Project "True 4x4"

[jcool]

Hey fellas,

I am sure everybody remembers AMDs "4x4" marketing paper launch back in the day, where they would have two Dual-Core Athlon FX Processors on a DP mainboard, sort of like what Intel did with SKulltrail a few years later.
They called it "4x4" because it had 4 cores, but it sucked really bad (mediocre performance, insane cost and extremely high power draw) and few people ever bought one. I always thought that crappy thing didn't deserve the name "4x4", because it was 4 cores but only 2 procs, so what's the second "4" stand for?

Soo.. I present to you: My first dedicated AMD cruncher in ages, and a true 4x4 rig - 4 CPUs x 4 cores each - 16 real Cores on a single system.






What's in it, you may ask? Here's the specs.

CPUs: 4x AMD Opteron 8347 HE (High Efficiency, sort of like LV and ULV Intel Xeons), 1,9Ghz 65nm Quadcore, Codenamed "Barcelona". 55W ACP, 68W TDP, 2MB of L3 made for up to 8-way servers based on the ancient socket F (LGA1207)



Unfortunately they are not all perfectly matched, despite the seller's promise they would be

Notice the odd-ball?



Since they are pretty close in manuf. date and have the same stepping (AAAWB) it should work with no problems.

Motherboard: Supermicro H8QME-2

Ram: 4x1GB Kingston DDR2-800 Reg ECC (minimum ram config for 4 CPUs )

PSU: Enermax Pro82+ 385W

GFX: onboard crap

HDD: Savvio 15k.1 2,5" 73GB SAS drive (still got one lying around doing nothing)

Case: uhm yeah.. no normal case can fit this monster, it's 16x13" SOlution: Sawed-off CS601 mobo tray with PSU-bracket mod known already from the Dual Gainsy thread

Will it work? I don't know yet... CPU coolers are due to arrive tomorrow.

Stay tuned

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It works!!!

Moar pics











Awesome options for a SM Quad Socket if you ask me. A LOT of ram settings, and even Vcore up to 1,45V (can it be true?). Only HTT ref. clock options missing, but that should be doable by software.