2P or not 2P!

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Kardonxt

2[H]4U
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I'm looking to build a 100k PPD Boxen for the [H]ord but can't decide if i want to build a dedicated 2p g34 or wait for SB-E.

From the msi preview article that was floating around it looks like SB-E should hit 5Ghz and looking at 4ghz 980x numbers 100K may not be far off? I like the idea of this because I could still use it for my gamer. Not having to build a second rig would save a ton of $$. I'm not interested if it wont get close to 100k tho

My other thought was to pickup a 2P g34 and 2 8core magny cours which I think would get me close to my goal. Then when interlagos comes out hopefully pickup a few used 12 cores for cheap. I have not played with any 2p systems other than some old dell power edges at work and think it would be a fun project. I would love to watercool and get a few of those OCable extra spicy cpus but I'm sure they are out of my budget. If I go this route would I need to run registered / ECC or anything or would cheap low cas gaming ram work fine? Any chance I could dual boot this and game under windows 7 ? If I could would it even be able to run games well enough to push a few 5870s and 5760x1200 eyefinity?


Thanks for any input!
 
Kardonxt said:
I'm looking to build a 100k PPD Boxen for the [H]ord but can't decide if i want to build a dedicated 2p g34 or wait for SB-E.

From the msi preview article that was floating around it looks like SB-E should hit 5Ghz and looking at 4ghz 980x numbers 100K may not be far off? I like the idea of this because I could still use it for my gamer. Not having to build a second rig would save a ton of $$. I'm not interested if it wont get close to 100k tho

My other thought was to pickup a 2P g34 and 2 8core magny cours which I think would get me close to my goal. Then when interlagos comes out hopefully pickup a few used 12 cores for cheap. I have not played with any 2p systems other than some old dell power edges at work and think it would be a fun project. I would love to watercool and get a few of those OCable extra spicy cpus but I'm sure they are out of my budget. If I go this route would I need to run registered / ECC or anything or would cheap low cas gaming ram work fine? Any chance I could dual boot this and game under windows 7 ? If I could would it even be able to run games well enough to push a few 5870s and 5760x1200 eyefinity?


Thanks for any input!
Click to expand...

go with the G34 motherboard as it will let you grow as you get money, you will start with 8 core Magnycours they go for like $250 and will be dirt cheap in FleeBay in a few days(after lauch of Interlagos)... at a latter time you can "up"grade to fast 12 core magnycours and by next year's Christmas you'll have enough money to build a 32 core monster that will fold like no other...:cool:

edit. Basically the G34 Platform will let you grow alot more than a single socket system..
 
It's better to be P'd off than P'd on.. oh wait..

I fully endorse the dual G34 idea. I'm going to be doing something similar as soon as I recover from a gaming build I am finishing next month.
 
Lol i thought you guys would enjoy the title :).

I could be wrong but it looks like 4p mobos cost twice as much as 2ps. I can't say I haven't considered it. If I could run the 4p as my main rig i wouldn't have a problem spending the extra money.

Will these run normal ddr3? If i have to buy expensive ecc stuff I can safely say 4p is out of the question.
 
Something to be aware of is that desktop windows is limited to two sockets (I think if you install it on a 4 socket box it will disable 2 of the CPUs but i'm not sure). If you want to use all four sockets under windows you will need to get a server version.

As to memory requirements I would check the motherboard vendors site.
 
nicfolder said:
good thing is we have Ubuntu...;) and it makes more PPDs... AND if you want to run Windows apps there is Wine or VBox...
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QFT but the OP is a hardcore gamer from the sounds of it and will want to run Windows.
 
As fun as multi socket boards are, lga2011 would also work great for what you want to do. Gaming wise you won't run into the CPU bottleneck of gaming on 2ghz AMD cores and I'm sure there will be an upgrade to higher core counts at 22nm. PPD won't be far off right now though 32 cores of interlagos would provide tons of performance, but we don't know how low prices will drop in a year.
 
LightningCrash said:
boot into Win for gaming, game on 24 cores

reboot for Folding, fold on 48 cores

???

ppd!
Click to expand...

Lol that would be the plan.

I just wasn't sure if having 24+ cores would cause windows to freak out or if it was smart enough to not cause issues
 
Windows can handle 24 cores/threads, It will not handle 4 processors without a server version as others have said, So you could run windows with a linux VM and it should allow you to use all cores. Those G34 rigs can use regular ram, and take it quite nicely. However if you want to game one box is not a good idea for maximum PPD. If you can have two boxes that would be the best situation.
 
Kardonxt said:
Lol that would be the plan.

I just wasn't sure if having 24+ cores would cause windows to freak out or if it was smart enough to not cause issues
Click to expand...

If you want to use it as your main rig, SB-E will give you the single threaded performance you want for games. Comparatively the G34 will be much cheaper for the ppd but will feel slower than a stock phenom II system when gaming.
 
Same question along the lines of the OP.

2p or SB-E overclocked but running BOINC, which is much more linear than F@H? I don't game much like the OP but looking for performance and cost. Electricity usage is also a major concern, which is why I am leaning towards 2p, but SB-E has a much better path upgrade path possibly.

I guess SB-E @ 4.4-5.0 vs. 16-32 cores @ 1.8.

I guess I am assuming 1 SB-E will be equivalent to roughly 2 - 8 core Interlagos?
 
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mmmmmdonuts said:
Same question along the lines of the OP.

2p or SB-E overclocked but running BOINC, which is much more linear than F@H? I don't game much like the OP but looking for performance and cost. Electricity usage is also a major concern, which is why I am leaning towards 2p, but SB-E has a much better path upgrade path possibly.

I guess SB-E @ 4.4-5.0 vs. 16-32 cores @ 1.8.

I guess I am assuming 1 SB-E will be equivalent to roughly 2 - 8 core Interlagos?
Click to expand...

i would say so, current numbers for the slow 2p 8c opterons are within striking distance of a current i7 hex core, the sb-e hex should close that gap and save you a few bucks down the road on your power bill.

the upgrade path on the g34 allows you room to grow at least to more cores.
 
I expect SB-E to be quite expensive when it first releases.

Contrast that with the G34 market, where you can pick up used parts on ebay.

One thing to consider for those who are using their multi socket rigs for general computing or gaming: you will want as much clock speed as possible.

R-Type had a 3.2ghz single socket magny cours overclock going for a while and it made a nice workstation for him. If you build a 2p rig, you might consider the opteron 6136 (8 2.4ghz cores) to get as much clock speed as posible.
 
i decided i didn't want the hassle of dual booting and couldn't find a decent free vmware software that supports 16+ cores without a big perfomance hit.

For now I'm just keeping my SB build and will run the 2p for dedicated folding \\ minecraft server.
 
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