SkullTrail anyone???

[GAR]

I have 4- 2 gig Transcend DDR2-800FBDimms here at my house right now.
They are 5-5-5-18
Remember, systems like this run in quad channel.
It isn't going to be a huge factor

If that board used regular DDR2 or 3 i would buy it in a heartbeat......fb dimms are too pricey.

[sierra_bound]

FB-DIMMs have dropped a lot in price. You can get 2GB for around $100. The Transcend dimms that Movieman was testing sell for $85 for 2GB. Also, Intel has tested Skulltrail with FB-DIMMs rated at CL3. These were engineering samples from Kingston.

[Blauhung]

i'll end my discussion regarding SLI on this board with this. Just something that you guys can start pondering:

"The real innovation in the Skulltrail platform is the incorporation of NVIDIA SLI support. To enable SLI support, Intel incorporates two NVIDIA nForce 100 MCPs which act as a PCIe to PCIe bridge."

http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/...trail_preview/

my understanding is that they aren't required for SLI, only for quad SLI. the Seaburg chipset only has enough channels for 2 16x pcie 2.0 slots, the bridge chips split that out to 4 16x pcie 1.0 slots.

I'll just go ahead and clarify this so that everyone knows:

I've already seen the way they hardware configure the 4way SLI. I can't describe it only because i'm under NDA.

My skepticism lies mainly in the fact that the system was not running so I can't confirm that 4way actually works. But I have in fact seen the hardware setup and with the way they explained how it works makes sense but at the same time actually getting it to work is another story.

Given your earlier statement though, and something else FUD or Inq had said about some form of HT link between the chips, i would say you bridge the pairs that are directly connected to their own bridge chip on the board, and the HT link takes care of communication between the bridged pairs of cards.

This would mean that there's a serrious need for some fancy drivers to split the GPU work not once, but twice and each time using a different transfer protocol.

[IanY]

800 Mhz FB DIMMs seem hard to find. Anyone with any links, especially 2 GB sticks ?

[sierra_bound]

800 Mhz FB DIMMs seem hard to find. Anyone with any links, especially 2 GB sticks ?

These are the ones MM was using.

http://ec.transcendusa.com/product/I...S256MFB72V8U-T

GamePC also has DDR2-800 FB-DIMMs in stock. But because they are a custom builder, they are going to charge you an arm and a leg.

[Torphoto]

$70.38 $69.00 Pre-Order
KVR667D2D8F5/2G 2GB 667MHZ DDR2 ECC FULLY BUFFERED CL5 DIMM DUAL RANK X8 $98.94 $97.00 Active
KVR667D2D8F5K2/2G 2GB 667MHZ DDR2 ECC CL5 DIMM 2 KIT DUAL RANK $128.52 $126.00 Pre-Order
KVR667D2S8F5/512 512MB 667MHZ DDR2 ECCBUFFERED CL5 DIMM X8 FINAL SALE NO RETURNS $44.88 $44.00 Pre-Order
KVR667D2S8F5K2/1G 1GB 667MHZ DDR2 ECC FULLY BUFFERED CL5 FINAL SALE NO RETURNS $86.70 $85.00 Active
KVR800D2D8F5/1G 1GB 800MHZ DDR2 ECC FULLY BUFFERED CL5 DIMM DUAL RANK X8 $80.58 $79.00 Pre-Order
KVR800D2D8F5K2/2G 2GB 800MHZ DDR2 ECC FULLY BUFFERED CL5 DIMM(KIT OF 2)DUAL RNK $151.98 $149.00 Pre-Order
KVR800D2S8F5/512 512MB 800MHZ DDR2 ECC FULLY BUFFERED CL5 DIMM SINGLE RANK X8 $52.02 $51.00 Pre-Order
KVR800D2S8F5K2/1G 1GB 800MHZ DDR2 ECC FULLY BUFFERED CL5 DIMM(KIT OF 2)SGL RANK $98.94 $97.00 Pre-Order
SIMPLETECH,





http://atic.ca/index.php?search=buffered&x=0&y=0

[GRAFiZ]

FB DIMMS really aren't anything to be "afraid" of. They're cheap enough now, plus, if you can run in quad channel, the bandwidth is enough to feed the chips the data they need.

Certainly it's not as fast DDR2, but then again, it doesn't have to be, everything is relative.

Synthetic benchmarks show a difference, but real world usage is not affected much at all.

As for quad SLI, you do not need all four cards to be "linked" by an SLI bridge.

In fact, you never had to, the SLI bridge has been shown to increase performance by a small amount, but past that is fairly useless and certainly not necessary.

[SNiiPE_DoGG]

I picked up 8 x 2gb kingston 667 fb dimms at cl5 for my system, mostly because they are on tyan's compatability list.

[SNiiPE_DoGG]

In fact, you never had to, the SLI bridge has been shown to increase performance by a small amount, but past that is fairly useless and certainly not necessary.

i was always under the impression that the bringe was needed, if not only for "enabling" the SLI (aka nvidia being stupid)

[Clockwork_Apple]

Can't wait to see pics of the Quad SLI up and running, and some performance numbers.

