I found my dream board!!!!!!

[Prowl]

well, that is if I can't get a skulltrail at a decent price.

honestly at the cost of most x38 boards and ddr3 ram may as well get a dual cpu eatx and build a real machine

http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/Xeon1333/5400/X7DWA-N.cfm

run server 2003/2008 on it with linux, and have a xp drive for legacy stuff.

a pair of 2.5g quad core xeons for $316 ( hopefully the 2.66 quad drops a bit by the time I'm ready ). I can even buy one cpu at a time lol!!!

so am I crazy or on to something here.

[Prowl]

ok since no one is in awe

here is the build plan

1 Intel Skulltrail, if not the supermicro $4-500
2 a pair of x5420 2.5g xeons $700
3 4 gigs 800 ddr2 fb-dimms $3-400

I got more more or less everything else

will have to cancel the peryn pre order no biggie since it will be a pair of xeons, I will wait for the vid cards to stablize ( ie see if 9800gt's come out etc in feb ) but I'm not aiming for fastest 3dmark, more like just raw power!.

[W1nTry]

This thing doesn't run on SCSI or SAS drivers and FB-DIMMS right? otherwise i'll give you several reason why noone is impressed.

[Prowl]

it does run on fb-dimms and sas add on cards are available, this is a work station board not server.

[W1nTry]

it does run on fb-dimms and sas add on cards are available, this is a work station board not server.

*W1nTry shakes head @ FB*.... you have REAL paper at your disposal Prowl... and clearly this won't be a eco-friendly system either... what yuh light bill like these days?

[Prowl]

both boards have sata built in, are dual xeon ( at least he skull trail will use 1 cpu at a time, not sure about the sm board, tyan has a similar board that does to ), yes they use fb-dimms but new fb dimms are 1.5v! 800 ddr2 so no hotter or hungry than ddr3!!!

in short since we know intel is changing sockets in 08 and xeons will get a 771 32nm part this is a very future save, ubber reliable choice for only a little more than x38/48 with ddr3


and for my use ( ie not all games ) worth while
edit:   

wait a sec sas supports sata so what the hell. I'm basically building my own mac pro

[Spazosaurus]

Intel changing sockets? Links to infor please.

[Prowl]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nehalem_(CPU_architecture)

or just google Nehalem

Edit


Skulltrail will not be limited edition $1200, more like $500

it will still be direct from intel only, but some oems may make similar boards and may appear in retail stores

it will have 6 sata, use fb-dimms ( item reccomends 800 cas3!! ) and have 1600 fsb


and here is a sneak peak, it's for real

[Crixx_Creww]

is that a north bridge cooler?

[Prowl]

south bridge cooler, well southbridge and a few other chips ( abms? might be under there to ).

guess it works better than heat pipes lol

[W1nTry]

south bridge cooler, well southbridge and a few other chips ( abms? might be under there to ).

guess it works better than heat pipes lol

No it prolly generates heat like a PrescHOTT

[Prowl]

real server and workstation class stuff don't mess with heat pipes, they use stuff that works, like old school fans

Edit ok here is the real deal

I'm getting some discounts on some of the stuff, this machine is for video rendering/photoshop work so it is more than worth it. The current machine will also get upgraded but just not right away.

so next month first order is a xeon, depending on what the prices are like, either the e5440 or e5430 ( the e5430 is the q9450 2.66 chip just in 771, small price premium for it being xeon top bin part ) , I'm talking to ocz about their cas 3 fbdimms 800ddr2, they are 1.5v and much less latency than the current chips, also I need 4 dimms to quad channel, bandwidth will be similar to ddr2 dual channel, then it's the board, either the super micro or skulltrail, if the skulltrail doesn't perform well for the price it's the sm board. in feb I'll get the other xeon chip and it will be complete.

My reasoning for this is for my 2nd job related functions. I do alot of heavy photoshop work, throwing around 15 mb raw camera files takes some power, for instance after a shoot and I have to batch process 200 photos that takes 5 min each! do the math. Or even worse in vegas rendering hd video can take 1 hr for every 10min of footage. Not to mention autocad ( yes I use it ) the c2d just dies in there, a single quad is gonna help but not much. I asked around and for comparison using cinebench a non overclocked dual quad xeon outscores overclocked q6600's or qx9650's! ( we're talking 4ghz oc's ) by a factor of 1.5 to 1.9. Now do the math.

The real cost isn't the ram or board but having to buy 2 cpus! well that and a 1kw psu.

As for power use it's no worse than what I have either, it's the extra cpu that is the problem hence needing a beefy psu than can handle it.

So I am basically building my own mac pro, for less, this is a serious working machine .