Xeon Asus Z10PE-D16 WS Build

[Gilly262]

View attachment 241365 Success Xeon / Asus Z10PE-D16 WS Build

Total ReWrite of my original post...

I've decided to try for the above Xeon Motherboard based on the availability of the board and the progress others have made with the Z9 variant of the same.

Board is ordered... Waiting on it and other parts for the build. Will post progress as it occurs.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

E . D . I . T . E . D . I . T . March 12, 2017.

With the aide and assistance of many here and other places, I managed to have a functioning
Asus Dual CPU Mobo, the Z10PE-D16 ws
(2) - Xeon E5-2630 v4 10 core (20 physical/40 w/ both CPUs)
32Gram
980ti graphics
logickeyboard - resolve edition
kensington trackballpro
32" HP Envy34c Curved Wide Screen panel
Corsair HX1200i PSU


Functional graphics/editing/finishing/developing long life box.
Not much but good to say about the board. Lots of realestate.

Attachment "Z10PE-D16ws_billg_tonymacUpload" below was the most current plist to date.


Prior to this success, I had purchase v3 Xeons, and I got no where with installing.
Sucked it up and got a pair of v4's. Problem solved.
v3's will be repurposed into any future Asus X99-M WS builds, of which one is under way.

Anyway, attached is the functioning config file. Look it over, pump in a serial number manually or with Clover. Manual thru TextWrangler would probably be 100% full proof in not twisting anything in the plist, imho.

Updated to my most recent plist. I had some issues with nVidia web. All that is solved once I used the terminal to allow 3rd party software to be installed proper. After that was done, I finally got nVidia Control Panel working on the preference pane. It would crash after a few minutes on any boot. Now all is good.

Bill

 

[Gilly262]

Asus Z10PE-D16 WS Build

First off the purpose of the box will be for 4k raw color grading along with learning Houdini.
I've been using my i7 Hackintosh and my previous build ended up frying the cpu from over heating.
I had no idea how much heat is generated when doing simulations. I cannot stress enough that for any purpose built box that will stress the CPU, you need to walk before you run with subtle testing and observance of the temperatures being developed on the CPU.

That said, I set out to research and budget for building a Xeon box. If it can be a hack, so be it, if not, then some flavor or win64. I prefer to have results rather than worry about OS. I do want to run OS x, but there are no guarantees with this sort of deal.

PARTS:

Asus Z10PE-D16 WS
Corsair HXi1200i Power Supply
TP Link Archer T6E PCI Express AC1300 Wireless Card
IOGear GBU521 Bluetooth 4.0 Adapter
SanDisk Ultra II 2.5" 480GB SATA III SSD's
Corsair Obsidian Series 750D Airflow Edition Full Tower ATX Case
Corsair Memory CT7200203 CT4K8G4RFS4213.000 32GB UPGRADE FOR A ASUS Z10PE-D16 WS

**This only utilizes 4 of the 16 DIMM slots, so success will lead to more memory. No need to get crazy until the system is up and running. One 8GB DIMM per bank sounded reasonable to me.**​

Video Card Options: I have a 980ti and a gtx780, so either if the 980ti works, great. Using Corsairs power supply helper I left room to grow with the PSU being the HXi1200i

So now I wait for deliveries and hopefully a somewhat painless build.

Yet to purchase are:
Xeon processors, it's an ebay thing. Watch Wait Snatch
Noctua CPU Cooler NH-U12DX i4, which is specific for the Xeon procs.

 

[Gilly262]

Just curious on how you guys feel about "Engineering Samples"... I hear some bad, some good. Has anyone had first hand experience with this situation?

The temptation of a dirt cheap processor... The fear of getting a dud... When people post those desktop snaps of the windows software that gives all the data on a particular processor.

Why is there no hour meter? Or did I miss that somewhere. And you would also think a good thing would be a processor that also kept a log on issues like over heating... how long and how hot. I'm just babbling, anyway, I am curious if anyone on the board has dealt with the ES Xeons from eBay.

Thanks in advance,


Bill

 

[Stork]

Simple answer...don't use an engineering sample as they are not necessary representative of the final product and probably will not work properly.

