# Dual CPU(8 cores) motherboards



## DaMulta (Jan 25, 2008)

So I'm looking at dual CPU motherboards again. I do understand that the skull will be out next month maybe. 

But what is there right now on the market?


L1N64-SLI WS
Enthusiast "Megatasking"
- Support 2 AMD AthlonTM 64 FX Socket L1 (1207FX) CPU
- DDR2 800/667/533
- HT 2000/1600 MT/s
- Quad PCI-E Graphics

Does this board take the new Quad Core chips for 8 cores?

Also

 ASUS DSEB-DG Dual 771 Intel 5400

45nm Multi-Core Processor Ready Platform with High Power Efficiency
ASUS new server board DSEB-DG is based on the next-generation 45nm Intel® Xeon® 5400/5300/5200/5100 processor with the green design of 90%+ power efficiency. Featured with leading-edge technology including FSB 1600MHz, FB-DIMM 800MHz, PCI-Express Gen2 x16 and IOAT2, the DSEB-DG is the most out-performance server board which is ideal for enterprise-class and computing demanding applications.


Will this board run SLi or Crossfire? It is 45nm compatible, and even has the new PCI-E 2.0 on it.


Any other boards out there to look at?


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## Mussels (Jan 25, 2008)

Seroiusly... you are the dual CPU guru on here. If you dont know, i doubt anyone else here does.


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## DaMulta (Jan 25, 2008)

Dan might know, I haven't ever had a dual CPU board yet.....servers at work but not a gaming machine at home. I have always wanted one......


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## snuif09 (Jan 25, 2008)

the first mobo is good but amd quit the qaud fx platform so no future support


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## Frick (Jan 25, 2008)

DaMulta said:


> Dan might know, I haven't ever had a dual CPU board yet.....servers at work but not a gaming machine at home. I have always wanted one......



Isn't it a bit ... overkill to use it just for gaming? I mean, there's not a lot of games that uses 4 cores, so why would you want 8?


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## Mussels (Jan 25, 2008)

DaMulta said:


> Dan might know, I haven't ever had a dual CPU board yet.....servers at work but not a gaming machine at home. I have always wanted one......



maybe i got you confused with dan... woops.


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## DaMulta (Jan 25, 2008)

Frick said:


> Isn't it a bit ... overkill to use it just for gaming? I mean, there's not a lot of games that uses 4 cores, so why would you want 8?



3Dmark


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## Frick (Jan 25, 2008)

DaMulta said:


> 3Dmark



Well, it's your $$. 

EDIT:



DaMulta said:


> I haven't ever had a dual CPU board yet.....servers at work but not a gaming machine at home. I have always wanted one......


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## btarunr (Jan 25, 2008)

No, the L1N64SLI-WS will not support Quad-core chips. The board is to be replaced with a revised board, the L1N64SLI-WS/B. This board provides official support for the Barcelona and Agena FX chips.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131248

It is selling for peanuts. I mean it.


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## cdawall (Jan 25, 2008)

the 1st mobo has a hacked BIOS for barcelona support available on XS

however here is the updated version with native quad support ASUS L1N64-SLI WS/B

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131248


bah btarunr beat me to it


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## Deleted member 3 (Jan 25, 2008)

Intel doesn't officially support SLI/Crossfire on their workstation/server chipsets. On the AMD part this option is open. 

However, if you read the frontpage Asus Z7S is real, it's like Skulltrail but not limited and most likely slightly cheaper (500 Euro range I'd guess) It supports Crossfire and has OC options.
No board besides Z7S and Skulltrail have these features on the Xeon platform.


In both AMD and Intel cases you need new RAM. AMD means reg/ecc, Intel either reg/ecc (up to 1333mhz fsb officially, i5100) or FB-DIMMs. (i5000x/v/p, i5400)


If you require dual GPU's go either AMD or Z7S. If not, any 5400 with PCIe is a nice choice. I recommend not going for SM as they offer crap warranty (pay 500 euros, get 1 year and complaints about you being an end user, end up paying for repairs) Of course the AMD road is open as well, though I have no experience with quad core AMD's, let alone two of them on a board. If you go the AMD road at least make sure the board supports NUMA.


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## DaMulta (Jan 25, 2008)

NUMA??


Asus Z7S would be the one you would wait for Dan?


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## DaMulta (Jan 25, 2008)

cdawall said:


> the 1st mobo has a hacked BIOS for barcelona support available on XS
> 
> however here is the updated version with native quad support ASUS L1N64-SLI WS/B
> 
> ...



