Ok, I got my hands on a couple of these on Ebay :

http://ark.intel.com/it/products/81709/Intel-Xeon-Processor-E5-2670-v3-30M-Cache-2_30-GHz

which should ensure 48 HT cores on a single Motherboard.

Well, the question is simple..: which MoBo ?

One of the first that comes to my mind is this one : https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/Z10PED8_WS/

Any other idea ? Pro & cons ?

Tnx
A.

no other ideas, but good choice.

https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/Z10PED8_WS/HelpDesk_CPU/

the cpus will be supported.

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Take a look at these. I recently put together a system similiar to yours (Xeon V2 12 core x 2), and after doing my research, decided on going with a Supermicro server board. I was impressed with both the presales and technical support I received.

Here is a list of dual proc boards that will take your processor, as well as V4 versions down the road.

Now, if you want to go a little crazy with GPU's like some ppl have been doing using USB 3.0 PCI-E adapter cards, you could run up to 10 GPUs in one system!

Whatever board you decide to go with, be sure to follow the mfg's QVM/tested memory listing if you want to avoid potential issues. Again, usually not the cheapest out there, but good quality stuff that should give years of relaible crunching.

As for budget, as the procs you are using aren't exactly what would be considered 'cheap', I am going to assume there is a little bit of 'flexibility ' in it. These boards certatinly are not what anyone would call inexpensive, but you do seem to get what you are paying for. It's kind of like someone who owns a Hummer or a Lambo, you had better not have a care in the world for the cost of gas or maintenance... ;-)

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When you enter a pair of 'E5 2670 V3' into the www.pcpartpicker.com website there are only 2 manufacturers listed with a total of 6 motherboards. The ASUS you mention is the most expensive one.

How many ram slots do you want? (8 or 16)
What form factor do you want? (ATX/EATX/SSI EEB)
Do you want Crossfire/SLI Support?

Lots of decisions to make.

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Al, Wembley, tnx for the hints.

Final decision made, I ordered this : http://www.asrockrack.com/general/productdetail.asp?Model=EP2C612%20WS#Specifications

It is not for server, it is for workstation and I had good vibes with Asrock in the past, plus @ 390 € it was cheaper than Supermicro, at least here in Italy.

The E5 2670 V3 are fully supported ( also V4), and I also ordered two 16 GB Samsung sticks of RAM from the supported list, to be installed in the first two slots, as per manual suggestion.
It will be powered by my Corsair AX1500i PSU, and will sit on the bench you can see in some previous posts, "en plein air".
For CPU cooling, I went with a couple of Noctua NH-U9DX i4.
Since I plan to connect the GPUs all with powered USB risers, no SLI, a plus is to have a separate VGA port, although I suspect that for simple operation, a monitor can also be connected to any "rised" GPU DVI/HDMI port...

My only concern is...I couldn't really find any significative reviews nor forum discussing this MoBo, but maybe I'm tired ( it's 4.30 AM here ), so in case of setup problems, I feel I'll be "on my own"...

TBH, I did not go with Asus, because I found a dedicated thread in a forum, which was "scary" to say the least...there was also a guy which was not able to make GPUs work with any powered risers, among several other issues that lot of people were having...

Anyhow, if this Mobo will give me headache, I will return it and go with the Supermicro X10DRX.

So...what did I do wrong..? :-)

A.

P.S : Al, the E5 2670 V3 Xeon I've got were rather "cheap" : only 380 € for both of them !

I've heard good things about ASRock boards, you should be good to go, especially if you buy it from a reputable dealer. That was a great price on those procs! But, I am a bit concerned, because at that price, it most likely means one of 2 things: You either have a (REALLY) great friend in the PC hardware business who gave you Screaming Deal on those processors, or, more likely, the ones you purchased were ES style. ES stands for Engineering Sample, which is what Intel sends out to companies like HP, Dell, etc for them to test with their systems, before they are released to the public for general consumption.

