Core 2 Quad & PCI-X? also POWER! How much is enough?

[Vimeous]

Fellow Hexites, denizens of "The Tech", lend me your advice....

Does a motherboard exist that supports 65nm and 45nm Intel Core 2 Quad CPU's (not Xeon), x16 PC-Express AND at least one 64-bit PCI-X slot?

Usually PCI-X is the preserve of Xeon motherboards so I wander if the above have yet, indeed ever will, be combined.

Next up ....

What's the minimum 'safe' PSU I should be looking for to power the following?:

1x Core 2 Quad CPU
1x Radeon HD2900XT
2x 750Gb HD's
DVDRW & DVD

On the same topic....

What if the above had 8x 250Gb disks instead of the 2x 750Gb's?

Any ideas peeps?

[alsenior]

i know there was a 975 asus board that had pci-x slots but it has been discontinued i think there might have been a p35 version but the asus site is like treacle again


There is a lot of scope for failure with 8 drives and more than one may fail before a rebuild can occur also by the looks of it your gonna fill out your raid controller meaning your gonna have destroy an array to get more drives on not to mention heat and power considerations for 8 drives so i would consider 3x750 drives in raid 5 as an alternative.

but i'll leave the decisions up to you. for :

8 drives : 700w
6 drives : 650w
3 drives : 600W
2 drives : 550W

Edit:

if you can find it :

ASUSTeK Computer Inc.

[ring.of.steel]

Pretty much what the above poster states, have you had a look at the asus workstation boards?

[arthurleung]

i know there was a 975 asus board that had pci-x slots but it has been discontinued i think there might have been a p35 version but the asus site is like treacle again


There is a lot of scope for failure with 8 drives and more than one may fail before a rebuild can occur also by the looks of it your gonna fill out your raid controller meaning your gonna have destroy an array to get more drives on not to mention heat and power considerations for 8 drives so i would consider 3x750 drives in raid 5 as an alternative.

but i'll leave the decisions up to you. for :

8 drives : 700w
6 drives : 650w
3 drives : 600W
2 drives : 550W

Edit:

if you can find it :

ASUSTeK Computer Inc.

Pretty poor guestimation.
12 drives + low-end A64 only take me 270W to boot, 160W Full load + Multi-drives(arrays) R/W
2900XT and Q6600 add another 200W will be well under 500W.
These values are straight from the socket so it already included about 15% headroom

more than one may fail before a rebuild can occur

Another thing that is quite untrue. If the OP is going to use 250GB drives (I don't recommend TBH, should go for at lease 750GB drives for RAID5 consider how much the RAID card will cost)
The rebuild time (for hardware RAID card) will be well under 2 hours, not really long enough for the risk of 2 disks failure to even appear. Unless there was a lighting / exploded PSU that damaged all harddrives simultaneously which the point about rebuilding is duff. The OP could always go for RAID6 (available on quite recent cards) which have dual redunduncy.

The closest board I can find is
ASUSTeK Computer Inc.
Which doesn't seems to support support quad core though

[dave87]

Depending on what was being done with the workstation I'd also consider looking at a smaller RAID 1 for OS/Software and a RAID5 for Data.

What is the machine going to be doing? Database work? Rendering? Development?

[s3ds]

dabs.com - Asustek S775 Intel P35 ATX 2GLAN (P5K-WS)

ASUSTeK Computer Inc.

im using one

[Koolpc]

520w should be ample with lots to spare!

[Vimeous]

Loads of good info and advice thanks!

I'm especially liking the ASUS board suggested, I've been using their boards for years so they're a known quantity which is always reassuring.

My questions were somewhat loaded as I'm really looking to upgrade and integrate what I've got and picked up recently.

If you look at my siggie we're dealing with machines 1 and 2 here.

PC1 is for gaming and backups. I will also be running VMWare tests (hence quad core).
This will be the machine that receives the new motherboard, CPU (Q6600 most likely), 2Gb RAM and 2x 750Gb Samsung F1's if I can afford it.
It will also get the HD2900XT and Adaptec 2230-SLP SCSI RAID cards I have. The RAID card is to run an external LTO3 tape drive only, no HD's.
I want to know if the current PSU is enough to cope.

PC2 is my partners gaming/video editing machine.
This is using a 3Ware SAS/SATA 8-port RAID card already and will get my 4x 250Gb drives to go with the 6 it already has. The RAID config will then be 2x 250 in RAID1, 2x 250 in RAID0 and 4x 250 in RAID5 (boot, scratch and data store respectively) with 2x 250 as cold standby.
If I'm feeling really brave and can make space in the case it will be 2x 250 RAID1 boot of the motherboard with 4x 250 RAID10 Data and 4x 250 RAID5 Archive on the RAID card.
In this case the PSU is on long-term loan so it needs a new one anyway!

If you can get your noggins round that lot I'm basically using everything I've got to the max while buying as little new kit as possible!

Does this change any of your advice?

[Agent]

but i'll leave the decisions up to you. for :

8 drives : 700w
6 drives : 650w
3 drives : 600W
2 drives : 550W

A 150W increase for 6 extra drives? Just where are you getting those figures from?

[arthurleung]

Loads of good info and advice thanks!

I'm especially liking the ASUS board suggested, I've been using their boards for years so they're a known quantity which is always reassuring.