Did they have good luck or good scores with it?

On their website it says


> Megatasking Worstation Motherboard
> - NVIDIA Quadro® Certified
> - Support 2 x Quad-core AMD Opteron 2000 series CPU
> - Registered DDR2 667/533
> ...


http://www.asus.com/search.aspx?searchitem=1&searchkey=L1N64-SLI+WS/B
So that board seems that it would work.


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## Deleted member 3 (Jan 25, 2008)

DaMulta said:


> NUMA??
> 
> 
> Asus Z7S would be the one you would wait for Dan?



Actually I was planning on skipping 5400, though when Asus told me Z7S was real I figured I wanted it 

Asus warranty, although slow, does work.

NUMA is a way to boost memory performance with multiple sockets. Wiki it if you want details.


Dual Opteron boards are a lot cheaper than Intel btw, and reg/ecc is slightly cheaper than FB-DIMMs as well. So if on a low budget AMD might be your option. 


@frick
It is.


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## cdawall (Jan 25, 2008)

DaMulta said:


> Did they have good luck or good scores with it?
> 
> On their website it says
> 
> ...



from the thread on XS 



RonindeBeatrice said:


> It's been confirmed thanks to CyberDruid that this is just the Asus L1N64-WS, but with a new bios which limits it to use Reg-Dimms, but makes it Barcelona capable. i.e.  It's the exact same thing that's been available elsewhere on this site for a month.


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## btarunr (Jan 25, 2008)

this is why I said no to my brother when he wanted to swap his  L1N64 and whatever he had to trade for my Q6600: http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/amd-quad-fx_8.html#sect0


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## DaMulta (Jan 25, 2008)

cdawall said:


> from the thread on XS



Do you have a link to that thread?



DanTheBanjoman said:


> Actually I was planning on skipping 5400, though when Asus told me Z7S was real I figured I wanted it
> 
> Asus warranty, although slow, does work.
> 
> ...


Yea, but you don't get the performance that you would get with Intel. I'm going to the other side on my next rig.....8800GTs and I would love to try a dual cpu board. I mean you don't have to buy both CPUs right off the bat. Could just run one CPU for a while. Teh Z7s would more than likly have more options than the Intel would I would guess as well. It is too bad that you have to run ECC ram which is costly.


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## cdawall (Jan 25, 2008)

DaMulta said:


> Do you have a link to that thread?



yes

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=172230

not all that much other info on it though


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## Solaris17 (Jan 25, 2008)

id go intel if i was going to do it and not amd i mean their wouldnt be much of an upgrade path yet seeing as they dropped the project to work on phenom....


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## Disparia (Jan 25, 2008)

DaMulta said:


> 3Dmark



Heh, I've been wondering if there was a cap on cores used in the CPU test. Supermicro has a quad 1207 board with two x16 slots for SLI. Once the fixed Opterons are back on the market, would have 16-cores and the ability to do a pair of 9800GX2's 

As for dual Xeon boards, Asus, Tyan and Supermicro have 5400-based boards out. Gigabyte and MSI don't yet.

If The Inq could take the Asus Z7S and run CrossFire with available drivers, don't see why it wouldn't work on other 5400 boards. <cross my fingers>


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## cdawall (Jan 25, 2008)

there is this one to i dont know if its quad core compatible though but i would assume it is

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130117


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## Deleted member 3 (Jan 25, 2008)

Jizzler said:


> If The Inq could take the Asus Z7S and run CrossFire with available drivers, don't see why it wouldn't work on other 5400 boards. <cross my fingers>



Because we don't know how it works on the Z7S, they might use some extra hardware to fool drivers or have some deal with ATi, who knows. Have to wait for official launch I guess. The lanes are there though, all on the northbridge.


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## btarunr (Jan 25, 2008)

cdawall said:


> there is this one to i dont know if its quad core compatible though but i would assume it is
> 
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130117



It supports Barcelona but there is no mention of the Agena-FX

http://global.msi.com.tw/index.php?func=proddesc&prod_no=1388&maincat_no=133&cat2_no=208

Look at the "QVL" tab. (QVL = Qualified Vendors' List)


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## Disparia (Jan 25, 2008)

DanTheBanjoman said:


> Because we don't know how it works on the Z7S, they might use some extra hardware to fool drivers or have some deal with ATi, who knows. Have to wait for official launch I guess. The lanes are there though, all on the northbridge.



