2x Socket F AMD Opteron Barcelona quad cores, what to do with them?

[John2583]

I got these two Socket F (1207) AMD Opteron 8358 SE Quad-Core CPUs OS8356WAL4BGD

Here is a picture of them (I'd put this inline if I could figure it out)
http://img229c.imageshack.us/i...9/2860/dsc06649aq9.jpg

Currently I have a MSI K8N Neo4/SLI board with Athlon 64 X2 3800+ based system I use for my main workstation and (some) gaming. I have a file server which is an MSI K8N Neo4 with an Athlon 64 3200+ with 3x 1 TB drives in RAID 5.

With these two Opterons I could either upgrade my file server or upgrade my workstation. I just am not familiar with the technology so I was hoping Anandtech members could help me out.

Sever mobos generally require Registered memory.. something I've never dealt with. I thought it was more expensive but from a quick glance at prices it doesn't seem to be a *big* difference in price.

The barebones 1 U servers I've seen won't really work to replace my fileserver since I have 3x 1TB storage drives plus the OS drive, Unless I can put those in some sort of SAS interface which I am also unfamiliar with.

Do I really want Server hardware in my apartment? (noise)

Here are some of the specific options I've been looking at:

Right now the thing I am most interested in/excited about is this:
Asus L1N64-SLI WS/B "Megatasking Worstation Motherboard" ~$349.99

The Athlon 64 FX version of this "enthusiast Megatasking" doesn't require Registered memory and from what I understand can be flashed with the BIOS of the WS/B to work with the Opterons I have.


Barebones workstation:
Acme A2004T Tower Dual AMD Opteron 2000 socket F workstation 4*SATA RAID $ 619.00

Who is Acme?!

Barebones server:
MSI K2-104-A3M (16 Dimms/SATAII/Dual LAN) ~$ 349.99


From another thread I found a great starting list of motherboards that might be of interest to me.

Originally posted by: tcsenter
ASUS

KFN32-D SLI

KFN32-D SLI/SAS

KFN5-D SLI

L1N64-SLI WS

L1N64-SLI WS/B


MSI

K9ND Speedster2


TYAN

Thunder n3600B S2927/S2927-E

Originally posted by: heyheybooboo
SuperMicro Mobos for AMD Opteron 2000 series processors

What would you do? What chipsets should I be interested in? Anything I should know?

 

[BLaber]

All I can do is to point you to these threads :

FINALLY! Barcelona(s) + Asus L1N64......

AMD dual socket thread

Go through these threads and you should be able to find some answers.... :beer:

 

[John2583]

Those threads are a gold mine. Thanks!

 

[Peter]

These are 8000 series, to be used in two-, four- or eight-socket mainboards. Registered DDR2 DIMMs are required, ECC-enabled if desired. The stillborn Athlon-FX platform is the exception, allowing unbuffered DIMMs (at the expense of fewer DIMM slots per CPU).

In my opinion, they'd be utterly bored in a file server, so I'd plant them in my workstation if I were you.

And since you're going to spend some serious money on the mainboard, I'd like to recommend you skip the heatpipe-equipped shiny nonsense, and look for something more 'business' from Tyan, Supermicro or somesuch.

 

[o1die]

Newegg has a dual cpu Tyan server board 2912gn2r for only $99.99 plus shipping. It should work with your barcelona cpus, but will require a new bios chip to post with the quad cores. If Tyan will ship you a new chip for it, it would be your best bet. I've changed bios chips before; the tool is about $5 at computer shops. Ewiz has some samsung ecc 1 gb ddr667 modules for around $31 each.

 

[John2583]

Peter that's very good info and advice on going with server mobo instead of the shiny Asus ;-) o1die I know exactly the board you're talking about. I saw it listed on their promotions page if you buy a mobo, and case combo. I think that promotion ended Yesterday or today but still it was interesting.