 

[Gilly262]

That's pretty much all I need to hear... Your advice and others are the bedrock of this site.

At least this build will be a planned one. My last one was based on immediate need. CDW called to confirm the motherboard purchase. I hope they were honest about 6-8 day order time, I'm putting my trust in that. Google needs to run a secondary script that filters anyone advertising a part, but has None In Stock. Don't ya just hate researching costs and every price comparison means nothing if they dont have "the part" in stock.

I'm in the home stretch for purchases. Next up is the processors and cooling.

This thing is going to look cool, or I'm just psyched and have "The Build Rabies", whatever the hell that is... makes one think of Ole Yeller. I think the fight with the bores was real. ASPCA was not on set for this one!! Dam, I'm babbling again, I'm off to settle up on the processors!

Bill

 

[trs96]

Just curious on how you guys feel about "Engineering Samples"... I hear some bad, some good. Has anyone had first hand experience with this situation?

The temptation of a dirt cheap processor... The fear of getting a dud... When people post those desktop snaps of the windows software that gives all the data on a particular processor.

Why is there no hour meter? Or did I miss that somewhere. And you would also think a good thing would be a processor that also kept a log on issues like over heating... how long and how hot. I'm just babbling, anyway, I am curious if anyone on the board has dealt with the ES Xeons from eBay.

Thanks in advance,

Bill

From what I've read, Xeons are built to withstand much more heat over longer periods of time because
they have to function in a server environment. Consumer chips like your I7 that fried, not so much. If
you have the choice go with a non ES Xeon. You can find used Xeons on Ebay at really good prices.
Just takes some searching. Once they're over 3-4 years old the prices fall like a rock and some that
originally cost closer to $1500 or more new can be bought at ridiculously low prices. You would of
course have to go with an older Sandy or Ivy Bridge server motherboard.

Here's one example: This 8 core SB Xeon cost $1500 new just 4 years ago. Now they sell for well
under one hundred dollars. http://ark.intel.com/products/64595...E5-2670-20M-Cache-2_60-GHz-8_00-GTs-Intel-QPI
So you can easily buy two for a 16 core 32 thread beast that you can push as hard and as long as you'd
like with the right cooling setup. I've seen many more successful builds with the ASUS Z9PE than the
motherboard (Z10PE) that you are trying to purchase. You might want to look into this some more
before going with the Haswell-E system.

 

[Gilly262]

Well I purchase current processors, the E5-2640 v3 2.60Ghz 20M Cache 8-Core 115W and Two Noctua NH-U12DX i4 Coolers. The Xeons were $963/e

Case arrive today and it may not even have a travel dent from the looks of the carton.

I think I have everything ordered that needed to be, and frankly it still is no rush. When it is all here I wont make an unboxing video, and I wont do a review, and I wont do a timelapse build, but there is a chance I will take snap shot of a bunch of empty boxes surrounding the new tower.

EDIT:

Oh, and the build shall be called the HawkinTosh in honor of my wheel chair buddy, Steven Hawkins!!!

 

[Gilly262]

Well, all the parts came in and I slapped it together with one CPU to start off with and the GTX780 as my graphics default.
Lo and behold, I can get to the Clover installer screen. When I tell it to Boot Mac OS X from USB, I get the apple logo over black screen and the progress bar just appears...... THEN BEEP, system reboots.

Added some arguments from another like board, I get to the FakeSMC load, I can see the text THE KING along with the FakeSMC text, then the screen goes black and reboot. Hope this is helpful in understanding what is happening to me.

Any thoughts on what is happening at the beginning of the install at this point?

TIA!

Bill

 

[Gilly262]

I guess a standing status would be nice for me to share. Until this board is able to be confidently run as a mac, it will perform under Windows 10. In Cinebench CPU, 16 Core, 16 Threads @ 2.60 GHz CPU E5-2640 v3 32G ECC Ram, GTX 780.

Cinebench score was 1710. So at least you know that if you throw good parts at a project, it will at least perform in some manner. If I had not said it before, I went with the 2640 as a balance on price/performance that I found acceptable.

Bill

 

[dragoonchang]

How's your progress? I really want to know cause I am going to build on the same motherboard too.