My questions were somewhat loaded as I'm really looking to upgrade and integrate what I've got and picked up recently.

If you look at my siggie we're dealing with machines 1 and 2 here.

PC1 is for gaming and backups. I will also be running VMWare tests (hence quad core).
This will be the machine that receives the new motherboard, CPU (Q6600 most likely), 2Gb RAM and 2x 750Gb Samsung F1's if I can afford it.
It will also get the HD2900XT and Adaptec 2230-SLP SCSI RAID cards I have. The RAID card is to run an external LTO3 tape drive only, no HD's.
I want to know if the current PSU is enough to cope.

PC2 is my partners gaming/video editing machine.
This is using a 3Ware SAS/SATA 8-port RAID card already and will get my 4x 250Gb drives to go with the 6 it already has. The RAID config will then be 2x 250 in RAID1, 2x 250 in RAID0 and 4x 250 in RAID5 (boot, scratch and data store respectively) with 2x 250 as cold standby.
If I'm feeling really brave and can make space in the case it will be 2x 250 RAID1 boot of the motherboard with 4x 250 RAID10 Data and 4x 250 RAID5 Archive on the RAID card.
In this case the PSU is on long-term loan so it needs a new one anyway!

If you can get your noggins round that lot I'm basically using everything I've got to the max while buying as little new kit as possible!

Does this change any of your advice?

I am more puzzled about the fact that the cost/gb with 4x250 on a 3Ware card is even worse than getting 2x1TB RAID1 or 4x750G RAID0+1 (Without the RAID card). The only SAS card 3Ware have only runs on PCI-Express AND is very new. This make me wonder why you went down this route in the first place. I have 8x300G on a 3Ware card but my array is 1.5 years old, which make more sense for that time.

From what I look at Adaptec site, 2230-SLP

Bus System Interface Type
64-bit/133MHz PCI-X, or 3.3 volt only PCI

The SCSI PCI-X card can be used on a normal PCI slot. Although I'm unsure if the PCI bus able to provide the 80MB/s bandwidth required by your LTO3. Worth trying the card in a PCI slot and you might not actually need a PCI-X slot.

[Vimeous]

I am more puzzled about the fact that the cost/gb with 4x250 on a 3Ware card is even worse than getting 2x1TB RAID1 or 4x750G RAID0+1 (Without the RAID card). The only SAS card 3Ware have only runs on PCI-Express AND is very new. This make me wonder why you went down this route in the first place. I have 8x300G on a 3Ware card but my array is 1.5 years old, which make more sense for that time.

From what I look at Adaptec site, 2230-SLP

The SCSI PCI-X card can be used on a normal PCI slot. Although I'm unsure if the PCI bus able to provide the 80MB/s bandwidth required by your LTO3. Worth trying the card in a PCI slot and you might not actually need a PCI-X slot.

The 250Gb drives were originally purchased when they were the best cost/gb so we've had them for 2yrs...ish. I just don't see the point of getting rid. I totally agree, buying them now would be daft for RAID10 unless it was more important to have the speed vs total available budget.

The 3Ware card we have (9650SE-8LPML) is a PCI-Express x4 card and currently sits in the second PCI-Express slot of the A8N-SLI Premium mboard. TBH it wasn't the SAS functionality that sold the card, it was the ability to use more than 4 SATA drives and support RAID10. LSI and Adaptec sell similar cards that would have performed the same job, no doubt reliably, but the 3Ware came in the cheapest with all the cables I needed.

As for the pain-in-the-posterior Adaptec.
Yes it should fit in a 32bit PCI slot BUT they didn't put in the cut-out to make it fit! I'm therefore stuck looking for a PCI-X board or sell the card and opt for a substantially cheaper standard SCSI card. The Adaptec is overkill for my needs (like the 3Ware it supports RAID6) but as you point out I'd need to research a 32bit replacement very carefully so as not to limit throughput.

[Vimeous]

Power

From all the posts so far I'm still uncertain how much power each of these two machines really need.
Is there anywhere that lists, or has tested the power-draw of modern hard drives?

Another concern is the HD2900XT.
Both our Tagan PSU's (420W i-Xeye & 530W Easycon) have dedicated 4-pin molex's for the gfx card. They also have 6-pin VGA power connectors.
However the card really wants one molex and one 8-pin.
The manual says the card will still work but I want to know if those two missing pins affect its performance. Any ideas?

Motherboard

As suggested the ASUS P5K WS fits the bill.
ASUS also do a P5E WS Pro which offers 2x PCI-E 2.0 x16 slots and up to 1600MHz RAM. It also sticks to DDR2 unlike the other P5E workstation boards.
If I was throwing everything into one case (both RAID cards etc) the second would be ideal but at £189 from Insight I think the first option is the leader ATM!

[alsenior]

when i was working out the power requirements i was thinking in terms of the most efficient usage. to the best of my knowledge most power supply's are the most efficient around 60 - 80 percent mark. that's where my figures come from. no reason not to think of how to make the machines as efficient as possible

[directhex]

you're being given some SERIOUS overestimates for power. my server runs a pentium-d, pci-x sata raid controller, and 8 drives, on a 480W power supply. you can assume the core 2 would require less, but the radeon would u it, so a mid-high 500s power supply would be ample

[alsenior]

maybe i was a bit over generous with the figures

[aidanjt]

Just a smidgen