The problem is, and may or may not effect you (which is why I mentioned to buy the board from a reputable dealer) is that those are sort of Beta processors, not the final release versions. This is why they are so much cheaper than the 'real' ones. They may work in that board, they may not. Often times I've seen it stated that they might only work in boards from major brands like HP and Supermicro and such, and that the seller won't guarantee that it will work in other boards. It's kind of a crapshoot, and as long as either one of the 2 (proc seller or MB seller) is willing to take a return if it doesn't work, you should be fine. the SSpecs for the ES styles I've found are QFSA and QEYK (which I found on ebay for $195-280), and the "real" version is SR1XS, which again on eBay I found starting at $1400 and goes up from there. I'm going to take a wild and crazy guess that what you have are the ES versions... If you Google ES version processors, there's a wealth of info out there about them.


Here is a tidbit about it that I found doing a quick search on the web:


ES means that is an engineering sample. According to Intel this means they are

pre-production processors loaned to Intel's Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs), Original Device Manufacturers (ODMs), and Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) to be used in the product design cycle prior to product launch.

Also note,

These processors often include additional features that production processors do not include for customer pre-production evaluation and test purposes. The following conditions apply to Intel ES Processors:

Intel ES Processors are the sole property of Intel.
Intel ES Processors are Intel Confidential.
Intel ES Processors are provided by Intel under nondisclosure and/or special loan agreement terms with restrictions on the recipient's handling and use.
Intel ES Processors are not for sale or re-sale.
Intel ES Processors may not have passed commercial regulatory requirements.
ES Processors are covered under Intel warranty and are generally not supported by Intel

Read more about it on Intel's website here.

So, long story short, be sure that you can get your money back from whomever, before you make the purchases, just in case that it doesn't work for you. I will keep my fingers crossed, because if they do, it's a steal of a deal. If not, you can always keep your eyes open for a bargain on the real deal. Good luck!

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I've heard good things about ASRock boards

ASRock were Asus budget brand, then they were actually spun off from Asus several years ago & became a separate company.

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Grant
Darwin NT

Have seen some compelling enthusiast 'workstation class' models from various brands coming out, though haven't looked at the dual socket models yet. I like ECC memory support, and the performance the large caches provide, so with more and more last gen Xeon CPUs becoming second hand, along with plenty of reasonably priced new single socket options, I'll be pretty interested to see if something 2011-3 based remains the better choice with the new v4 skylake options trickling in.

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"Living by the wisdom of computer science doesn't sound so bad after all. And unlike most advice, it's backed up by proofs." -- Algorithms to live by: The computer science of human decisions.

As they say in my country, I might have "stomped on a huge sh*t"... :-(

Yes Al, you're right, the Xeons I've got are "ES"...TBH, I'm in the IT but on another different branch ( storage), and did not even remotely imagine that such thing was real...: last PC I assembled myself was a 386SX, go figure...

The CPUs are advertised as "Intel Xeon E5 2670 V3 ES 2.2Ghz 30MB 12Core 24threads LGA2011-3 105W 22nm M0 QFSA", and did some research on this : QFSA means thet "M0" stepping, is one step before release (QFS0 -> SR1XS).
This would give me more hope for a success, but...but...the seller, which has a global rating of 99.3% on a 60k customers base, is shipping different CPU stepping than advertised ( EG.: QEYK instead of QFSA ).

Ok...I payed with Paypal, so I'm somehow "protected" in my buy, but....what about the other hardware I've got ? Surely I cannot afford to get a non-ES Xeon, at current ( nor future I believe) price....

Oh my...

Edit : found E52603 v3 @ an affordable price on Amazon...might be an honorable fall-back, although with half the cores...

Well, don't despair quite yet, they _may_ work, or there is the possibility of finding a board which they may work in as well, so all is not lost! :-) You might want to contact the CPU seller regarding the stepping, as they might have both on hand and shipped you the wrong one inadvertently, and would be willing to send you the later one? I guess if they can't or won't, you have every right to return it to the seller and receive a full refund, as the product shipped wasn't the product that was advertised. I've found that sellers are quite accommodating (if purchased on eBay) because they want to keep that rating high, and because with all the protections both they and Paypal have put in place, it really doesn't make much sense for them to fight the buyer, especially one with such an open and shut case as you have.

