Personal computing discussed
Moderators: renee, Starfalcon
Mr Bill wrote:Also, those SMP boards tended to have high throughput PCI / PCIe slots. The results were drool-worthy. The newer consumer boards have slow PCI slots and I'm not (yet) willing to lay out a ton of cash to buy PCIe storage controllers and then have to reformat and reconfigure raids because the old controller configured disks are not compatible. One nice thing about the old PCI controllers was you could move them or their disks from system to system and it was all good. The upward migration path sort of fell off a cliff. My current best system in sig is incompatible with my storage arrays.
FuturePastNow wrote:This. Before, a cheap pair of processors (Celeron 550's in PPGA packaging) on a relatively cheap board (Abit BP6 on 440BX) was fun.The dual-socket consumer board died when the first dual-core processors appeared.
There is, of course, nothing stopping you from using a 2P server board for a personal computer or workstation, but you're right, they are... excessive.
continuum wrote:However, the last few attempts at consumer dual-socket boards have been expensive and needed expensive processors, putting them beyond the reach (and beyond reasonable!) for all but the highest-end enthusiasts, and with the ability to get dual-cores on a single socket, or now quad or even six cores (although six cores are only at highest-end pricing!)... it just doesn't make sense.
Flatland_Spider wrote:I'm with you there. For my dual MP setup I had to link together two ATX power supplies, one for the motherboard and the other for the storage. This setup draws 600W when running. The one in my sig is pulling 240W.As other people have pointed out, there isn't a need for a dual socket consumer board. A single socket with a multi-core chip will be bring more then enough performance to the table without the headaches of mixing consumer and server stuff and with a better price/performance ratio.
I speak from experience. I built my current desktop around a dual-socket Tyan ATX board, and for the money I spent, I could have built a three or four regular desktops. Plus, finding a power supply that would wold work with the dual-socket board was an ordeal. I had a high end Enermax that would cut out because it thought the second CPU was a short. All in all, this was the most maddening build I've ever done.
Don't get me wrong, I really like my desktop. It's over the top, excessive, and totally awesome. I've always wanted a dual-socket desktop, so I built one. I probably won't build another desktop like this, but I'll know I owned one once.
eliplan312 wrote:The components aren't nearly as expensive as that. A few years ago, I built a dual-socket system for $200-300 (with 2 dual core opterons). I'm not saying that they're any better than single-socket ones, but they aren't as expensive as people think.
As for pricing today:
ASUS dual-socket C32 ATX board: $300
Opteron 4122 (quad-core): $100
IMO, that's pretty cheap, but there is better performance-per-$ in single-socket stuff.
Bensam123 wrote:The discussion is about dual-socket boards specifically. The cheapest dual socket (1366) Intel board on NewEgg right now is $259; the cheapest dual AMD G34 board is $419. You may be able to find something cheaper using last-gen sockets, though I don't see much of a price break on NewEgg for 771 or C32 boards -- and for a new build unconstrained by any requirement for fleet homogeneity, I don't see why you'd go last-gen anyway.I don't understand, there is an entire area on Newegg for server motherboards and chips... none of them are that expensive unless you start reaching for the really high end stuff. There isn't a huge divide between consumer and server motherboards. 'Server' class motherboards reach right down into the $100 price range depending on what you buy. It's all product segmentation.
kamikaziechameleon wrote:EVGA hasn't given up:
http://www.evga.com/forums/tm.aspx?m=13 ... print=true
wonder how it will OC the rather rigid designs of those CPUs
cheesyking wrote:Are there still problems with software licensing on multi socket? I seem to remember all kinds of funny schemes when multi core came along but is that still a concern today?
cheesyking wrote:Are there still problems with software licensing on multi socket? I seem to remember all kinds of funny schemes when multi core came along but is that still a concern today?