i7 920 Motherboard and operating system?

[Santilli]

Hi
Getting the bug. What motherboard would you suggest, considering I have a PCI-X raid card, actually two, and a scsi box I like for storage, and, what OS do you use, XP Pro?
I didn't think it would support 4 cores, and 4 more virtual cores?

Also, do these numbers reflect actual speed results, in your experience?

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html

 

[MaxBurn]

I'm thinking why does a scsi box "for storage" need that much CPU?

If you want to keep the vintage PCI-X sockets maybe consider some vintage xeon boards?

OS= any one of the x64 server OS's, if only I had more experience with linux that would be the answer.

 

[Pradeep]

I would recommend keeping the PCI-X cards in your current system, use it as a file server/second system.

Start afresh with PCI-e v2 and a modern mobo.

It's impossible to define a cpu by just a single number.

 

[Pradeep]

BTW I wouldn't consider the i7 range to be any kind of value for money stakes, overpriced for what you get.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.342425

Quad core (albeit at a "measly" 2.9GHz) plus a mobo for less than $200.

 

[LunarMist]

I would recommend keeping the PCI-X cards in your current system, use it as a file server/second system.

Start afresh with PCI-e v2 and a modern mobo.

Here we go again. I agree with Pradeep. Build a new system with a 6Gbps SATA RAID controller and you will be set for a while.

 

[Mercutio]

I have an i7/920 and an i7/860. I buy Gigabyte boards. I think I have a UD5P and a UD6P though right now I can't remember which one is which. They both overclock well and offer massive performance gains for movie ripping, gaming and running VMs. That said, they're more than most people need, and the barrier to entry is pretty high; at least $500 for motherboard, CPU and RAM.

I'm glad to have that hardware myself, but I'm sure I could have gotten away with not upgrading my Q6600s.

 

[Santilli]

Guess I was not clear. I like the form factor for my box. Fits under my desk.

Plenty of cooling, and the heat keeps the cat happy.

I didn't really plan on it, but, the Vizio 37" HST makes me want to build a faster cpu box that has more head room then my current system.

Supermicro has some motherboards, for around 300 dollars, that offer backwards compatibility with PCI-X 133MHZ 64 bit slots.

I would like something that I can do AV work with, ripping, playing movies etc.

Also something with the current slot type for a top line video card.

Funny, but considering the speed of the 920, it looks like a darn good value.

My motherboard choices are Supermicro, Gigabyte, or Intel.

On the otherhand, you have a point. What am I going to do with the X5DA8, and the Xeons, which seem to have no slowing down in them?

 

[Handruin]

I agree also. Don't try to retrofit PCI-X into a modern system. Leave that system as is, and move to a new platform with multiple PCIe.

As Pradeep suggested, it's not a value system, but it will be fast. I have a Core i7 860 with a Gigabyte P55M-UD4 and it's super stable and very fast compared to my older Athlon X2 4600+.

I run windows 7 64-bit on all my machines now, and it has been working great.

You could do something similar like this:

Intel Core i7 860

Gigabyte GA-P55A-UD7.

This will put you into SATA 6, USB 3, quad PCIe, and 10 SATA ports which should be way more than you'll need for some time to come. Reduced audio/video encoding times will blow you away on a new system.

 

[ddrueding]

I'll throw in another voice for not bringing any baggage along. Get a Gigabyte or Intel board with an i5 or i7 and a solid video card. Stick your SSDs in it. Connect this system with your other system via GbE.

 

[Pradeep]

Supermicro has some motherboards, for around 300 dollars, that offer backwards compatibility with PCI-X 133MHZ 64 bit slots.

I would like something that I can do AV work with, ripping, playing movies etc.

Also something with the current slot type for a top line video card.

Funny, but considering the speed of the 920, it looks like a darn good value.

My motherboard choices are Supermicro, Gigabyte, or Intel.

On the otherhand, you have a point. What am I going to do with the X5DA8, and the Xeons, which seem to have no slowing down in them?

The Xeon mobo that seems to be acceptable is the X7DWA, about $400 from Newegg.

http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/Xeon1333/5400/X7DWA-N.cfm

2 * PCI-E 16x (2.0) plus PCI-X 133. Support dual socket 771 Xeons. You would need to check if both slots can operate independently (often a PCI-X card running at 66MHz can bring down the bus speed of the other PCI slot).

Problem is it takes socket 771 Xeons (which are on the way out, current roadmap has the LGA1366 pin sockets becoming the mainstream going forward).

I haven't seen a mobo that can take an i7 and that also supports PCI-X and PCI-E.

 

[Pradeep]

BTW you will find many tasks such as ripping/burning dvds etc take almost no CPU time, as it is a DMA operation. With video, again most of the heavy lifting is off loaded to the GPU. Now re-encoding video, that does take some CPU cycles.

