Gigabyte X58A-UD9 sneak peek

Handruin

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For anyone needing a lot of PCIe slots, check out this sneak peek of the Gygabyte X58A-UD9 motherboard! No mention if all those slots actually run at 16x.

Gigabyte_X58A_UD9_mobo.jpg
 

ddrueding

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Way sweet, but Xeons get seriously pricey. Besides, with 6 cores on a single CPU, you need to have a very specific task to saturate even more cores.
 

Chewy509

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For anyone needing a lot of PCIe slots, check out this sneak peek of the Gygabyte X58A-UD9 motherboard! No mention if all those slots actually run at 16x.

And Asus counters with the P6T7 WS. http://www.asus.com.au/ProductGroup3.aspx?PG_ID=xrOlpXWE87x7bSBN

The P6T7 WS PCIe layout is:
3 x PCIe 2.0 x16 (@ x16 or x8 )
3 x PCIe 2.0 x16 (@ x8 )
1 x PCIe 2.0 x16 (@ x16)

Noting that it has 2x NF200 PCIe bridges for 3x nVidia SLI to get the extra PCIe Lanes.

(The X58 chipset only has 36 PCIe lanes for external IO, and extra available on the board would be due to mux'ing on the NF200 chip, eg the NF200 gets 16 lanes in from the X58 chip, but makes 32 PCIe lanes available for add-in cards).

Also the Asus P6T6 WS has been out for quite a while now, but it only has 6x 16xPCIe slots, not 7 like the X58A-UD9 and P6T7 WS.
 

Chewy509

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:bow:

lmao @article title
EVGA launches e-peen exploding Classified SR-2 motherboard

If I was going to build a dual CPU workstation again, I would only trust Intel, Supermicro and Tyan to get something rock solid. While Asus and Gigabyte have done dual socket boards for a while now, they have never held the communities trust in their implementations. How would EVGA break into the dual socket community and gain it's trust that they (EVGA) can provide a rock solid workstation board?
 

ddrueding

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If I was going to build a dual CPU workstation again, I would only trust Intel, Supermicro and Tyan to get something rock solid. While Asus and Gigabyte have done dual socket boards for a while now, they have never held the communities trust in their implementations. How would EVGA break into the dual socket community and gain it's trust that they (EVGA) can provide a rock solid workstation board?

This looks to be a good start. If you start with the geeks' workstations, and provide flawless performance and service, then they might give you a shot in the server rack.
 

BingBangBop

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What is the point, when it uses a non-standard mount that will require modifying a server case (larger than ATX) to make it fit? Just get a dual processor workstation board that fits a standard server case.
 

ddrueding

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Just mount the board on the wall; screw the case. If you have that big an e-peen, you may as well flaunt it. It will make routing all the watercooling for the Fermi cards easier as well (you were planning on folding, no?)
 

BingBangBop

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I had to look up folding. Do you mean folding@home? no!

My point is that it really isn't something so special that it is worth having to hand-modify a case. Theoretically, you don't need a case or can hand make/modify a case but the number of people that do that are very small. Then there is the fact that there are alternatives using standardized cases and the MB at $599. isn't any cheaper than those alternatives. So where's the market for such a motherboard? Requiring a customized case it just looks dumb to me. It's not as if EVGA is big enough to create a new case standard (HPTX) that they can push on people.
 

Santilli

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Might be an easy fit in a case designed for the extended ATX, or server class motherboards???
 

Chewy509

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I had to look up folding. Do you mean folding@home? no!

My point is that it really isn't something so special that it is worth having to hand-modify a case. Theoretically, you don't need a case or can hand make/modify a case but the number of people that do that are very small. Then there is the fact that there are alternatives using standardized cases and the MB at $599. isn't any cheaper than those alternatives. So where's the market for such a motherboard? Requiring a customized case it just looks dumb to me. It's not as if EVGA is big enough to create a new case standard (HPTX) that they can push on people.

