Why is a Xeon better at running a server?

[TryteHD]

If an i7 has better single and multi-core performance in CPU-related benchmarks, what makes the Xeon a must have when it comes to servers? I'm trying to build a £2000 server and can't decide whether to shell out £300 odd for a Xeon and a fair bit on a motherboard or £250 on an i7 4790k and a cheaper board. Help?

What makes the Xeon better at running a server besides it's number of cores? What Xeon should I go for with a £300 budget? (+/- £70).

 

[Supahos]

Why are you only spending about a 7th of your sever budget on the CPU?

 

[Gingerbread]

Depends entirely on the Xeon. But most Xeons have more cores and cache, sure there were the Xeons which were basically an i7 without an IGP, but those were cheaper than the i7. Also Xeons support more memory, Quad Channel (if we are not talking about HEDT i7s) and ECC Memory. Also choosing the right processor depends on what the server will be used for.

 

[TryteHD]

Depends entirely on the Xeon. But most Xeons have more cores and cache, sure there were the Xeons which were basically an i7 without an IGP, but those were cheaper than the i7. Also Xeons support more memory, Quad Channel (if we are not talking about HEDT i7s) and ECC Memory. Also choosing the right processor depends on what the server will be used for.

The server is used for graphic design work. For example at my work we have plenty of powerful laptops that design and 3d model substrate heaters. We design water cooling chambers, furnaces and it all gets saved and constantly accessed from our server, which at the moment is poor. We need a fair bit of space as our files are big. Most of that budget is going towards 24TB of 8TB HDDs and then a 960GB SSD for boot drive, if you were wondering.

 

[InvalidError]

The main (and only in many cases) benefit of Xeons at the lower end is ECC as i7/i9 and Xeons are otherwise the same all the way up to single-socket high core count models. Higher up the the lineup, you get extreme (20+) core count models. Beyond that, you have dual and quad-socket models with their increased RAM and IO support.

An LGA115x i7 would be a very low end "only scratching the surface" server only suitable for non-critical work.

 

[Rakanyshu]

That sounds like a NAS to me, unless you ate rendering from your server you dont even need an i7

 

[InvalidError]

That sounds like a NAS to me, unless you ate rendering from your server you dont even need an i7

May still want a Xeon for ECC if going down the DIY route. Bad memory slowly and silently corrupting the archive could turn into a nightmare, happened on one of my PCs and it took me over a week to realize that I had a bad bit on one of my new DIMMs corrupting files.

 

[TryteHD]

That sounds like a NAS to me, unless you ate rendering from your server you dont even need an i7

We do render from the server but I also have another question: is RAM speed important?

Lately RAM speed has definitely become more important in games these days, especially on the AMD platform, but I should think as long as the capacity is there, it should be fine? How does the E5 2640 V2 sound paired with a 1050Ti, 32GB 1600MHz ECC RAM sound? 8 cores, 16 threads, 2GHz, low power consumption.

 

[kanewolf]

The biggest difference with the Xeon line is that is supports multiple sockets on the same motherboard. If you want a dual socket configuration, you have to use a Xeon.

 

[Rakanyshu]

That sounds like a NAS to me, unless you ate rendering from your server you dont even need an i7

We do render from the server but I also have another question: is RAM speed important?

Lately RAM speed has definitely become more important in games these days, especially on the AMD platform, but I should think as long as the capacity is there, it should be fine? How does the E5 2640 V2 sound paired with a 1050Ti, 32GB 1600MHz ECC RAM sound? 8 cores, 16 threads, 2GHz, low power consumption.

ram speed is important but for the intended use ecc ram is more important than fast ram, ecc will be slower at the same rated speed as non ecc ram , but will prevent memory erros, data loss and downtime caused by all that.

for renders you want high core count and high speed so get the cpu with more cores and speed you can afford.

 

[InvalidError]

The biggest difference with the Xeon line is that is supports multiple sockets on the same motherboard.

That's only the Xeon E5 and up. Xeons lower than that are single-socket only on both LGA115x and LGA2011v*.

 

[kanewolf]

The biggest difference with the Xeon line is that is supports multiple sockets on the same motherboard.

That's only the Xeon E5 and up. Xeons lower than that are single-socket only on both LGA115x and LGA2011v*.

Sure, that is why I said "Xeon line" I understand that there are single socket Xeons. But if you want muti-socket is HAS to be a Xeon.

 

[TryteHD]

I've been thinking about storage solutions and I have a question. I will either go for this config

2x8TB (Raid1) + 2x8TB (Raid1) in Raid 0 (essentially Raid 10)

Or

4x1TB SSDs (Raid 0) + 1x4TB HDD (Raid 1) Again, essentially Raid 10. But, is it possible to do this? Is it possible to backup 4 drives and mirror them all onto the one 4TB drive? If so, this may be a good solution also.

 

[InvalidError]

Sure, that is why I said "Xeon line" I understand that there are single socket Xeons. But if you want muti-socket is HAS to be a Xeon.

You also said that it was the "biggest difference", which doesn't apply to 1S Xeons (E/E1) where multi-socket is not possible and ECC is the biggest difference.

On OP's ~$400 CPU and ~$200 motherboard budget, multi-socket isn't on the radar by a long shot.