 

[CougTek]

Asus Z8PE-D12X

There you go, two LGA1156 and two PCI-X slots. Go help the economy.

 

[Santilli]

http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/Core2Duo/X58/C7X58.cfm

???

 

[Santilli]

http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/Core2Duo/X58/C7X58.cfm

???
Or, if I want to bring the raid cards with me:

http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/Xeon3000/X58/X8SAX.cfm

 

[MaxBurn]

Given they appear to be the same board with one version having all the components populated I don't see how you can go wrong either way. Funny they don't mention the crossifre/sli stuff on the top end one though, wonder what the deal is on that. They appear to use the same BIOS update file...

Only about $20 price difference between the two, $10 if you shop newegg but not a good difference over there as the cheaper one costs more. Then you add newegg shipping where it is free at this place. These guys were the first ones to have a X7SPA-HF in stock so I bought from them after checking with reseller ratings but they seem to have excellent stock on Supermicro stuff also.
http://www.wiredzone.com/itemdesc.asp/ic/10018874/model/C7X58
http://www.wiredzone.com/itemdesc.asp/ic/10018875/model/X8SAX

 

[Santilli]

Header from Supermicro's website
"
X58 (Tylersburg-36S) BOARDS / Socket 1366 [ top ]

Supermicro motherboards based on the Intel X58 Express chipset and Intel® Core™ i7 and Xeon® 5500/3500 series processors feature 2 PCI-E 2.0 x16 slots, NVIDIA SLI® and ATI™ CrossFireX™ technology, and up to 24 GB DDR3 memory to deliver the highest performance for home computing and entertainment applications."

Rather odd, since one of the boards doesn't list 2 PCI-E 2.0 x 16 slots...

 

[Pradeep]

http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/Core2Duo/X58/C7X58.cfm

???
Or, if I want to bring the raid cards with me:

http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/Xeon3000/X58/X8SAX.cfm

Not a bad price for the latter (with the PCI-X as well as the PCI-E). I would hold off for a few weeks, the 6 core Opterons coming on to the market should cause the Xeons to drop in price.

 

[Pradeep]

Header from Supermicro's website
"
X58 (Tylersburg-36S) BOARDS / Socket 1366 [ top ]

Supermicro motherboards based on the Intel X58 Express chipset and Intel® Core™ i7 and Xeon® 5500/3500 series processors feature 2 PCI-E 2.0 x16 slots, NVIDIA SLI® and ATI™ CrossFireX™ technology, and up to 24 GB DDR3 memory to deliver the highest performance for home computing and entertainment applications."

Rather odd, since one of the boards doesn't list 2 PCI-E 2.0 x 16 slots...

It's optional to support a chipset feature. What is your monitor situation? I would recommend a 5770 (make sure it supports Eyefinity). If you find that not enough (and I haven't had the need yet), you can add a second 5770, to basically get the equivalent of a 5870.

BTW you may need a new PSU, it's hard to go wrong with one of the Supermicro cases with power supplies already built-in, rather loud though unless you were to replace all the fans. They have some nice redundant options, plus they will take your SCSI drive cage.

 

[Santilli]

HMMM. 1500 dollars for the 5570 is a bit rich for my blood.

My monitor is a Samsung 21.5" next to a Vizio 37" XVT.

Seasonics generally should work. I think this one is 500-600. Don't remember.

Also the Supermicro boards only support one i7 cpu, at least the ones I'm looking at.

Two of those 5570 rank in the 11000 range, according to passmark, with the 920 at about 5500.

 

[Pradeep]

Sorry I wasn't clear. The 5770 is an ATI video card. I'm not up to date on the current state of the art when it comes to Xeon processors anymore.

However on the topic of CPUs, with the i7 you are getting four cores. With a dual board, you could get 8. The mobo pricing is already high anyway, its not much of a delta.

 

[Santilli]

How about this?
Intel i7 940 @ 3Ghz
12GB DDR3 DRAM
Gigabyte X58 Chipset Motherboard
nVidia GeForce GTX 295
2x 120GB Intel Vertex in RAID0
BluRay Burner
Antec P183 Chassis
Antec ~500W Power Supply

?

 

[Pradeep]

GTX295? That's a very hot running, end of life type of card. You will note Newegg has no stock of it. Basically nvidia had to make something ultra powerful so they put together the 295. Unfortunately it's rare as hen's teeth because it wasn't a volume production card, they basically released it to say "we have the fastest".