True, it's all rumors til release, but with people doing CrossFire on old 5000X boards, I'm thinking that ATI doesn't discriminate all that much 

Would have tried it myself with the Tyan or Supermicro 5400... but I have to buy a new A/C for the house before Spring, so no dual Xeons for me this year.


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## Solaris17 (Jan 25, 2008)

dude this is sick....


http://www.tyan.com/product_board_detail.aspx?pid=554


any one remember the tyan board that was quad socket and had pci-e slots on the bottom so you could connect it with another quad mobo


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## Deleted member 3 (Jan 25, 2008)

Jizzler said:


> but with people doing CrossFire on old 5000X boards



Source?


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## ktr (Jan 25, 2008)

Solaris17 said:


> dude this is sick....
> 
> 
> http://www.tyan.com/product_board_detail.aspx?pid=554
> ...



Only issue is that you cannot install normal windows os, but you end up installing some windows server edition.

also these server boards should do sli with nvidia quadro, and there is one equivalent to the 8800gtx.


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## Deleted member 3 (Jan 25, 2008)

ktr said:


> Only issue is that you cannot install normal windows os, but you end up installing some windows server edition.



2k3 server is used quite commonly as desktop. I don't see the issue.


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## Solaris17 (Jan 25, 2008)

that and server 2k3 is compatable with like everything just like xp and with the watered down interface....and the cleaner OS over all your scores would not only jump because of the hardware but because of OS performance  and if you dont like the waterd down OS look grab a skin....and though it supports only quadro's in sli...it supports a true 16x connection and besides with a  little bios modification to the card...since it has the same amount of ROPS etc you can make an 8800G** work..oinly prob is i dont think you can oc...but a 3ghz quad in each socket would totally rock


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## Disparia (Jan 26, 2008)

DanTheBanjoman said:


> Source?









BEAUTIFUL 

http://www.hardspell.com/english/doc/showcont.asp?news_id=1221

While looking for the forums where I read about users with 5000X boards and CrossFire I found this review. I guess Crossfire should also work with the 5000P boards, but every time I read about it a 5000X board is being used. Oh well, that's a moot point with the 5400 chipset out now.


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## Disparia (Jan 26, 2008)

Solaris17 said:


> that and server 2k3 is compatable with like everything just like xp and with the watered down interface....and the cleaner OS over all your scores would not only jump because of the hardware but because of OS performance  and if you dont like the waterd down OS look grab a skin....and though it supports only quadro's in sli...it supports a true 16x connection and besides with a  little bios modification to the card...since it has the same amount of ROPS etc you can make an 8800G** work..oinly prob is i dont think you can oc...but a 3ghz quad in each socket would totally rock



In case anyone is into this kind of thing... 2K8 has the "Vista Desktop Experience" (Aero and themes) as an option.

I didn't try it when I was playing around with the beta...


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## Deleted member 3 (Jan 26, 2008)

5000p/v have less lanes than the 5000x, that's probably the reason the 5000x is used.

Anyway, on that link you gave 3dmark scores are below a single 8800gts, besides it doesn't say how they got it to work.
Got a more reliable source by any chance?


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## candle_86 (Jan 26, 2008)

snuif09 said:


> the first mobo is good but amd quit the qaud fx platform so no future support



amd hasn't killed it, the new FX is slated to arrive for Quad FX still, but also runs in AM2+ boards.

As for the quadFX board youd have to ask ASUS, the only thing i no for sure is that when tri-core arrives all AM2 boards can support that.


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## candle_86 (Jan 26, 2008)

Solaris17 said:


> that and server 2k3 is compatable with like everything just like xp and with the watered down interface....and the cleaner OS over all your scores would not only jump because of the hardware but because of OS performance  and if you dont like the waterd down OS look grab a skin....and though it supports only quadro's in sli...it supports a true 16x connection and besides with a  little bios modification to the card...since it has the same amount of ROPS etc you can make an 8800G** work..oinly prob is i dont think you can oc...but a 3ghz quad in each socket would totally rock



I thought 2k3 had limited gaming support, at least thats what i heard when it launched


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## Mussels (Jan 26, 2008)

candle_86 said:


> I thought 2k3 had limited gaming support, at least thats what i heard when it launched



load up DXdiag and move the sliders for video and hardware acceleration to full, and it works like XP.

I merely found that i had to do that fairly often, as changing hardware/drivers it kept resetting to no acceleration.


