Xeon E3 1220 V5 for $69 !?

TrueNAS General
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I am researching upgrade path for my old E3 1220 V3 Core and came across this at Newegg:

The old saying about too good to be true, what am I missing here? Why would this Xeon be so cheap?

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It’s old, doesn’t run Windows 11, still only four cores, etc. Also, it doesn’t work on your system, you’re limited to v3 and v4.

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Thanks for that. Maybe I should have been more informative. I am building a new TrueNAS Core server. The old one is showing its age throwing fan and memory errors. It is based on an E3-1220 V3 and a Supermicro X10 mbd. So if I were to use the subject CPU in a Supermicro X11 mbd would that net a performance increase worth the effort?

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v3 and v4, of course.
The short answer is that it is so old that $69 is not even such a good deal, especially for the lower end of the range.

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I’d replace the bad fan and memory, performance benefits would be marginal.

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Yes, that was a consideration but better performance is also now on the want list. Current machine has been running 24/7 going on 11 years now. a LOT has changed since then. A bewildering number of Xeon flavors are around these days. It will take me some time to wade through all the options. I want to stay with Supermicro/Intel. This is a home NAS, Plex server that might also provide Zoneminder and Home Assistant. Any pointers on a starting point?

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To significantly bump performance, you’ll have to look higher than yet another Xeon E3.

How many drives (HDDs and/or SSDs), now and for the foreseeable future? Is transcoding on the requirement list with this Plex server?

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Transcoding - Yes. Currently running Qty.4 WD RedPro 12TB and one ancient WD 36GB Raptor boot device that would possibly be changed to an M.2 NVME. Possible another 2 WD Red HDDs in future.

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That nudges you towards a C2x6 motherboard and CPU with iGPU. These typically come with 8 SATA and 2 M.2.
C246: X11SCH with Core i3-8100/9100 (yes, ECC!) or Xeon E-2100/2200. Issue: these motherboards are now hard to find. (Can find AsRock Rack E3C246 on ebay.)
C256: X12STH with Xeon E-2300 (no Core i3). Issue: expensive. Edit: example here.
side option: W480/W580 with Xeon W-1200/1300. Meant for workstation, but Supermicro boards come a BMC as well.

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Thanks for that! It was enough to get me a starting point. The x12sch mb in your referenced post does not have IPMI so I went a different direction and would up with:

Supermicro X13SCL-F mbd
Intel Xeon E-2468 Processor
and yes ECC memory, 64GB.

It was more than was expected cost wise but I only want do do this once in the next 10 years. Planning to keep existing case, and PSU, for now anyway.
Many thanks for your time and expertise.

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X12STH-LN4F has IPMI (‘F’).
Mind that the latest Xeon E-2400 have no iGPU, so you’d be transcoding on the CPU or by adding a dGPU.

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Agree but there seems to be issues with getting PLEX to make use of a GPU so it seemed of lesser importance at the present time. Also the bulk of transcoding is handled by an Nvidia Shield. If transcoding issues get ironed out in the future, a dGPU can be added.
I must be looking at something wrong. Searching for X12STH-LN4 on Newegg shows it as a workstation board with no IPMI, DDR4 at 3200MHZ and a price of $424. The X13CL-F shows as a server board with IPMI and DDR5 at 4400MHZ, faster performance expectation?. Provantage has it at $354.48.

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I’d trust the manufacturer more than a webshop to provide correct information. It’s a server board. On a side note, even if it was a workstation board, that’s still a better choice than consumer hardware.

Newegg lists: ASPEED AST2600 BMC that’s the BMC chip, which ultimately gives you IPMI

https://utcc.utoronto.ca/~cks/space/blog/tech/IPMIAndBMCTerminology

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I see that now, searching Supermicro’s WEB site clearly lists IPMI 2.0.
Thanks also for the BMC clarification. When I was in the business, BMC was a software company I dealt with so the acronym was something of a head scratcher.

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The days of Supermicro X10 generation seems to finally be here. Great class of hardware all around and still probably useful, but with these prices it’s ecycling time. I feel old.

I’m kind of in the market of building a small budget box, so thanks for bringing this up!

I found these, which is really enticing

GIGABYTE MB10-Datto Motherboard Xeon D-1521- SR2DF 2.40 GHz- Open Box | eBay

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Great price for a Xeon D-1500 while Supermicro X10SDV still commend price well above “e-cycling”. But I suspect that IPMI on these Datto-rebranded Gigabyte boards is still Java only, as it is on Datto-rebranded AsRock Rack boards.
PLease let us know if you get a MB10.

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Yeah, X10SDV boards routinely sell for >400 €, used, in basic versions (4 cores, 2 10GBase-T or 1GBase-T ports). Not a bad price, but much more expensive that the X10SL* series plus a CPU.

On the plus side, the X10SDVs do include an NVMe driver in firmware, something which was never officially done on the X10SL* line.

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