Excellent news, I have 3 on the way. 

I will admit this ongoing bloodbath was a nice way to temper my expectations, but it's still not stopping me from trying to take 8 lots at auction of server grade hardware.   

To the guy asking about the G7's, I'll know something tonight.  My first one arrives today.  I also have another server that might work for budget builds.  Once I test, I'll advise.

I need to recoup, so Zcash it is for me for now (unless there is a better alternative) as I bring boxes online.  However CPUs will be dedicated to ITNS.  One of the things I've been figuring out is that in the beginning I need to go for max profit but once I start paying down the equipment, I need to start diversifying a bit in what I'm mining, "just in case".  Including in that would be power upgrades to increase density (240V PDU), tuning boxes for best cost / performance ratio, software optimization in choice of pools/algos, etc.

I feel like a DSMer, I'm trying to go for most bang for least budget.  Hopefully I can fake it until I make it. 

Have you found that the all in one miner outperforms the older individual exes?

I would assume from his comments that L3 cache size is the primary determination of performance due to how many cores you can enable.  Then it's up to clock speed.  In the E7 range, there is no "optimum" choice where L3 will roughly equal total thread capability.  You are either short on threads like you and I are with the 8837's which leaves L3 cache on the table and unused or you will have too many threads for the amount of L3 you have.

Newer chips can resolve that due to increased L3 size but also at significant platform and CPU cost.

Which means that taking 24MB of L3 cache and dividing by 2 nets 12 threads and you can only run 8 correct?

Excellent.  I'm hoping to pick up a big batch of obsolete server iron this week to toss in one of my containers and this will def help in picking proper CPUs for highest efficiency!

Because the DL580's are only 4.  You have to move to a DL980 to find the 8 chip unit.  At least that's what I figured out today.  However the DL980 units are going for about $2k a piece...

Well now I feel like a dummy.  I saw E7-8870s in the list before and thought it would be more of a boost than just double the accessible RAM which won't do us any good.    8870s can address 4.1TB while the lowly 4870 can only address 2.05TB  I don't think that will give us the kind of performance boost we are looking for.  I guess next time I'll make sure to check the specs instead of just going... Ooooh bigger numbers, has to be faster right?

Found 4 8837s for 35 shipped, they are on the way... LOL

In the product description, yes.  Look at the link the nsummy posted, it clearly states the mini pc comes with an Iris Pro graphics.  If it states Iris Pro you are good to go.  If it states Intel HD graphics, you would not be.

There are even better E7 CPUs that can go in that aren't listed in the spec sheet but you have to make sure you have the proper revision main I/O board.  I've already been looking into replacements since mine come with X7542's.

Spinx, sounds like we are barking up the same tree except I'll be using Nvidia cards.  You have better CPUs than mine though.

Hopefully you get things worked out.  My G7 is slated for delivery this coming Wed along w/ most of the cards so I'll report back sometime Thursday probably as to my success or failure.

Minimal since it has no GPU assist w/ only Intel HD video and not Iris Pro w/ 128mb of RAM.

That doesn't bode well!  The documentation for the Server says it supports up to 4 GPU's so you should be able to get more running.  (I believe that is due to the power connectors available on the power breakout board) However, I'm hoping that someone who has experience with the DL580 and running more GPUs on it can chime in since I've got one on the way too!

Anymore info on how you have your setup connected?  Cards plugged straight into box?  Using risers?  Using onboard power source or external for the cards, etc.

The 1080s were ~560-600 depending on if tax had to be paid or not.  Snagged one from Newegg and 2 from Amazon.
The 1060s were $260 each including tax and a 4 year replacement plan.

I also have a amazon business acct.  I bought 3 of the 1060s through my personal account because that was the limit.  I then switched to the business account Amazon luckily just referred me to a few days ago and I could have bought as many as I wanted but I limited myself to 6.  It was also $3 cheaper per card... lol

In retrospect, I probably should have only bought 1 warranty per type of card....  LOLOL

I'm not too worried about user friendly, I started using Linux when Redhat and Suse were the major players and Ubuntu wasn't even a twinkle in an eye yet... LOL  If you think Linux has a lack of drivers for certain things now...  

More importantly, with the DL580 G7 I bought, I'm more worried about running the OS off a pen drive than the 8x 10k SAS drives the box is coming with... Those are going straight up on Ebay for $10/.  Simply not worth the power draw.  The box I got came with 4x1200 PSU and 4x6c CPUs & 64GB RAM.  Plan is to pull 2 of the PSU's to power the GPUs with breakout boards and leave 2 in the box for a true redundant PSU setup.  My box didn't have the 2nd PCIe I/O board so I ordered one for 11 total GPUs on it.

Plan is to add a 2nd level to the open part of the DL580 chassis to house all the cards.  The box is big enough they should all fit above it. 

I want to mimic Sundownz strategy of using every cycle possible to generate income which is why I went for a 4 CPU setup to run the first miner.  If the CPUs can cover the cost of the electricity for all the "real" workers, that's a win!

What I desperately need to do is get the 50' antenna tower up so I can run my Mimosa equipment for my 750mbps backhaul to a location a mile away that actually has proper Internet.  I'm currently tethering off a 4G phone.  Thank God for AT&T Unlimited.  I blow through over 200GB a month and don't get throttled since network congestion in my area is non existent.  150ms average ping to mining servers though...

Here is to hoping that I didn't get on the bandwagon too late!

Yeah moving to Linux, management was a key point.  Obviously, RDP or CRDP are primarily for Windows and since Sundownz is using W10pro, that was directed for him. 

Sundownz, my wallet would like to thank you for the more than $5k I've spent in the last 24 hours to start my own setup.  In many ways I feel like a big dummy.  Being an IT hardware guy all my life this is right up my alley and really, mining feels no different than running prime95 and submitting results... lol  I should have started this years ago when I was in my 5k sq ft automotive shop and had plenty of power.  I'd be a millionaire by now if I had.  I'm not a trader.  I'm too emotional so I do stupid things with the little bit I've tried.  However, mining is something tangible and I can definitely wrap my head around getting paid for work.

I dipped my toes in the mining pool finally this week and once I realized that with the hardware I already had (1080, 780 and a 7950) I was going to average $300/m... Well I went a little crazy buying things.  I've got 9 1060s and 3 1080s on the way! lol  

I bought a DL580 G7 w/ 4 cpus to setup as my first rack.  I'm comfortable in Linux so I figured I'd try to get the one machine up and off the ground to start.  It coming with 4x1200w PSU's made me feel it was good value for the $.  I want to CPU mine and also run 11 GPUs through it.

I've got lots of space and currently 400A of service.  If all goes well I'm thinking of burying containers in the ground and using geothermal cooling loops to keep the hardware cool as I'm in TX and it gets rather hot down here.

For the remote access stuff, Google's Chrome Remote Desktop is basically Windows RDP with a FAR nicer interface.  It lists all the PCs and tells you which ones are up or down and even last online time if a box goes down.  I was a hardcore Windows RDP user and I switched to the Chrome version.  All you have to do is run the Chrome RDP installer while you are logged into Chrome and then from anywhere in the world that PC would be accessible when you are logged into Chrome.

Thanks for all of your posts.  A lot of people don't want to share their secrets or how they are doing things so what you are doing really is helping out the average Joe!