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## Disparia (Jan 26, 2008)

Yeah, it was pretty low. I was thinking that maybe it was running at 2.0Ghz like in CPU-Z screenshot (6x mult) and not at the full 3Ghz. And possibly the drivers weren't up to snuff yet.

Back when Intel slipped out the "V8" platform, dual 3.0Ghz QC Xeon on a 5000X board with an 8800GTX yielded:


			
				HotHardware said:
			
		

> We also ran a default 3DMark06 test and a multi-threaded Cinebench v9.5 benchmark on this rig and were thoroughly impressed. The overall 3Dmark06 score was 13,002 (SM2.0=5,104 / HDR & SM3.0=4,932); the CPU score was 6,556 - almost 500 points higher than the rig Intel was showing off at CES.



Unfortunately no CPU score listed at Hardspell.com to test my theory. But a review from Bjorn3D around the time of the 2900's launch with a C2D at 2.13Ghz and DDR2-1066 memory had 3DMark06 coming in at 8642 - not all that high. Another review from the same time had FEAR at 81 FPS (same res, 4x AA), nearly the same as the Hardspell.com FEAR test. Ugh.. no ATI driver version listed though... :shadedshu

Not definitive, but from a mini-review from CustomPC:


			
				CustomPC said:
			
		

> Confusingly, the core logic chipset at the heart of the X7DWA-N is also known as the Intel 5400. However, the 5400 chipset is more than just a speed bump of the 5000-series. *For starters, it provides two 16x PCI-E 2.0 slots to support two graphics cards in CrossFire or SLI (Quadro only)*.



CrossFire (nor Quadro SLI) was not tested during the review. 

I also read about ATI showing off CrossFire on a Tumwater board at CES, later to be known as E7525.

I just need to find those people running 5000X with CrossFire... thought they were over 2cpu.com but came up empty. I'm also pretty sure they were on Tyan's other 5000X board - the i5400XL. You lose 4 DIMM slots, but the second PCIe slot is at x8, not x4.


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## Mussels (Jan 26, 2008)

well if quadro support is in, someone will hack it to make it work with normal cards.


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## Disparia (Jan 26, 2008)

Mussels said:


> well if quadro support is in, someone will hack it to make it work with normal cards.



Yeah, Dell offers a Dual Xeon Quadro SLI workstation.

I'm assuming that nVidia simply unlocked SLI for Quadro's after the Opteron was de-throned. Less nForce Pro sales, but they could still sell Quadros.


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## Mussels (Jan 26, 2008)

Jizzler said:


> Yeah, Dell offers a Dual Xeon Quadro SLI workstation.
> 
> I'm assuming that nVidia simply unlocked SLI for Quadro's after the Opteron was de-throned. Less nForce Pro sales, but they could still sell Quadros.



I know for a fact you can use quadro video card drivers on other cards by editing the INF file, i wonder if it would be that simple, or it would require modifying the chipset drivers.


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## Shingoshi (Oct 19, 2008)

*Just in case no one else has pointed this out to you...*



Jizzler said:


> Heh, I've been wondering if there was a cap on cores used in the CPU test. Supermicro has a quad 1207 board with two x16 slots for SLI. Once the fixed Opterons are back on the market, would have 16-cores and the ability to do a pair of 9800GX2's
> 
> As for dual Xeon boards, Asus, Tyan and Supermicro have 5400-based boards out. Gigabyte and MSI don't yet.
> 
> If The Inq could take the Asus Z7S and run CrossFire with available drivers, don't see why it wouldn't work on other 5400 boards. <cross my fingers>



The processors from AMD and Intel for four sockets are in an entirely different (make that much higher) price category than those for two sockets. I have a Tyan S4980 motherboard (liquid-cooled w/4 Koolance CPU-330) allowing for the use of four Barcelonas. But the board definitely won't pay for the processors. I currently have my two old 2210s sitting on it. Which is a benefit for AMD, being able to use your old 2200/2300 series with up to two. Intel uses a completely different socket (604) from the 771, when switching from two processors to four. That presents an entirely larger cost of upgrade/ownership.

And if you really have the money to actually own a complete four-socket system, you would be much better off to own one of these two options instead:

AMD:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816101198
http://www.supermicro.com/Aplus/system/1U/1021/AS-1021TM-INF+.cfm

Intel:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816101219
http://www.supermicro.com/products/system/1U/6015/SYS-6015TW-INF.cfm

Doing anything else other than these two, would be a waste of time and money.

