Hunting for a mobo

[thePh@r@oh]

I'm looking for a dual processor or better board. THat can hold more than 12G of RAM and 4 PCI-E Vid cards in sli or crossfire. Anyone? I'm currently combing through newegg.

[RicheemxX]

Newegg.com - EVGA 170-BL-E762-A1 LGA 1366 Intel X58 4-WAY SLI Classified XL ATX Intel Motherboard - Intel Motherboards

[thePh@r@oh]

Yea i was looking at that board as an option if i couldnt find a multi CPU board.

[RicheemxX]

Ahh you want dual CPU, misread that part. Good luck on finding something like that that'll have sli support

you could go with something like this, no sli-though

Newegg.com - ASUS Z8PE-D12(ASMB4-IKVM) Dual LGA 1366 Intel 5520 Tylersburg SSI EEB 3.61 Dual Intel Xeon 5500 Series w/ Remote Management Server Motherboard - Server Motherboards

[thePh@r@oh]

yea I'm having trouble I know the tech is out there cause macpro systems use boards with "similar" specs.....

I'm trying to build a graphics workstation...3dmodelling and rendering. I'm thinking the multiple processors/RAM may be more important than the video cards.

[JLK03F150]

The Intel i9 has 6 cores and 12 threads, so IMO dual CPU sockets isn't really necessary.

[thePh@r@oh]

is i9 even available yet?

[JLK03F150]

I have seen several engineering samples floating around other forums. I thinks they are due to be offically released very soon.

[thePh@r@oh]

very cool....i just wanna make sure i choose wisely. I was thinking of maybe running with an i7 but if dual processors and a workstation card are better suited for my application that's what I want to do.

[Aaron_8015]

How about this... although it is not out yet also.....

[ShyguyXPC]

How about this... although it is not out yet also.....

I started a post for that last night in this thread, then deleted it before submitting it, after I found out it wasn't out yet LOL...

since you posted it in the F@H chat thread a week or so ago, I assumed it was out, but apparently its just an engineering sample or something, and no word yet on whether it would be out soon, or sometime later in the year, no mention of a release date even on Evga's forums.

[thePh@r@oh]

That is a soggy dream come true....When will it be available? What's the model?

[Aaron_8015]

It turns out, that EVGA dual 1366 board takes i7's not xeons.

Not been unveiled yet, but image it ill go under the classified line of boards.

[thePh@r@oh]

that's rough but i still imagine it will run quite nicely

[JLK03F150]

Doesn't the Intel dual LGA771 Skulltrail have four PCIe slots? The down-side is it only has 4 DDR2 slots, so it will be hard to run 12GB+ of RAM. Not to mention it's an insanely expensive board.

[KarmaKiller]

And the FB-DIMM RAM for the skulltrails are pricey as hell too.

As far as that classy Aaron linked to, there is no official name for it yet. In fact EVGA is holding a contest on naming that board. There are only 3 made right now, and 2 of them are in the hands of world record overclockers, so you'll see some benchies coming out on those very soon.

As far as your build, CPU is very important as you know. I don't think there is a need for dual sockets though. Or SLI/X-fire for the matter. More then likely whatever modeling app you use won't actually support SLI/X-fire anyways. I haven't heard of many that are.
I think JLK is right on the money with the I9, or I7 980. (I guess that's what they're calling it) And even more so if you actually look into overclocking. Those chips are GREAT overclockers.
Lots of RAM is a plus I think. But I really think you can save money on the GPU's. You probably need 1 really good/fast GPU, and that's probably about it. And more then likely a workstation card would be better then just a gaming GPU. But that's open for a lot of debate I guess.
Anywho, if I had to build this system, I'd say I7 OC'd (they'll do 3.6Ghz easy, 4Ghz with a little work, and given the proper cooling 4.4Ghz+) 12Gb of RAM, and probably something like a 285/5870 for a GPU.

[ShyguyXPC]

KK's on the right track with suggestion at the end of his post.

Depending on the programs your going to use, SLI/Crossfire is pointless, also most 3D apps don't do final rendering with the GPU, but use CPU's for that.

there are some that can use GPU's, I think the latest version of Blender was or supposed to, Cinema4D, I think 3D Studio Max's latest version does, and so does latest version of Photoshop, might be a couple others I haven't heard of yet, but most others mainly use the CPU for final renders.

GPU is often used in Preview screens/renders before doing the final work in most other programs, so a card with really good OpenGL performance is really all thats needed.

I use Carrara 6 Pro every once in a while, learning how to use it, etc, and is one of the main reasons I went with a Core i7 myself, the four cores plus Hyper Threading looks like 8 cores to the program, and renders much faster than it did before on my regular Core 2 Quad Q6600.

Downside is that C6 only supports up to 16 cores per client, so I could only run 2 i7's if I wanted to, before having to resort to using render nodes and additional systems to add more cores.

There seems to be some debate over whether GPU final renders are accurate enough versus CPU, some people seem to think the rushed performance causes errors or inaccuracies when rendering, etc, others are just misinformed and think they'll end up with crappy imagery of games, versus the more realistic images their going for with high end rendering...

in the end, it really comes down to the programs your going to use, and what they take advantage of.

but more often than not, a really fast CPU, lots of Cores, and a healthy dose of RAM 4GB or more, depending on the work you'll be doing, with a decent OpenGL supporting graphics card for Previews, is really what you need.






If only I had the money, for the board, CPU's (Quad cores) and RAM...

Newegg.com - TYAN S4985G3NR Thunder n4250QE Quad 1207(F) NVIDIA nForce4 Professional 2200 + 2050 SSI MEB footprint Four AMD Opteron (Rev. F) 8000 series (dual/quad-core) processors Server Motherboard - Server Motherboa


Otherwise for some Dual Socket 1366 Xeon Action: Newegg.com - TYAN S7025AGM2NR Dual LGA 1366 Intel 5520 SSI EEB Dual Intel Xeon 5500 Series Server Motherboard - Server Motherboards

[ShyguyXPC]

It turns out, that EVGA dual 1366 board takes i7's not xeons.

Not been unveiled yet, but image it ill go under the classified line of boards.

So it does use i7's like I joked around about, but someone corrected me on and said it takes Xeons...

[pazsion]

yea i havent found a dual or quad processor board for under $4k man... atleast ones that support multi-core cpus...other then xeons...some of them have up to 7 cores.. but dont have the on-chip memory that gfx would demand.. and dont have PCI-e 16x-8x for each slot. I would also need 4.

I'm currently looking for a dual proc 478 mobo that supports mixed cpus.. so i can still use the p4 north i own and maybe a q6600+ in the future... As well as PCI-e 8x atleast in 2 ports..

though thats a pipe dream most likely.. so i'll probably end up getting a mobo that will sit until i get the money again for the chips.. unless it comes combo... for a good price...