MoBo for this CPU?

[M491]

What's up guys, I'm in the process of building the ultimate budget build for my personal preferences and was wondering what motherboard would work with this CPU (http://www.natex.us/mobile/product.aspx?ProductCode=intel%2De5%2D2670%2Dsr0kx&404;http://www.natex.us:80/Intel-Xeon-E5-2670-2-6-Ghz-8-Core-SR0KX-p/intel-e5-2670-sr0kx.htm?gclid=CMa9opr559ACFdM2gQodSWcAQA). Also, I already have a pretty junky board and was wondering if it would work (https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/M4A78LTM/). Just remember that I'm going for the cheapest set up possible. Thanks so much!

 

[Animus3D]

A quick google search reveals that it's an FCLGA2011 cpu. I personally don't recommend it because you'll be paying a higher price for an LGA2011 board, and if you require 8C16T I'd say go with an x5670. I did some of the same research as you about a year ago when I bought my brother a Precision T5500 and he hasn't had very many problems with it. It has support for dual CPU and i think up to 72GB of ram. The problem with buying xeon motherboards is that they're generally going to be server motherboards, and you'll run into a lot of problems installing an OS. The Precision series uses server parts, but is built to be a workstation. lemme know if you have more questions

EDIT: I forgot to mention the price. I got mine (i've bought 2 so far) for about $260 each, and it came with 12GB RAM and 2 1TB HDDs. The case is the only problem that I've had. It's nice and thin, but if you want to put a graphics card in there you'll either have to get a riser PCIE card or chop off the HDD bay. Other than that i've had no problems.

 

[mcconkeymike]

The motherboard you have, will not work. You need something for the socket 2011 processor which is what you linked to. Unfortunately the socket 2011 has been replaced with the socket 2011-v3 and they are not interchangeable so finding socket 2011 mobos are getting difficult and expensive. Looks like the best processor you can use with your mobo is the Phenom II x6 1100t.

 

[Rookie_MIB]

I just went with a relatively budget build and wound up going with a Xeon setup as well. I just put together a Xeon E3-1230 (4c/8t) which I picked up for $70 shipped, and matched it with an Asus motherboard LGA-1155 for $50 which my local comp store had. Dropped in some DDR3 and it really is pretty powerful. Paired up right now with a non-budget gaming card (GTX1060) and it's good to go.

I'm not sure why you need an 8c/16t build - that will be quite a beast and you can do better than you think depending on your budget. What you can do is get a pair of E5-2670 Xeon CPUs (8c/16t EACH!) for about $100 per CPU, then pair it with a motherboard like the Asrock Rack EP2C602 (dual lga 2011) which you can still get NEW on eBay for about $300.00. Pair those together with some RAM (anywhere from 8-512gb - I'm thinking 16gb to start would be sufficient and affordable in a 4x4gb kit which you could add to with another 4x4gb kit down the road). You'd be looking at about $600 for the core of a REALLY beastly machine with 16c/32t of power.

The other thing is this. With this type of a build as I laid out - you can ALWAYS start with a single CPU and add to it if you want down the road.

 

[Animus3D]

What you can do is get a pair of E5-2670 Xeon CPUs (8c/16t EACH!) for about $100 per CPU, then pair it with a motherboard like the Asrock Rack EP2C602 (dual lga 2011) which you can still get NEW on eBay for about $300.00. Pair those together with some RAM (anywhere from 8-512gb - I'm thinking 16gb to start would be sufficient and affordable in a 4x4gb kit which you could add to with another 4x4gb kit down the road). You'd be looking at about $600 for the core of a REALLY beastly machine with 16c/32t of power.

There's a problem here. You'd need registered DIMMs with that.