But then again, you won't have all of the bells and whistles gamers look for. These are server/workstation systems. Don't complain about how they don't suit your needs and desires. They were never meant to, and probably never will.

If you think you absolutely have to have a quad(4)-socket board with pci-e x16, you'll be paying with your life for a Tyan S4985 or similar.

Shingoshi


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## farlex85 (Oct 19, 2008)

It is close to Halloween (a good time for raising the dead that is) ........


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## sneekypeet (Oct 19, 2008)

farlex85 said:


> It is close to Halloween (a good time for raising the dead that is) ........



hahahaha ghosts, goblins, and thread zombies!


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## Drizzt5 (Oct 19, 2008)

rofl bumped to space.


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## Shingoshi (Oct 19, 2008)

No matter how old this or any other thread may be, the information is still important. The very fact that I came here looking for information proves it. And the information I posted, isn't subject to a time period, and is therefore still timely. I left this information for anyone else like myself who finds this in the future, and may save them some time and money considering something which in the long run would prove futile.

I came here looking for information on the Asus L1N64 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131248). I am actually thinking building this instead of using my Tyan S4980. The prices for the four-socket cpus are just horrendous. They're at least 3 times more expensive as the two-socket cpus for the same frequency. And I really don't like the idea of someone else making the same mistake as I did (no matter how long ago this thread was started).

Shingoshi


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## FordGT90Concept (Oct 19, 2008)

There is advantages to having a quad-socket board rather than two dual-sockets.  For one, you're dealing with one computer instead of two.  For another (especially Intel platforms) that means a very large shared pool of memory rather than two pools.  Obviously, if there is no issue with breaking the workload up to completely separate hardware, one can save a lot of money with effectively two computers instead of one; however, if the workload can't effectively be divided (like a database for instance), quad-socket pays for itself.  Which platform is the best bang for the buck entirely depends on circumstances.


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## lemonadesoda (Oct 19, 2008)

I'm fence sitting, waiting for some Nehalem benchmarks.  I want to build a new workstation and have these three options:

1./ s12xx mainboard, + Nehalem
2./ s771 mainboard, use both sockets, using the 2x 50W quads at 2.50Ghz each, and PCIe x16
3./ s604 mainboard, use ONE socket, with the 6 core dunnington monster, and PCIe x16, then upgrade to a second dunnington at a later date. 

I'd really like to find a s604 with just 2 sockets, and a dunnington monster at a reasonable price. But that seems IMPOSSIBLE to find.

SO the race is between 1 and 2. 1 will definitely be cheaper and will run a single thread faster, but for "workstation work", 2 will do more crunch.


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## FordGT90Concept (Oct 19, 2008)

lemonadesoda said:


> 1./ s12xx mainboard, + Nehalem
> 2./ s771 mainboard, use both sockets, using the 2x 50W quads at 2.50Ghz each, and PCIe x16
> 3./ s604 mainboard, use ONE socket, with the 6 core dunnington monster, and PCIe x16, then upgrade to a second dunnington at a later date.


Heh, let me make this real simple for ya:
1. $500+/processor + $400+ motherboard = $1400+
2. $200+/processor + $400+ motherboard = $800+
3. $1500+/processor + $1000+ motherboard = $7000+

Unless your current system is being crushed by work, I'd say only #2 makes fiscal sense.


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## lemonadesoda (Oct 19, 2008)

Actually, it's ONE nehalem or ONE dunnington if you read my post or TWO Xeons s771, and the s771 Q's are $400 not $200. So the costs are:

1./ One processor, $900, 4 cores and 4 HT
2./ Two processor, $1200, 8 cores
3./ One processor, $2500, 6 cores

So deciding on 1 or 2 only comes down to benchmarks fo Nehalem. Gotta wait on that one another week or two.

Option 3 is silly compared to 2 EXCEPT for the upgrade path and the impact of MONSTER CACHE.  That cache is so huge you can practically stick a whole application and data in it. And also there is the option to stick in another dunnington at some point for extra ZMOG. Total 12 real cores.


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## FordGT90Concept (Oct 19, 2008)

Dunnington does not have hyper-threading.  Dunnington is the last line of processors in the Penryn family.

What are you intending to use it for?  I mean, I have two Xeon 5310 processors and it is at < 1% workload most of the time.  The only reason it is worth having 4+ cores is if you have work planned for them.


