Building a server?

[Moby-Dick]

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.d...775287275&rd=1

^^ cheaper as they are buy it now

[Rave]

Yeah but they're the Willamette equiv. Xeons- yuk.

[Moby-Dick]

they are?

I'll get me coat

[Rave]

256KB L2 cache is a dead giveaway.

[dorky]

easily the most popular dual xeon motherbard is the Asus PC-DL Deluxe.

It created such a cult following, that it spawned this single thread that has had over 10,000 replies so far. wowsers!

It also created this forum site which also has a lot of info and is a good source if you have any queries.

The board became very popular mainly because it was the first xeon motherboard to use a lower cost chipset (875P), and has similar features to a standard P4 workstation computer. Traditionally xeon motherboards were fairly expensive motherboards, since they had specialised chipsets (such as 7500, 7501, 7520, 7525, etc...), they also lacked some of the common workstation features such as AGP8x, Firewire, SATA, etc...

So the Asus PC-DL was somewhat of a breakthrough. Now you could have all the workstation features you were used to, dual processor computing power, and a low cost motherboard.

It's also very overclockable too. many hardcore P4 overclockers, and the D2OL/SETI crowd, converted over to the motherboard and got some great results. It's isn't that difficult to overclock (with good air or watercooling):

2x 1.6ghz xeon LV's (16x100), to 3.2ghz (16x200) (100% overclock!)
Or
2x 2.4ghz xeon MO's (18x133) to 3.4ghz / 3.6ghz (17x200 or 18x200)

You can also sometimes get up to 250+fsb with a lower multiplier, but this requires very good chips (luck of the draw), and very good cooling.

Unfortunately the board is no longer sold in the stores, it has been discontinued, but can still be bought readily on Ebay.

The board has been superseded by the newer Asus PCH-DL, and this board is very similar, except the PCH-DL includes PCI-X slots and has voltage adjustments in the bios (the PC-DL didn't have voltage adjustments in the bios). Refer to this thread for more info on the differences between the PC-DL and PCH-DL.

Overall the PCH-DL can be a little easier to overclock, since it has voltage adjustments in the bios.

A good place to buy xeons cheap is on ebay. That's where I got mine. Paying full retail at a store can be expensive. plus many stores don't stock xeons anyway.

before purchasing I would recommend running the xeon chip type by me before purchasing, I can tell you if it is compatible with this motherboard and if you will get a good overclock.

[arthurleung]

easily the most popular dual xeon motherbard is the Asus PC-DL Deluxe.

It created such a cult following, that it spawned this single thread that has had over 10,000 replies so far. wowsers!

It also created this forum site which also has a lot of info and is a good source if you have any queries.

The board became very popular mainly because it was the first xeon motherboard to use a lower cost chipset (875P), and has similar features to a standard P4 workstation computer. Traditionally xeon motherboards were fairly expensive motherboards, since they had specialised chipsets (such as 7500, 7501, 7520, 7525, etc...), they also lacked some of the common workstation features such as AGP8x, Firewire, SATA, etc...

So the Asus PC-DL was somewhat of a breakthrough. Now you could have all the workstation features you were used to, dual processor computing power, and a low cost motherboard.

It's also very overclockable too. many hardcore P4 overclockers, and the D2OL/SETI crowd, converted over to the motherboard and got some great results. It's isn't that difficult to overclock (with good air or watercooling):

2x 1.6ghz xeon LV's (16x100), to 3.2ghz (16x200) (100% overclock!)
Or
2x 2.4ghz xeon MO's (18x133) to 3.4ghz / 3.6ghz (17x200 or 18x200)

You can also sometimes get up to 250+fsb with a lower multiplier, but this requires very good chips (luck of the draw), and very good cooling.

Unfortunately the board is no longer sold in the stores, it has been discontinued, but can still be bought readily on Ebay.

The board has been superseded by the newer Asus PCH-DL, and this board is very similar, except the PCH-DL includes PCI-X slots and has voltage adjustments in the bios (the PC-DL didn't have voltage adjustments in the bios). Refer to this thread for more info on the differences between the PC-DL and PCH-DL.

Overall the PCH-DL can be a little easier to overclock, since it has voltage adjustments in the bios.

A good place to buy xeons cheap is on ebay. That's where I got mine. Paying full retail at a store can be expensive. plus many stores don't stock xeons anyway.

before purchasing I would recommend running the xeon chip type by me before purchasing, I can tell you if it is compatible with this motherboard and if you will get a good overclock.

I'm pretty interested in Dual Xeon
Although I'm kind of lean toward dual opterons.
There're a few questions I wanted to ask (but too lazy to check around)
1. Does the 2.4Ghz Xeons run very hot at 3.2Ghz+?
2. Does the Xeons have GOOD quiet heatsinks? or even water-cooling
3. I know overclock is purely luck, but whats the probability of reaching 3.2Ghz+ without any modding? For PCH-DL (Pushing up voltage is okay, as long as its not dangerously high)
4. Hyperthreading is enabled on Dual 2.4Ghz right?

[dorky]

1. Same temp difference as a 2.4ghz Pentium4, overclocked to 3.2ghz.

The part that gets hottest is not the cpu's, it's the cpu's VRM (voltage regulation module). You see the VRM isn't regulating voltage for just 1 cpu, it has to regulating voltage for 2 cpu's (twice the load). So you may need to place a fan over the VRM to help actively cool it, or alternatively, watercool your VRM (my VRM is watercooled).

See this thread for an example, it is an Asus PCH-DL with fan over the VRM, and waterblocks on the cpu's and chipset.

http://www.datamine.tk/forum/forum_p...p?TID=402&PN=1

Here is guide on how to create your own VRM waterblock (if you're feeling adventurous):

http://www.datamine.tk/forum/forum_p...p?TID=418&PN=1

2. Yes, the xeon socket (603/604 socket), can use coolers based on the Pentium4 423 socket. See these threads for air cooling:

http://www.datamine.tk/forum/forum_p...p?TID=405&PN=1

http://www.datamine.tk/forum//forum_...?TID=379&TPN=1

and for water cooling:

http://www.datamine.tk/forum/forum_p...p?TID=409&PN=1

3. With an Asus PCH-DL (various voltage mods in bios), and after selecting a good stepping of cpu, having reasonable cooling, and performing a simple vCore voltage mod (this is very easy to do, see below for details), let me say that I would be very surprised if you could not get at least 3.2ghz! Chances are you will get more than this.

Here is a link to the vCore voltage mod:

http://www.datamine.tk/pages/article.asp?TID=14

http://www.datamine.tk/pages/article.asp?TID=18

4. absolutely. if you look up the windows task manager, you will see 4 processors being graphed (oh yeah!).

once you have experienced the power of multi processors, it's hard to go back to a single proc. you can perform various tasks, and there is never any slow down. everything just goes fast. the slowdown becomes less about the computer, and more about the user. you start thinking things like:

"I'm too darn slow at typing..."

&

"what are the shortcuts again? I keep forgetting. look at the computer isn't even breaking a sweat. If only I had 4 hands, perhaps then I might stand a chance..."

&

"this computer is too fast! darn it! now I have to keep typing! can't I just sit back and do nothing while it processes information? mabye I should go back to a slower computer so I can twiddle my thumbs more often. I like twiddling my thumbs, it makes me happy..."

&

"dual xeon computer, I love you. will you marry me?"