Wednesday 6 November 2019

Personal PC Kit Stock Take - And First new PC Part Purchase

It begins.... A new PC build.

Yes, its that time, I simply need more power in my workstation on my desk.  I've been farming more and more work off to servers throughout the house, and I did a stock take... of all my kit... I've not done this since the house move, and indeed I documented the last stock take on these pages.

Workstation
Xeon X5670 (6 core, 12 thread) - 32GB RAM - Used all the time

Single Socket Servers
Xeon L5640 (6 core, 12 thread)- 8GB RAM - DistCC slave, Git Host & Fire Host - Used Rarely
Core 2 Duo E6750 (2 core, 2 thread) - 4GB RAM - General always on server (VPN Machine for Chaplain)


Dual Socket Servers
Xeon E5240 (2 core x 2) - 16GB RAM - Dist CC slave, Squid Host, Proxmox Host - Used Rarely
Xeon E5250 (2 core x 2) - 16GB RAM - Dist CC slave, Wow Classic Staging server - Used Rarely
Xeon E5430 (4 core x 2) - 32GB RAM - Dist CC, Dell BMC Test bed, ZFS mirror, Docker container host - Always On
Xeon E5430 (4 core x 2) - 32GB RAM - Xen Server Host.
Xeon E5340 (4 core x 1) - No RAM - Spares for other Dell Boxes
Xeon E5-2620 (6 core, 12 thread x 2) - 128GB RAM - DistCC build coordinator, main server - always on


It has to be said, nearly none of the server have been used regularly as I've just been so so busy.

Laptops
HP Omen (6 core, 12 thread) - 8GB RAM - Used Rarely
PC Specialist (4 core, 8 thread) - 8GB RAM - The Wifes machine, used as a network drive mirror
Lenovo ThinkPad E480 (4 core, 8 thread) - 16GB RAM - Main Laptop


What I decided is, a lot of this server infrastructure has got to go, and to do that the tasks they do - even in frequently have to be picked up by something, and I decided that as I usually spend my time in my new dedicated office I may as well have as much of that working here in the room with me.

The immediate points were to take all the work of the two main machines, the E5-2620 dual socket server (so 24 threads) and my workstation (12 threads), that's 36 threads of work to contend with doling out.

But, I immediately thought about keeping costs low.  The E5 class of Xeons have come down in price and have 10 cores and 20 threads, two of those maybe the way I decide to go... Forearmed with 40 threads, it's a case of getting a dual socket motherboard for my workstation, and since I game on the machine too, perhaps the slower L versions of that class wouldn't cut it... But research will be had.

128GB of RAM or more, seeing as these processors are last-gen that means DDR3 and specifically server EEC DDR3, which is fairly cheap.  And of course I have a whole bunch already in the house.  Unfortunately I have 128GB in 4GB sticks, but it's enough to get me up and testing x79 motherboards from aliexpress.

With the stock of parts I have on hand, it's therefore a the task of recasing things, making them quiet and having them bearably in the office with me.... I've been enamoured with the Corsair Obsidian range of cases for a while... But even before the case, power... 

My E5 based server is a Supermicro, but the motherboard within is actually just an EATX board, so with a spare PSU I could power it up in a new case maybe... And that's where I've decided to start... My first purchase therefore has been a new PSU.


This is platinum rated, that's highly highly efficient, it's all Japanese capacitors, it's workstation class and completely modular.

And you know what, it's only the third power supply I own, you may recall the Xmas Eve rush for a PC from a mate of mine, well I'm pretty sure that the problems there were the PSU in that machine... And I had no spare to offer, felt quite bad about that.  But now I will have spare, because my workstation will be shuffled down one notch into other devices.

The last focus I had on cases was cheapness...


The next one will be style & function.

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