[GRAFiZ]

i was always under the impression that the bringe was needed, if not only for "enabling" the SLI (aka nvidia being stupid)

Nope, it can be done via software.

A lot of it is marketing fluff, makes things look better.

You'll see.

[sierra_bound]

A few more notes about FB-DIMMs. They get very hot, even with only 1.8v, and especially when overclocked. I have a fan blowing on my dimms. Also, they do consume more power than unbuffered DDR2. But if you are building an expensive server-type system, the added electricity cost is hardly a huge consideration.

[SNiiPE_DoGG]

A few more notes about FB-DIMMs. They get very hot, even with only 1.8v, and especially when overclocked. I have a fan blowing on my dimms. Also, they do consume more power than unbuffered DDR2. But if you are building an expensive server-type system, the added electricity cost is hardly a huge consideration.

good to know, ill have to set up some fans clearing the air around mine when i get to building the system

[sierra_bound]

And contrary to popular belief, server boards can be overclocked, even if there are no overclocking options in the BIOS. Those of us at XS with Clovertown rigs use Systool. Works very well. Even with default voltages, I can still manage over a 30% overclock that's fully stable.

One of the things I'll be interested in when Crazypinoy gets his board powered up is the overclocking options in the Skulltrail BIOS. The boards that Intel showed off at IDF apparently did not have any voltage options in the BIOS, so they were limited in terms of maximum overclock. I heard the production boards will have voltage options.

[GRAFiZ]

A few more notes about FB-DIMMs. They get very hot, even with only 1.8v, and especially when overclocked. I have a fan blowing on my dimms. Also, they do consume more power than unbuffered DDR2. But if you are building an expensive server-type system, the added electricity cost is hardly a huge consideration.

An excellent point and one I was going to bring up, being lucky enough to play with a "V8" system recently has shown me this very same thing.

The ram get's INCREDIBLY hot, you can feel it radiating from the heat spreaders it's so hot.

Using the bios information it's not unusual to see the chips sitting around at 45c or more.

A fan is a great help to bring that down.

[TiN_]

What for:

2x Thermaltake 1.2KW PSU

???

Better buy one Enermax Galaxy DXX 1000W, it's more than twice enough for your setup. And this PSU have _HUGE_ amount of connectors, there are 24 connectors for only SATA :-D, with 6 PCI-E and two 8-pin CPU

[Crazypinoy9]

What for:

2x Thermaltake 1.2KW PSU

???

Better buy one Enermax Galaxy DXX 1000W, it's more than twice enough for your setup. And this PSU have _HUGE_ amount of connectors, there are 24 connectors for only SATA :-D, with 6 PCI-E and two 8-pin CPU

Well I'm actually thinking about just dropping to one PSU because two would take up a lot of space. Plus with the case I'm using they would have to be stacked on top of each other.

The galaxy DXX1000 is definitely a great PSU, in fact I have a brand new one that's been sitting under my desk that enermax gave me about 6 months ago.

The perfomance i've experienced out of the TT PSU has been pretty great which is why i use them now. Plus they are always willing to sponsor me parts when i need them w/out even asking me questions which is a huge thing.

[GRAFiZ]

Why not go PC Power and Cooling?

Best in the bizz... right?

[Crazypinoy9]

what fan do you guys suggest i use on the memory? something like the OCZ cooler or just mount a high flow 120mm on them?

[Crazypinoy9]

Why not go PC Power and Cooling?

Best in the bizz... right?

because it's really hard to get components from them...LOL!

Plus from all the testing that i've seen reviewers make it seems as if the thermaltake performs very similarly.

If i really wanted to get the best then I'd try for the Ultra 1.6KW....read the reviews on this PSU cuz they're supposedly amazing. They supposedly maintain 80-85% efficientcy even at it max rated wattage.

[Zytek_Fan]

what fan do you guys suggest i use on the memory? something like the OCZ cooler or just mount a high flow 120mm on them?

The OCZ cooler is fine, but just mounting a 120mm fan on the RAM would be cheaper...might be better temperature wise also...

[Movieman]

google " Zalman FB123"
$9.00 with fan

[STEvil]

Best PSU would be HiPro's 1200w unit

[AliG]

depends on how much money you're wiling to spend, there are top of the line heatpipe ram coolers out there that will allow quite a bit of extra ocing with the right fan on top
http://www.thermalright.com/a_page/m...oduct_hr07.htm
and
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835106098
or you could just put a nice copper heatspreader (with some fins would be nice) and put a high cfm fan on top

come to think of it, something I just thought of is you could mount something like this on top as apparently it moves TONS of air with minimal noise
http://www.frozencpu.com/products/28...?tl=g36c15s462
or mod in one of these fans
http://www.frozencpu.com/cat/l3/g36/...ans-Page1.html

[GRAFiZ]

google " Zalman FB123"
$9.00 with fan

Yup yup... this man speaks the truth.

And thanks for the PM dude.