Thanks Ryan for your response. I am not doing anything at this stage in terms of a rebuild

I did not realise Mamaj had these too now but the "sensible" route to take for a WCG build that is capable too in other areas is that of workstation/server motherboards and xeon processors. These are more efficient than AMD offerings.

Xeon E5-26xx V2 family are cheaper to buy as they still use ddr3 ecc ram.

Ram: 1GB per core is great but it will run on half that on most projects

Supermicro is a name to acquaint yourself with on the motherboard front.

The original E5-26xx cpus (not V2) are still good and economical to run.

If you do buy a dp MB and install just 1 cpu beware the fact that upgrading requires the same cpu to be fitted as a pair and until the MB is fully populated some features such as pcie slots will not be available

The MB I suggested will work equally as well as either a server or workstation/desktop. The main benefit is that as a server board it is designed to be running 24/7, thus you should have less issues.

The vast majority of my devices are now based on server technology for reliability and cost effectiveness, i.e. the more processes/work units that run on one machine/device the less electricity they use each.

This is mainly due to the overhead of running the motherboard, HDD, Memory, graphics and PSU, all of which use power to run, with no direct return.

2 of my most efficient machines have 4 processors with 64 cores, yes, they use a bit of power, but the results/points/run time is very good!

The MB/CPU/RAM combo I mentioned runs at less than 300 watts running 2x E5-2630 V2 which are 6 core/12 threads, total 24 work units at a time. It returns an average of 85,000 points per day running 24/7.

I run mine on Ubuntu, but it will run on Windows 7 Pro or Ultimate equally as well. Windows basic and home do not support 2 processors if memory serves correctly...

Hope this helps highlight the benefits of server/workstation MB's

Truth be told it is only prior to 2600K era and when I was overclocking that I encountered longevity problems with even the best desktop MB's.

I am thinking that rigs using ddr4 are still overpriced but they are the future. Matching components from the manufacturers' QVL's is recommended. Buying the absolute best quality PSU is too as this is the heart of the system.