If you are looking in the >$500 price range then the ATI 5970 is at a little less than $700. Even the 5870 should be more than sufficient at less than $400. If you really are determined for an nvidia card then wait for Fermi (next gen nvidia card - very hot running and high in price) in a month or so. a 5870 will play pretty much every game except Crysis at very nice framerates at 1080p. Unless you are stepping up to a 2560*1600 display I think you will be OK.

Also something that may affect you:

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/cpu/di...ix_Core_Gulftown_Processors_for_Desktops.html

BTW if you ever contemplate running dual graphics cards in the future I would recommend "more powa" on the PSU.

 

[LunarMist]

WTF is Intel Vertex?

 

[LunarMist]

BTW if you ever contemplate running dual graphics cards in the future I would recommend "more powa" on the PSU.

For sure. Especially after he adds a bunch of old SCSI HDs.

 

[Handruin]

Depending on your comfort with overclocking, you may want to get the i7 920 and overclock it. There is really not much different between the two chips except for the clock speed and price. Microcenter has the core i7 920 for $199 where as newegg is $288!. I can't even find anyone who has the i7 940, never mind for a reasonable price.

I would also second Pradeep's suggestion and go with a little higher PS for future expansion. Maybe something like a Corsair 650W with 52A on a 12V rail (which is $79 after MiR). I'm a big fan of the PC Power & Cooling 750W Quad SLI (which is currently ~$90) with 60A on a 12V rail. I own two of them (in black) and they work very well. I've never had an issue with power. My current i7 is pulling about 117W on idle according to my APC.

 

[Bozo]

Doesn't the operating system and programs have to be written to take advantage of all those cores??

 

[Pradeep]

Depending on your comfort with overclocking, you may want to get the i7 920 and overclock it. There is really not much different between the two chips except for the clock speed and price. Microcenter has the core i7 920 for $199 where as newegg is $288!. I can't even find anyone who has the i7 940, never mind for a reasonable price.

I would also second Pradeep's suggestion and go with a little higher PS for future expansion. Maybe something like a Corsair 650W with 52A on a 12V rail (which is $79 after MiR). I'm a big fan of the PC Power & Cooling 750W Quad SLI (which is currently ~$90) with 60A on a 12V rail. I own two of them (in black) and they work very well. I've never had an issue with power. My current i7 is pulling about 117W on idle according to my APC.

How do you find the Power and Cooling in terms of noise level?

Greg: expect a video card like the GTX295 to pull 200W+ from your PSU.

http://www.guru3d.com/article/geforce-gtx-295-review-bfg/5

 

[Handruin]

I can hear the stock intel core i7 HSF above it in terms of noise inside my Antec P183 (not that it's saying much). I've never really noticed any sound from it. I wish I had an accurate way to measure it for you. All I can say is that it's never been something I've noticed.

 

[ddrueding]

In case anyone was curious what a RAID0 of 4 30GB Vertex drives on an ICH10R looked like...it looks like there is a bottleneck somewhere. These numbers agree with a windows file copy test I ran as well.

 

[Santilli]

Thanks David.

GS

 

[Stereodude]

FWIW, I saw a lot better benchmarks elsewhere for similar configs.

 

[Santilli]

Perhaps HD tach isn't up to it for SSD's? ATTO gives much higher numbers.
Seasonic 700 Watt power supply it is. Thanks for that suggestion...

 

[ddrueding]

ATTO does give much higher numbers

I wonder if it is a compatibility issue with an old benchmark on a new OS?

 

[Santilli]

HMMMM.

Can you run ATTO on the two X-25M's???

Thanks

GS

 

[ddrueding]

HMMMM.

Can you run ATTO on the two X-25M's???

Thanks

GS

With some funky settings. Note: This benchmark doesn't show the better IO performance of the X25-M due to lower latencies.

 

[Santilli]

That's the OS raid 0, right? I've found the numbers go about in half with ATTO when you actually put something on the array, like an OS and work. Still, not changing my mind.

David, what do you format your raid 0 arrays with, block size?
That's why I start at 64, by the way...

 

[ddrueding]

I leave everything stock. Those drives are currently blank, but I've never seen it change for an SSD either way.

 

[Santilli]

10 years since I got a new computer, for me, and not work, etc... VERY EXCITED...
MY cpu setup rates around 880 on that website.

This one should be over 6000 cpu test wise. THAT is a huge improvement...
and, nothing else is going to be slower, in fact, EVERYTHING will be much faster....

Mad we have presidents' day...

 

[Pradeep]

So what's the final config? Make sure you run folding@home (team 10047), that way all the cycles you paid for will be working all the time

 

[Stereodude]

10 years since I got a new computer, for me, and not work, etc... VERY EXCITED...

No wonder you're so cranky with a 10 year old system.

A more prudent strategy would be buying lower end systems and upgrading much more frequently, but I'm sure you've been told that before.