The CPU's cheap because it's old and no one wants them anymore -- it's of the same generation as 6000 series intel processors (i.e. skylake). It also uses a server socket, so the only motherboards you're going to be able to find are server motherboards. Those are going to be expensive and/or have other quirks, such as requiring a vendor specific heatsink, or a vendor-specific power supply, or take 5 minutes to start up, etc.
You'd be better off spending money on a last-gen cpu and motherboard, for instance here's a combination that is relatively cheap:
$174 for an i5-12400, which according to cpubenchmark.net is nearly 30% faster than the Xeon you linked (score of 19501 vs 15146, much faster single-core score as well):
https://www.amazon.com/Intel-i5-12400-Desktop-Processor-Cache/dp/B09NMPD8V2/
$139 for a compatible motherboard:
https://www.amazon.com/GIGABYTE-B760M-DS3H-AX-Motherboard/dp/B0BSP61QZC/
I also wouldn't pay so much attention to the number of "threads" you think you'll need; you can run many VMs with a total number of virtual processors that is much more than what you actually have, and as long as you're not trying to go whole hog on every machine at the same time you'll be fine, and even if you do, you'll still be better off with a faster processor with a few fewer threads than an older slower cpu with more.
On Thu, Jul 20, 2023, at 10:26 AM, Keith Smith via PLUG-discuss wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I was surfing the Inter Web when I happened upon a Xeon server CPU. It
> is marked at $32.49 at Newegg. It has 12 cores and 24 threads and has a
> good benchmark score.
> https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Xeon+Silver+4116+%40+2.10GHz&id=3179
>
> https://www.newegg.com/p/274-000A-007K2?Description=Xeon
>
> In the future at some point I would like to build something with 20 plus
> or minus cores and 40 threads more or less for Proxmox. This would be
> over kills because I only need 1 or 2 VMs active at one time... maybe 3
> in an extreme situation.
>
> This 12 core/24 thread CPU with 64Gb of Ram and a 1Tb SSD would really
> be more resources than I would ever need. Off the top of my head this
> means I might be able to build a decent Proxmox server for $500 - $600.
>
> I do not need fancy video except for one VM that might be running Win 10
> or 11... I assume a server grade CPU would handle Win 10 and 11?
>
> Am I on the right track?
>
> Thank You For Your Feedback!!
>
> Keith
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