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## Disparia (Oct 19, 2008)

Shingoshi said:


> No matter how old this or any other thread may be, the information is still important. The very fact that I came here looking for information proves it. And the information I posted, isn't subject to a time period, and is therefore still timely. I left this information for anyone else like myself who finds this in the future, and may save them some time and money considering something which in the long run would prove futile.
> 
> I came here looking for information on the Asus L1N64 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131248). I am actually thinking building this instead of using my Tyan S4980. The prices for the four-socket cpus are just horrendous. They're at least 3 times more expensive as the two-socket cpus for the same frequency. And I really don't like the idea of someone else making the same mistake as I did (no matter how long ago this thread was started).
> 
> Shingoshi



I thank you for your concern, but I hope you didn't take my post of a 4P/QC box for 3DMark benching as serious as you sound 

Though if I were to buy a quad, it would be my 3rd after a quad 450Mhz Xeon and quad 700Mhz Xeon bought back in the day (but after their prime, so prices were great). Was actually an 8-way Xeon system, just never got around to installing more Xeons in it.

Up until the Athlon X2 most of my boxes have been dualies - P2, P3, Athlon MP, Xeon, etc, so I'm usually aware of what I get into


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## Disparia (Oct 19, 2008)

FordGT90Concept said:


> There is advantages to having a quad-socket board rather than two dual-sockets.  For one, you're dealing with one computer instead of two.  For another (especially Intel platforms) that means a very large shared pool of memory rather than two pools.  Obviously, if there is no issue with breaking the workload up to completely separate hardware, one can save a lot of money with effectively two computers instead of one; however, if the workload can't effectively be divided (like a database for instance), quad-socket pays for itself.  Which platform is the best bang for the buck entirely depends on circumstances.



LOL, before multi-core cpus I was able to make that argument for 2P systems vs 1P systems. I don't believe that I was ever able to make it for a 4P system 

But in all seriousness, your last line is 100% correct. There's a reason companies like Unisys are in business - putting out insane level hardware for when it's needed, like it's recent release of a 16 socket Dunnington system!


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## lemonadesoda (Oct 19, 2008)

FordGT90Concept said:


> Dunnington does not have hyper-threading.


Thanks for the correction. I had thought (based on very old info) that Dunnington had SMT, but I just checked, and no it doesnt. Thanks for picking that up. Dunnington therefore has very little to offer. I can get similar perf. with the 2 xeons. If I need more, then Beckton (with SMT) is what I need... but that would be NEXT YEARS build.

So, waiting for benchies to decide on s1366 or s771.



FordGT90Concept said:


> I have two Xeon 5310 processors and it is at < 1% workload most of the time.  The only reason it is worth having 4+ cores is if you have work planned for them.


All depends WHEN and WHY you want to "pedal to the metal".  My v12 5.5L CL600 runs on 6 cylinders most of the time, and I probably only uses 20% of the power output capability. But there are times when I want that horsepower/torque/acceleration.

My situations for power are these:
1./ Specialist financial simulations.  Dont do these often, in fact, only develop solutions then pass them on to clients, but I really dont want ANY "development lag".
2./ Video encoding. I prefer the "just do it NOW" when I need to.

Time is money is one constraint. The other is, there is ONLY SO MUCH TIME. Sometimes, I make decisions NOT to do, or try, or deliver,  something because of time constraints, irrespective of cost.

The other option is http://www.clearspeed.com/.


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## FordGT90Concept (Oct 19, 2008)

lemonadesoda said:


> 2./ Video encoding. I prefer the "just do it NOW" when I need to.


Nehalem, Nehalem, Nehalem...

The only thing Clovertown/Harpertown do better is games...  Nehalem would dominate at the things you listed (especially the one I quoted).  Hyper-Threading comes into it's own with anything multimedia related.  Do you remember P4 w/ HT compared to Athlon 64 in multimedia?


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## lemonadesoda (Oct 19, 2008)

I actually dont value HT very much for performance. (When you ALREADY have 2+ cores, that is).  HT seems to help out in making sure the thread scheduler can give EVERYTHING a chance, esp. if one thread is stalling the PC due to memory or HDD or network access. So HT helps the PC keep going, as it were.

For crunching HT doesnt add much. A great benchmark to see this is Cinebench10.  On P4, the HT is another thread and adds something like a "massive" (joke) 5% performance. Forget it for number crunching.

