New rig advise.

[Kris]

I will have my truck paid off soon and was thinking about taking my desk top and moving it to a HTPC. So since I have started crunching I am looking at a dual hex rig for my desktop \ primary cruncher rig. I however have no experience with server hardware so I will be asking some very stupid questions over the next few months so I can nail down my hardware specs.

[Kris]

Thinking about using these processors
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819117252
but I really have no clue for mother board, ram or power supply.
I know some of you have dual socket rigs so any advice you have is welcome!

[artemm]

Thinking about using these processors
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819117252
but I really have no clue for mother board, ram or power supply.
I know some of you have dual socket rigs so any advice you have is welcome!

http://ark.intel.com/Product.aspx?id=47918

Those chips have a single QPI link and will, therefore, only work in single socket boards. The only advantage of that xeon over a desktop chip (I7 970) is the ability to use ECC RAM, IIRC.

You're looking for L/E/X56xx chips.

[trn]

These days, I'd get a 2600K based desktop. Its only a quad but the price is good, they overclock great, have low power consumption and is the latest architecture. Then with money saved you can always get another or two or fifteenth as dedicated crunchers

[Kris]

Thanks for the advise on the processors. This is the type of info I am looking for. I am not interested in a farm so I want to jamb as much crunching power as I can into one box! Besides this will likely be my one and only chance to do this so I am going to go a little over board!

[Kris]

These look good
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819117256
but I am worried about the drop in speed. Any thoughts on speed verses cores for crunching. In an ideal world I would want both!

[trn]

If you want to jam as much power into one rig then you want an SR-2 plus the two best CPU's you can afford. Intel e56XX or x56XX series chips will be the best. The e5640's you linked can be overclocked to the upper 3GHz range I believe.

[Kris]

But where do you find a dual socket board that can oc?

[artemm]

But where do you find a dual socket board that can oc?

http://cgi.ebay.com/EVGA-Classified-...#ht_742wt_1140

The one and only EVGA SR-2, as trn mentioned

[INFRNL]

The E5645 should easily do 3.6ghz and will probably top out at 3.8; then you will probably start having a hard time on the sr-2.

I have mine running 3.6ghz@1.2v and produce approx 80k ppd on 22cores. Using the other 2cores for mining.
My 5670's are running 4.2ghz@1.34v and produce up to 115k range ppd

If not too worried about power usage; then these are great systems
SB is the way to go for max efficiency.

[Kris]

Thanks for the help I do believe that is board I am going to go with!

[INFRNL]

If you are a member of OCN; there is a guy selling SR-2 with Koolance full cover mobo block for $375 shipped. He also has 2x 5680's for $1250 and can drop the price a little more if you can afford both; would be a wise choice and great deal

I would buy the mobo setup, but I'm broke. The chips are a great deal too, but I'm still broke

[Johnmark]

OK so the SR2 is a nice rig to say the least.
However you should be able to find a case that will handle two mobo's and use 2600k's in a Asus board. Much cheaper capital cost and less operating costs! All with the same output as an SR2.

[INFRNL]

OK so the SR2 is a nice rig to say the least.
However you should be able to find a case that will handle two mobo's and use 2600k's in a Asus board. Much cheaper capital cost and less operating costs! All with the same output as an SR2.

That really depends; deals can be had on SR-2 hardware. I would say that a person could build an SR-2 for the same price if not less than 2 SB setups. as far as output and cost goes; SB cannot produce as much as 2 hexes and if you calculate it out SB really does not save all that much on electricity over SR-2. I will have to try and calculate it out.

I did a rough comparison but need to look into it more. I know that the SR-2 producing equivilent #'s with SB may have added only 15w

I have to investigate more, but a 2xSB@ 4ghz will produce fairly close equivilent to 2xHexes@3.6ghz on SR-2

I have SB 4GHZ@ 1.2v which produces a rough avg of 40k ppd; Hexes 3.6ghz@ 1.2v using only 22 of 24 threads produces a rough avg of 85-90k ppd. I previously did some wattage usage and the SR-2 only uses approx 15w more. I guess at the same clock speeds the SB would probably show to be more efficient, but when it comes to actual production on WCG; its very veyr close. At least in my findings

Also wanted to add; depending on each persons thoughts; some do not mind building a sm town/farm; and others like to keep a set limit on actual systems. I used to run 6-7 single chip systems, but I am definitely liking the dual chip systems more. I really hope someone makes a SB version of the SR-2; then we will be back to apples vs apples; instead of apples and oranges