Anyone have dually suggestions: PC-DL and 1.6lv

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killernoodle

2[H]4U
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I figure I can get the set for about $230, the waterblocks for $80, but would there be a performance benefit over a mobile barton 2500+ @ 2.6 in gaming? I usually run itunes and a FTP server in the background 24/7, plus AIM and a few other programs. I have noticed that my computer becomes unresponsive when I get too much stuff going at once, which happens a lot. I dont want to spend much money on this if you havent already figured out :p

If I buy the setup, do you have any overclocking recommendations or tweaks? I found one website devoted to the PC-DL and I see some people have taken their 1.6 LVs to 3ghz and over 200fsb, which would be awesome for me :D Also, would you recommend watercooling the chipset? I can easily make a home made wb for it when I go home for christmas.

Any suggestions would be very helpful :D
 
I'm not of much help, but also got a pair of the 1.6LV Xeons that I will porbablly pair up with the PC-DL. I have never done water cooling before and wonder if its worth it in this setup. Since it seems the chips as you said can hit 3.0 on air, I am not sure for me if its worth the extra cost of watercooling.

I gotta get my stuff around, these chips should arrive mid next week I hope, and I have nothing to go with them yet. Quick off topic question, the PC-DL requires a special power supply right, not just a regular 20pin one. I know the dually opteron board I had allowed for the 24pin PSU's, but also worked with a regular 20pin PSU. But I think I read the PC-DL needs some special 8 pin connector which is basically only used for Xeons, is this correct?
 
I've run the 1.6LV Xeons with both a PC-DL and NCCH-DL. Both are good boards, but if you're looking to game, it's not as good as an Athlon64 but it's ok. It's with multitasking where duallies rock. I do miss being able to do a ton of stuff and still have a responsive system.

I wasn't able to push my LVs past 2.6 (16x165). My chips refused to boot at 200FSB. 3GHz is probably very unlikely... most people get 2.5-2.6 ish.

Another thing to think about is that the PC-DL does NOT have vDIMM adjustments, so if your RAM is power hungry, you might want to keep that in mind. The NCCH-DL does have vDIMM though.

For the power supply, you can buy a 20->24pin converter as well as a 4->8pin if you have a normal ATX psu. However, it is highly recommended AGAINST because if you use a generic psu, it will not supply enough power to the duals.

Watercooling the chipset is a good idea. The passive cooler on it gets uncomfortably warm at times. Adding a fan on it may be a simpler and cheaper way to cool it.
 
My Xeons are not from PCsurplus they are from the ebay guy. They apparently are a newer stepping and the first pair that some guy got, he got them to 3.1 I think, he has another pair on the way to see if they do the same. I would be plenty happy with 2.5+ myself. I do game, but not too much and mainly RTS's, but I multitask more then I game, so I think the Xeons will be good for me.

Yeah I haven't decided between the PC-DL and NCCH-DL yet. I like the PC-DL because its cheaper and has more regular PCI slots, but then again I may not have enoughstuff to fill all fo those slots. I am not sure what ram I will be using yet, but as I had heard about the PC-DL not having vDIMM, I willlikely go for some PC3200 rather then overclocking slower ram.

As for a PSU, how much power is needed to run these things reliably? I would not get a generic PS, I generally stick to antecs. Don't suppose the 380watt PSU in the Sonata would be enough would it?
 
I plan on using a Antec True 430 to power it, and Adata Vitesta PC4000 ram, so it isnt power hungry until it gets to about 230fsb.

Do you think it will be faster and more responsive than my current system while gaming?
 
Oh yeah sorry about that killernoodle. I forgot to answer the stuff ro you that I could. Like I said, I don't know a ton about this stuff but I do know some. Almost no games take advantage of dual processors. Quake 3 and maybe doom3 do. So techinically there is no benefit in most games by having dual CPUs.

Where you may see a slight gain with dual processors is that one can run the game and the other can be handling any other tasks your computer may be running at the time. So the answer is not really. If you wanta speedier gaming rig, a better single CPU system would be better. As Myst1k said, get an A64 for gaming. But if you do other stuff, especially multitask, then the duals will help.
 
I had the same setup before I got these xeons. Gaming is a little slower, but not that much that it matters. I do recommend getting a really beefy ps. I'm running an antec 480, and its not really enough to run everything in my sig. IIRC the problem comes from not having enough amps on the 12v rail.
 
Got my Xeons from PCSurplus a while back. Here's my set-up:

2 x 1.6 LV Xeons (SL6GV)
Supermicro CPU coolers (http://store.yahoo.com/svcompucycle/fan-0042-cf.html) Note: these do not come with the retention brackets. I found some at microx-press.com.
Asus PC-DL w/1008 bios
2GB PC3200 Legacy BGA ( http://shop3.outpost.com/product/4159603)
2 x 250GB Maxtor SATA (on ICH-5)
NEC 3500
ATI AIW 9800
Antec Sonata
PC Toys 520W PSU

Currently running 2.5GHz (15x166) using the 'Insert' key trick. Wouldn't post at 16x166. Haven't tried using ClockGen to go any further. Probably won't be able to until I do the U-wire mod to get more voltage. The system is a powerhouse! Math and Multimedia benchmarks in Sandra are insane! A user named P4Northwood over at 2CPU.com is trying to get Nocona's to work on his PC-DL. It can boot but the PCI bus is messed up. Would be awesome if the Nocona's would work on this board with just a simple BIOS update!
 
I think you are using the c1 stepping core, those aren't known for overclocking very well. I believe the ebay guy sells d1 stepping, which people often push to 3.2-3.3ghz on the pc-dl with the usual mods.

I picked up the last pc-dl from dumpinggoods.com for $135 shipped, and I'm bidding on the ebay guy's xeons, so all I need now is the waterblocks and a new power supply and I'm set. I was thinking of a Rosewill 500 watter that has 34 amps on the 12v rail, so that should be plenty powerful for all my drives.
 
Have you heard anything about that rosewill power supply? From my understanding rosewill is a newegg company and thier products are generally rebadged from some other manufacturer. Just wondering if they are up to par. From what I have read, I think the rosewill power supplies may be rebaged coolmax's
 
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