The P4 vs. Athlon64 encoding was, IIRC, due to cache, math performance and SSE extensions rather than HT istelf.  

The better comparison is P4. vs. P4+HT. In this situation, HT really didnt add much. We were all just very excited because we had "in theory" two virtual CPUs and task manager showed both. That was the first time most people had a machine like this.

My concern is that Nehalem is adding a lot of architectural changes, and that performance, per se, may not be radically improved, just like the Gallatin P4EE was a better performer than Northwood, but not much, and certainly not worth the cost. We saw the same thing with s775 over s478 wasnt faster at the start. It took Core 2 to blow s478 out of the water. In fact we sw it again with s370 vs s423. The first P4's were aweful compared to P3 despite all that "netburst" hype.

If you look at btarunr thread "Generic benchmark", I've got my Q6600@2.7 (on DDR1) BEATING Q6600@3.2 (on DDR2). In Furmark thread, I have my 3850AGP BEATING all PCIe 3850. So while architectural changes bring some benefits, e.g. DDR2 cheaper, lower power, and theoretically more bandwidth, same with PCIe over PCI, in practice it doesnt always stack up to give better performance.

That's why I'm waiting for benchies. Pictures or it aint true.


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## FordGT90Concept (Oct 19, 2008)

Let me rephrase that:  Hyper-threading is the product of the many stages of the Netburst architecture.  Multimedia work favors many stages over few.  Nehalem has more in common with Netburst than it does Penryn or Conroe.  For that reason, it is great at multimedia.

best of Penryn + best of Netburst = Nehalem

Nehalem will be more expensive out of the gate as the fabs retool but yeah, it remains to be seen if 1 quad-core Nehalem w/ HT is faster than 2 quad-core Conroe/Penryn processors w/o HT.  I assume those figures will be coming out sooner or later.


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## Deleted member 3 (Oct 19, 2008)

FordGT90Concept said:


> Let me rephrase that:  Hyper-threading is the product of the many stages of the Netburst architecture.  Multimedia work favors many stages over few.  Nehalem has more in common with Netburst than it does Penryn or Conroe.  For that reason, it is great at multimedia.
> 
> best of Penryn + best of Netburst = Nehalem
> 
> Nehalem will be more expensive out of the gate as the fabs retool but yeah, it remains to be seen if 1 quad-core Nehalem w/ HT is faster than 2 quad-core Conroe/Penryn processors w/o HT.  I assume those figures will be coming out sooner or later.



The figures given so far clearly show dual quads are faster.


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## FordGT90Concept (Oct 19, 2008)

Then go with two quad-cores.  I would wait to make the decision until they come out though.  Even if Nehalem is not the better option, the Harpertown processors should at least get price drops so, it's win-win to wait.


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## fishnchips (Oct 22, 2008)

intel make dual core mobo's


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## niko084 (Oct 22, 2008)

Curious as to why you honestly want dual processors in a desktop anyways...

Benchmarks report that the skulltrail actually shows losses in performance over single quads, probably a chipset issue or because the board is slowing it down doing load balancing.


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## fishnchips (Oct 23, 2008)

well the way i see things, its better to have more than less, having dual cpu's means when games etc come out to access thoes mobo's you will have it ready for you, instead of going out to buy another upgrade


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## niko084 (Oct 23, 2008)

fishnchips said:


> well the way i see things, its better to have more than less, having dual cpu's means when games etc come out to access thoes mobo's you will have it ready for you, instead of going out to buy another upgrade



I doubt you will see games that support dual physical cpus in the time these cpu's will even be useful, if it ever happens.


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## fishnchips (Oct 23, 2008)

Well as more and more cpu makers could not get past the heat problem on single cored cpu's. they are heading to multi cores. gone are the days of single speed cpu's, in the days before multi cores one had to O/C there cpu to reach 3.9 4 gig etc now they have multi cores that go past the min gig range with very little O/Cing, now we have 12gig cpu's oh ya for thoes ... in 20 years we will hope cpu's make a bigger and better impact on gamers and video's to meet the worlds demands..and as games need to be faster smoother near life like they need to use the xtra cpu's to crunch the numbers. not to mention video Hd tv etc is going the same way the more complex you make a game or video you need thoes xtra cpus to process the information fast


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## FordGT90Concept (Oct 23, 2008)

No one that knows what they are doing buys a dual-processor system just to play games.  Dual-processor systems work great for compiling maps for games (8 threads instead of 4) and working with heavy software like CAD apps.