Also this is a budget build. I dont think $600 is easy to drop on a motherboard, and i also dont think you're factoring in other things like PSU, storage, and the fact that you won't be able to use unregistered (a.k.a affordable) DIMMs. Registered ram is required (along with an operating system that supports it, cough cough windows ultimate), which adds lots of unexpected cost. You're looking at more like $1000 when you're done getting through compaitbility issues. The only plus side about this way is that you have PCI-E 3.0 slots and a newer processor slot, although no graphics card can currently saturate more than half of the PCI-E 3.0 bandwidth (basically PCI-E 2.0 won't give you any bottlenecks, that's all I'm saying)

 

[Rookie_MIB]

Well - budget build is a relative term, and considering the power of the machine we're talking about, it's a discount when compared to anything close to equivalent. Remember what an 8 or 10 core NEW i7-6850X chip costs - $600 by itself. And that is only a hex-core hyperthreaded CPU. An i7-6950x is a 10c/20t CPU, and that sucker lists for over $1500.00 by itself. So - when you can get an entire computer core (motherboard/CPU/RAM) for $600, it IS a budget build. And that build in multi-core tests will decimate the $1500 CPU (yes, single core tests the i7-6950x will beat it but otherwise it'll get hosed).

Also - you don't need registered DIMMS, the boards do use regular UDIMMS (my Xeon E3-1230 is running 8GB DDR3 plain jane RAM, and my Xeon X3470 build on the P7F7-E WS is running 16GB of regular UDIMMS as well). ECC registered DIMMS vs non-ECC DIMMS is supported at the motherboard level - the Xeon CPUs themselves will run with either type.

Finally, remember, - the $600 isn't just for the motherboard. $600 is for two 8 core Xeons, a motherboard, and 16GB of RAM. Add case, PSU, graphics and storage. All in all, you could get away with the build for probably in the $1200 range depending on the graphics and storage. Is it moderately expensive in absolute terms? Yes. But this also isn't your off the shelf Dell computer you're going to buy at Office Depot. Considering what you're getting it's still less than a single flagship-level Intel CPU, let alone a flagship BUILD.

Here's someone who built and tested it:

http://www.techspot.com/review/1155-affordable-dual-xeon-pc/

Personally, I have two builds at home is exactly the type of budget build you're talking about - the difference is the cores.

Build 1:
Xeon X3470/Asus P7F7-E WS/16Gb DDR3 ($200 for all of it). 256GB SSDs (Samsung 830s x2 RAID0) ($40 each). Case - older Antec 4400 series that I've had forever. Twin GTX960s SLI ($340). Strider Gold PSU ($90). Total build cost: $710.00

Build 2:
Xeon E3-1230 ($70)/Asus H61M-E($50)/8GB DDR3($50)/256GB SSD Crucial 550 ($80)/Generic case($50)/Antec 380w PSU($40)/GTX1060($300). Total build cost: $640.

The build above though (dual Xeon E5's) would kill either one of these systems.

------------edit-----------
BTW, it's easily possible to find motherboards for the CPU he picked (which is exactly what they used in the dual Xeon build). He just needs an X79 based motherboard. A quick search of Amazon finds them readily available, just double check for Xeon V1 BIOS support. Looking at it, the GA-X79-UP4 (Gigabyte board) supports both the V1 and V2 high end Xeons. It is a bit pricey though, but when it supports quad SLI, Xeon 8 cores, gobs of RAM, it's NOT going to be cheap.

 

[Animus3D]

Also - you don't need registered DIMMS, the boards do use regular UDIMMS (my Xeon E3-1230 is running 8GB DDR3 plain jane RAM, and my Xeon X3470 build on the P7F7-E WS is running 16GB of regular UDIMMS as well). ECC registered DIMMS vs non-ECC DIMMS is supported at the motherboard level - the Xeon CPUs themselves will run with either type.

Of course you can get away with UDIMMS at 8 and 16 GB, but remember OP was talking about upgrading it upwards of it maximum ram capacity. You'd need RDIMMS because the registry alleviates some burden form the memory controller. Because of this, UDIMMS severely limit the amount of RAM that'll work in your system, not to mention it will be slower.
Pros and cons are as follows:
RDIMM:
Faster speed (woosh), BUT priced accordingly
Takes less memory channels to operate because of registry, therefore allowing more memory to be installed on the server (workstation in this case), BUT it's priced accordingly.

All in all, yeah. You'd be able to get away with UDIMMS on this "budget build", but you won't be able to go far without chunking your entire investment in memory and starting with the right kind. Just saying.