The EVGA is a bit strange, as Supermicro can fit more on a normal EEB size boards. Case in point: http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/QPI/5500/X8DAH_-F.cfm

It also features 9x DIMM slots per CPU (for a total of 18x DIMM slots), 7 PCIe slots (and they are the same size as their lane allocation, none of this 16x slot (1x lane) crap), and has IPMI. The X8DAH-F is $499 from newegg, while the EVGA is being listed $599.
 

LunarMist

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Just mount the board on the wall; screw the case. If you have that big an e-peen, you may as well flaunt it. It will make routing all the watercooling for the Fermi cards easier as well (you were planning on folding, no?)

I don't want to see and hear a computer on the walls. What kind of walls do you have? Do you screw on the hard drives, too? It's rather crazy.
 

BingBangBop

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Might be an easy fit in a case designed for the extended ATX, or server class motherboards???

Or it might not. I don't know what makes an HPTX and there are things like where the mounting holes are matter. The fact is that it is not using any of the standard mounts such as EATX, SSI-CEB, SSI-EEB, or SSI-MEB because those are not mentioned. All that needs to be said is XXX compatible. It can always be slightly smaller, but the mounting holes and the location of any external holes such as the slots locations and the I/O connector need to be the same.
 

ddrueding

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I don't want to see and hear a computer on the walls. What kind of walls do you have? Do you screw on the hard drives, too? It's rather crazy.

My soon-to-be workstation will likely be the Gigabyte in the OP, a PCIe-based SSD, a watercooled 5970 E6, and a power supply. With the PSU and watercooling radiator/pump/reservoir elsewhere, there won't be any noise to hear. The only thing mounted is the Mobo with the parts hanging off it.
 

udaman

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Agreed. Other than a bit of flash, I'm not even sure what the EVGA board would get for you.

LOL, no way I'm going to go and C&P all the specs, links to other sites/pages, details for you to read...if ya too lazy to do it yourself, I ain't going to spoon feed ya.> do your own search, and *read* up on it.

There's more than dd is casually brushing (off) over...trust me :D
 

Handruin

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I completely agree with you on Kyle's ability to deliver a product review over overview. He mumbles with the data fro too much.
 

ddrueding

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That is an impressive board, but I don't know if I trust EVGA enough to pull it off well. That fan on the northbridge would have to go as well.
 

Gilbo

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Chewy509

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Does anyone know if the Xeons support 3 DIMMs on a channel with standard, unbuffered, non-ECC RAM?

Or do you need special DIMMs to fill all the slots on that board?

With Xeon 5500 series, triple channel will work with any module (Reg ECC / non-ECC does not matter). It will however drop a speed level if you install 6 or 9 DIMMS per CPU. For 9 DIMM installations, Reg RAM is required, but not for 3 or 6 DIMM installations.

eg - 3 DIMMS - 1333, 6 DIMMS - 1066, 9 DIMMS - 800.

http://www.intel.com/technology/memory/ddr/valid/ddr3_UDIMM_RDIMM_results.htm

(The first table).
 

Gilbo

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Thanks Chewy, I figured the 9 DIMM configs would require registered RAM. Speed drops all the way to DDR3 800 eh?

If I was ever going to cram a bunch of RAM in a PC, it would be for photo processing, and a lot of those operations are memory bandwidth constrained. Having to make the tradeoff would be a little disappointing.
 

Chewy509

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Well, I would happy to take a speed drop, if it meant my entire working dataset could live in RAM vs being paged out to disk in a swap file... It's just one of those tradeoffs, with getting more DIMM slots.

Assuming 8GB RegECC DIMM (dual rank) x 18 DIMMS = 144GB of RAM in a single box... :D
( Kingston 8GB DDR3-1333 RegECC - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820139140 ) = $~$490 x 18 = $8,820 just in RAM. :(
 

LunarMist

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That is an impressive board, but I don't know if I trust EVGA enough to pull it off well. That fan on the northbridge would have to go as well.

:reindeer: Yeah. I forsee dirt clogs and failures after a few years or less.
 
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