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## fishnchips (Oct 23, 2008)

dual is good for games but it dont cut the mustard. todays games to get fantastic graphics need the processing power from the cpu. cads maps etc  alos need the xtra cpu's to compile them i do mapping for land i use arc software and i tell ya thats memory hungry when you have 12 side maps to bring into one map. cads need to be fast or its just a waste of time.. what i am saying is gammers will ask and seek out games that use the xtra cpu's, developers will make games that use multi cpu's to further enhance games for the end users.. i heard they are to bring out 8 core systems.. wonder who will use them???


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## Wile E (Oct 23, 2008)

niko084 said:


> Curious as to why you honestly want dual processors in a desktop anyways...
> 
> Benchmarks report that the skulltrail actually shows losses in performance over single quads, probably a chipset issue or because the board is slowing it down doing load balancing.



The problem is FB-DIMMs. Memory performance is atrocious on Skulltrail compared to desktop boards.



fishnchips said:


> dual is good for games but it dont cut the mustard. todays games to get fantastic graphics need the processing power from the cpu. cads maps etc  alos need the xtra cpu's to compile them i do mapping for land i use arc software and i tell ya thats memory hungry when you have 12 side maps to bring into one map. cads need to be fast or its just a waste of time.. what i am saying is gammers will ask and seek out games that use the xtra cpu's, developers will make games that use multi cpu's to further enhance games for the end users.. i heard they are to bring out 8 core systems.. wonder who will use them???


The extra cpu isn't going to help in 99% of all games, The reason is because the games are so graphically intense, that the cpu is not the bottleneck, the gfx card is. One of the only exceptions is SupCom, and a lot of that has to do with the AI in the game. RTS's are likely the only game types that will benefit from a top-end cpu setup.


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## FordGT90Concept (Oct 23, 2008)

I agree on all accounts.  This is why QuadFX flopped and Skulltrail will sooner or later.  They are both platforms for a market that doesn't exist.  And yeah, because games love low latency environments beyond anything else, multi-processor will never be the best approach to gaming because they are high latency.  Multi-processor is great for software that needs mega bandwidth and redundancy.


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## Mussels (Oct 23, 2008)

Wile E said:


> The problem is FB-DIMMs. Memory performance is atrocious on Skulltrail compared to desktop boards.
> 
> 
> The extra cpu isn't going to help in 99% of all games, The reason is because the games are so graphically intense, that the cpu is not the bottleneck, the gfx card is. One of the only exceptions is SupCom, and a lot of that has to do with the AI in the game. RTS's are likely the only game types that will benefit from a top-end cpu setup.



supcoms AI is actually stuck on thread 1, so that the game doesnt benefit beyond 2 cores. the 1st core is stuck with AI and graphics... having more cores only seems to help make the game appear smoother, whilst it still runs slowly (the games speed and FPS are independant)


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## Deleted member 3 (Oct 23, 2008)

Mussels said:


> supcoms AI is actually stuck on thread 1, so that the game doesnt benefit beyond 2 cores. the 1st core is stuck with AI and graphics... having more cores only seems to help make the game appear smoother, whilst it still runs slowly (the games speed and FPS are independant)



Supcom utilizes quad cores. Not more though, they should have a separate thread for each AI, that would be relatively simple to achieve and could help scaling across more cores a lot.


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## Mussels (Oct 23, 2008)

DanTheBanjoman said:


> Supcom utilizes quad cores. Not more though, they should have a separate thread for each AI, that would be relatively simple to achieve and could help scaling across more cores a lot.



it uses quad cores for normal play. when the AI is involved, core 1 bottlenecks the rest.

Its not really realted to this topic, its just something that i hate about the game so i tend to mention it a lot.


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## FordGT90Concept (Oct 23, 2008)

Heh, playing vs 7 AI was in super slow mo.  It took me about 10 hours of gameplay to get 1 hour worth of game time.  And then it crashed because it tried to allocate more than 2 GiB memory.  It's a good game in theory but it is very poorly executed.


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## Mussels (Oct 23, 2008)

FordGT90Concept said:


> Heh, playing vs 7 AI was in super slow mo.  It took me about 10 hours of gameplay to get 1 hour worth of game time.  And then it crashed because it tried to allocate more than 2 GiB memory.  It's a good game in theory but it is very poorly executed.



theres a lot of mods out there to fix the AI, but all the games problems go away if only human players are present.

back on topic now  - PM me if you want more supcom talk


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