Worst case, if you had to return it, you could purchase another pair, while confirming that they are the correct stepping before the purchase is completed, and then see if they will work in your board. Again Worst case, if you really want to build this great system with those procs, maybe step up to an OEM style motherboard? I am in the process of doing just that with a system based upon the older, X5690 Xeon, using a HP Z800 motherboard. The cool thing about them is that they aren't very expensive at all, but the bummer is that they aren't like the ASRock or even Supermicro boards, they require some "fiddling" to get them to work. I may have posted it before, but here is a link to the gent who did it (and most importantly, documented it well) first, and I have been following his lead.

If going with an OEM board, you may or may not have similar issues, I suppose it depends on the board. And then, TBH, there is the bigger question of, is this even what you want to do? Is it something you would enjoy the challenge - and frustrations - of doing, building something that requires a bit of research, trial and error, but then having the satisfaction of it when it's up and running? I myself do enjoy occasionally doing something like that, but more often than not, I'm more interested in buying off the shelf parts that are supposedly compatible, and whipping together a system within a few hours that is up and running as expected. Either scenario isn't right or wrong, it just depends on what you would enjoy right now.

Well, I do wish you the best of luck, and I guess if I were in your position, the first thing I would do is send the seller a polite note, mentioning that the proc you received wasn't the one you were planning on buying, that the Stepping number does matter to you in this instance, and ask if he either has the correct one (which you would be more than happy to do a prompt exchange), or what has to happen for a return/refund. Then going out and find the later one, and going from there. Best of luck to you, and keep us in the loop on your progress! :-D

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The title of the thread is "Dual Xeon Motherboard..."

https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/Z10PED16_WS/HelpDesk_CPU/

Therefore, also this link could be added for the dual processor variant.

The bad thing when it comes to me is that I happen to associate the Xeon series or brand of processors with mainframe or multiuser PC's.

Therefore I prefer to use the name or designation Socket 2011-3 or the like when it comes to this.

Choose which motherboard to use first. Next select which processor to use.

I have an empty box still standing in the living room.

The other components being purchased either blew or became too old, so therefore I happen to be curious when it comes to the availability of dual processor motherboards.

Checking in with my vendor, I found an expensive such motherboard which supports such a configuration.

You may wish to check your own vendor, but the name of the motherboard is ASUS Z10PE-D16 WS, 2xSocket-2011-3 .

I have only had a brief look at it, but it supports a maximum of 1 TB of RAM.

Add to this two of the most recent or best Intel processors, enough RAM memory (maybe 16 - 64 GB) and at least one graphics card, preferably two or more, you could be having a powerhorse of a computer at your disposal.

The things that sometimes makes these things becoming a misery is that the motherboard may be coming with too few mounting screws when being delivered.

Perhaps the most important thing of all and sometimes overlooked is that of temperature regulation by means of a processor fan.

It most often is a big fan mounted atop the processor, like the Noctua NH-DH14 currently being used here. Another option is using an airflow for either the processor, or the memory cards.

Got one such still unpacked from the living room which is having three fans inside.

It makes a lot of noise and if these options are not suitable, the more difficult solution of using water cooling could be a possible option.

Also both of my boxes are having the soldered plate between the motherboard and the power supply, needing a proper selection for the box to be using.

Sticking with ASUS and nVidia when it comes to my preferred choice, for now I am left with using either one graphics card and an external Sound Blaster card together with software being installed, in addition to the RealTek drivers coming with the motherboard.

Inserting the second graphics card and later removing it again makes for quite a big task which for now is not possible to do here.

Add to all of this a proper selection of a power supply as well.

Bluestar, thank you...as I said, I read on a forum about the amount of trouble the dual-proc Asus are giving, both the Z10PED8 and the Z10PED16...I gave UP and went for the Asrock EP2C612 WS.

A