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Workstation motherboard and processors supporting ECC server memory?

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Mechatrommer:

--- Quote from: splin on October 03, 2019, 11:15:07 pm ---This is the longest I've ever gone without upgrading the processor and motherboard - the rate of single threaded performance improvement seems to have dropped remarkably from those heady days of the dirt cheap Pentium II Celerons which could be overclocked to 450MHz. Or the early Athlons. Not helped by the hit taken to deal with Spectre and Meltdown.

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long ago, i've set my mind to upgrade when new processor come up with double the speed, ram affordable at double the capacity from what i already have. i once or twice upgraded (complete PC) since my first computer (circa 1996) but with my current quad core Q9400 2.66GHz system, its quite difficult to wait for consumer/affordable processor with double the speed (5GHz+) so i've stick with my system for about 10 years now, last time its like 2 or 3 years before the next upgrade. i only since, upgraded my current system to add a little bit ram to max 3GB what XP 32bit can support, add SSD and TB of HDD, replaced the damaged PSU twice, not really requiring large money, from time to time. but if i have to upgrade to new CPU, i have to buy new Mobo, ram, casing, etc the long words for what can be described as simply buying a new computer.

recent post of a member here in a thread on $1000 PC for CADding lead me to that HP Z600/800 system, i thought yeah it fits my spec, more cores, more ram, 3X and 8X respectively from what i already have, and Xeon X5675 3.07GHz is a little bit faster than my current 2.66GHz system, not reaching 2X but nevermind it has more cores and ram. and since its used, the price also fit the bill, so i grabbed one. i think this Xeon workstation came from the same age as my quad core circa 10 years ago, but that time surely the HP Z800 will be very much unaffordable. now i got it at cheaper the cost from what i paid my current system, the only question is how long this branded name is going to last? my custom diy no name brand current system proved working  for 10 yrs (with twice PSU replacement), by the right logic, brand name (HP) should at least twice that so theoritically i should have another 10 years with this Xeon, otherwise there is not much to brag about brand name PC system, as i've thought they should be for long time. this Xeon will prove me wrong or right. fwiw ymmv cheers.

btw i lived the life with 3GB of RAM, so i cant imagine some individual will be crippled with 24/32/64GB of RAM, unless in top notch research/simulation environment or IT/server business.

chickenHeadKnob:

--- Quote from: splin on October 03, 2019, 11:15:07 pm ---
This is the longest I've ever gone without upgrading the processor and motherboard - the rate of single threaded performance improvement seems to have dropped remarkably from those heady days of the dirt cheap Pentium II Celerons which could be overclocked to 450MHz. Or the early Athlons. Not helped by the hit taken to deal with Spectre and Meltdown.

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I have always followed the policy of minimum investment in strongly depreciating assets like computer tech. during the days of active moore's law for my home machine.
I would buy budget processors and maximize motherboard memory every 5-9 years (7 on average) and call it a day. I would only upgrade when I couldn't stand it any longer. These were home assembled component level machines with video that was selected for Linux compatibility, I'm not a gamer. This was a policy that worked well for me and saved me money that I put to appreciating assets like real estate and stocks.

Now Moore's law has slowed dramatically, as you noted and I have finally shifted my strategy. Initially I also wanted a server/workstation type machine with large 256G ecc RAM for experiments with in RAM databases but have moderated this to a Ryzen 3700x or maybe 3900x  and 64G non ecc RAM. My reasoning being that Ryzens with the fastest RAM seem to be the best value proposition. I have read that AMD single thread performance is more RAM speed dependent than intel hence ecc is contraindicated. For database experiments I may need to do for consulting I will simply rent cloud resources, no sense in keeping and paying for capacity I don't use continuously. What do the folks who keep up with what is latest and greatest think?

wraper:

--- Quote from: chickenHeadKnob on October 04, 2019, 01:01:02 am ---I have read that AMD single thread performance is more RAM speed dependent than intel hence ecc is contraindicated.

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Nobody prohibits overclocking ECC RAM which BTW I do. As a bonus you actually know that your RAM is stable when overclocked unlike with non-ECC RAM. If you go a bit too high with overclock, you can actually see that single bit errors were corrected, sometimes after several weeks of faultless operation. All those super fast modules are overclocked anyway, with JEDEC speed usually being measly 2133. Not to say using over 3600 MHz speed on Ryzen 3000 series is counterproductive anyway as CPU drops infinity fabric speed by half. As of actual performance concerned, going over 3200 MHz gives barely any performance increase.

LeonR:
The most important difference between a desktop-class and a workstation/server class is reliability. The latter are supposed to run 24/7/365, while the desktop counterparts are designed for 8/5 loads.

That aside, as others suggested, I see a Ryzen 3000 (8 core and up) overperfoming any LGA1366 dual socket system while consuming a fraction of the requires power. The only case why I'd choose a 1366 over the Ryzen would be if I had specific software that does not run on it. On the Ryzen you are technically limited to Windows 10 and recent Linux distros, while the 1366 can run everything from Windows 2003 Server up to 2019 (probably, have tested only with the desktop version),  older Linux, etc.

There's also LGA2011 systems (up to E5/E7 v2 Xeons) that are pretty affordable - more cores, higher maximum RAM, more PCIe lanes, etc. LGA2011-3 are still very expensive even on the used markets.

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