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Thank you Wendell, really appreciate you wealth of knowledge I’m hoping that it will work with an Xeon E5-1650v4.
I’ve been looking at getting this board (Dell HHV7N from Precision T5810 workstation), so I can use surplus ECC REG 2133 DDR4 RAM I have. My concern at the moment is the 10 pin connector as from memory that’s not common (I think it’s normally 4 pin power for the CPU?).
The I/O bulge is a bit of a shame, but I have a spare case I can massacre if needed.
Any comments at all are very very welcome.
After some careful consideration, I’m going to pass on that Dell board, as the CPU power isn’t standard.
So far I’m thinking of a used but in good condition Gigabyte X99-SLI. I’m hoping it’ll take the E5-1650v4 I have, and although it won’t operate in ECC mode, it should take the RAM I have too. Fingers crossed!
Part of the reason for doing this, is because hey, you can never have too many TrueNAS installs 
But also, because there’s a few things I want to try on a production server, and I’d prefer to test it on another instance first.
Thanks again all!
that board will work in ECC mode, it is the REG part that will be a coin toss. the XEON you have actually will make it so that REG support is possible, but still not guaranteed.
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Thank you for that, so it’s a gamble whether the RAM I have will work at all with the board? 
The easiest/cheapest thing is to buy a bare bones Dell or HP workstation off ebay or similar so you have all the PSU and sensors that make it all work nicely. I am actually decommissioning a Dell T5810 at the moment. It was my workstation for years and now the guts are being put into a used Supermicro board to becoming the proxmox/file server. The only reason I am getting rid of the Dell is limited harddrive space (3 3.5" drives at most) and the fact that even my main rig is half homelab and the proprietary stuff started to get in the way. If you only need a single GPU and a few extra add in cards they are not too bad. For what it is worth, I was able to put 64GB of 2133 RDIMM ECC memory in a T5810 with several flavors of E5-26xxv3 CPUs with only half the slots used.
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An hp z440 is a good option, or those chinese x99 boards, but even those boards are 140$ for one with the better vrm. You can probably find a barebones z440 for 75$.
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You are completely right, I had a look and I couldn’t see any viable options in my country (UK). I even thought about getting a Dell PSU, but that’s just more searching, I’ve been keeping an eye out for Supermicro boards, but they’re rare…probably because they’re good!
I really appreciate you sharing your experience, thank you. I don’t need a GPU for the system, but I would like several PCI slots in case I have to get an LSI or a GPU for the setup part only. I admit, I’m trying to be conservative with how much I spend, and the idea of only needing a main board is really appealing. I have a spare case, PSU, CPU, RAM…I am so close! 
Like you though, I’d like to steer away from Dell case (as in towers) because they don’t hold many drives.
Cheers for that, I have looked and been very tempted by the chinese boards, I was just concerned about waiting month for it to arrive and then finding it DOA. I’ll definitely look for a Z440 or the T series that @exee mentions, if I don’t make any progress.
Thanks guys!
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If you are worried about a chinese board being DOA, you might get a little more protection if you buy one through ebay instead of Aliexpress though it will cost a little more. I almost went that way, but I wanted to be sure that bifurcation and VFIO would just work out of the box. Check out Miyconst on youtube, if you havent already. He has done some deep dive reviews on numerous models.
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You is a wealth of knowledge, thank you
I was only thinking of eBay, always been concerned with Aliexpress…but I’m a cautious type!
That Miyconst channel is really helpful, I think I’m sold on a non-chinese board now.
Thank you again!
Hey all,
So final question,
Here’s my RAM (I see it says 1Rx4):
Is this referring to the same 1Rx4 on this motherboard spec?
Thanks in advance!
it is, and that is an 8gb stick. it has a high likely hood of working. what board did you find that supports RDIMM but not ecc? i have not come across one through all the boards i tried.
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Thank you @Zedicus , Oh, I made a mistake, it’s actually this RAM (I couldn’t find a pic of it before…then realised it was in a box a few steps away!)
It does look similar, other than the last digits…hopefully they’re not crucial!
The board I have my eye on is the GIGABYTE X99-SLI. Hopefully I’ve not made a mistake, though I haven’t pressed the button on buying yet.
Thanks again!
If you have not bought a board yet, i am goi g to re-recommend finding an asrock board. Then you will have ecc support and you should be better off.
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Thank you @Zedicus , it’s really kind of you to take time out of whatever you’re doing and help. I’ll look into Asrock boards for a while and see if they’re a reasonable cost
I know this sounds tight @Zedicus , but I’ve just looked and there are no Asrock boards in my country. I extended to search to europe and they’re approaching £200, with plenty that appear to be faulty when the price is less. The Gigabyte board is £120 at the moment (and it’s in my country), and they seem to disappear fairly quickly
I know that one stick has errors, I didn’t want to isolate the faulty one using my production machine, do you think if I load TrueNAS on the Gigabyte board, it’ll identify the problem stick? I did so many MEMTests and no errors came up…which disappointed me!
Thanks!