Server class motherboards

[mark_a_scott]

Looking at a new system and was thinking about server class dual processor boards with lodsa memory slots and SLI (im sure an AMD one exists), is a dual processor quad core rig do-able?

[DR]

Why not just get a current Single CPU mainboard and a Quad Core CPU

AMD do not have Quad Core yet! (a while off yet...)

and would you really load it up with more than 4GB of Performance Ram and a Single Quad Core CPU?

[mark_a_scott]

Nah Was thinking a reall FO system: two quad core processors, a pair of x2000s (or whatever they will be called!) 16gb RAM etc etc... maybe not to fully populate now but to have enough room to upgrade the RAM in years to come.

[DR]

Your mad...

[mark_a_scott]

maybe but would be an interresting project to see what sort of performance you can get out of it.

[Agent]

Whats going to be its primary use?

[directhex]

can't be done, AFAIK

there are SLI boards for opteron 2xx (i.e. older ddr1 dual/single core) and socket 60x xeon (older dual/single core)

but i can't find SLI or Crossfire boards for opteron 2xxx (ddr2 dual core), or for Xeon 5xxx (ddr2 dual/quad core)

[directhex]

maybe but would be an interresting project to see what sort of performance you can get out of it.

as a desktop box? some

but if you end up on the xeon route, quad core intel is pretty crappy for performance computing

[DR]

Directhex for memory bandwidth stuff yes, but for render farms no

[directhex]

Directhex for memory bandwidth stuff yes, but for render farms no

memory bandwidth is king

[TheAnimus]

In the land of the blind the one eye'd man has a slightly better chance of catching a tenis ball.

Memory bandwidth is just one type of performance you have to worry about when farming! There are plenty of applications that will benefit from scaling accross CPUs yet only ever use their cache for most of the time.

But then again, most OS's just aren't designed with that in mind been used by one user running 'normal' desktop games and apps. Just think about even basic memory allocation, and control!

[directhex]

when did farming come into the conversation anyway?

[mark_a_scott]

Going back to the point about Xeon Performance, surely they are just Core2 Duos for the server market?

[arthurleung]

when did farming come into the conversation anyway?

Farming in terms of server farming -> i.e. huge amount of processing power (processors instead of harvesters) chunking out loads of data (instead of food)

Not sure if there is any point going further than a QX6800?

If its for "home" use then a QX6800 overclocked with 8G ram will probably beat a dual quad xeon system simply due to clock speed

[mark_a_scott]

going slightly off track here, but what 2gb modules would give the best performance?

[directhex]

Going back to the point about Xeon Performance, surely they are just Core2 Duos for the server market?

yes

and whilst woodcrest is a phenomenal chip (on all but the most memory-bottlenecked apps), clovertown suffers enormously in a variety of computationally intensive apps

Farming in terms of server farming -> i.e. huge amount of processing power (processors instead of harvesters) chunking out loads of data (instead of food)

assume that HPC is my day job