CPU's for Skulltrail

[RanDum72]

A friend of mine, who is an orthopaedic surgeon by trade and a PC enthusiast/hobbyist in his spare time(and one who doesn't know how to assemble his own PC's) just got an Intel Skulltrail mobo and wants to get a system built around it. Where he got the mobo I don't know but I'm guessing he got it as partial payment for a deductible owed him by network admin guy whom he did surgery. The mobo is brand-new.

Now my question is:
Do I get a Harpertown Xeon processor or a C2 extreme for LGA 771?

Intel Xeon E5472 Harpertown 3.0GHz LGA 771 80W Quad-Core Processor Model EU80574KL080N

Intel Core2 Extreme QX9775 3.2GHz 12MB L2 Cache LGA 771 150W Quad-Core Processor

The Extreme is more expensive and runs 200mhz more but look at the thermal power (150watts!) Running two of these is going to make one nice space heater.

In contrast, the Harpertown is only 80 watts. Both CPU's are 45nm, 1600fsb and 12mb cache.

So what do you guys think?

 

[PeteRoy]

That Xeon is known to work on Skulltrail? I know it's the same socket but maybe it's not official supported

 

[Nemesis 1]

Even tho your friend has a nice card. I would tell him about Nehalem . Its soon to be released and would be a much smarter build. The memory used on skull trail suckd the NV sli bridge doesn't perform worth a dam . Impress your friend and steer him away from a bad build. I know he can afford it. But what I am saying to you is be a friend.

 

[nerp]

Yeah, building a skulltrail system now would be a massive waste. You could build a budget gaming box that is only a tiny fraction slower than a skulltrail rig for much less money. Unless you're going around showing off your motherboard, there really is no benefit.

 

[DSF]

While I agree with these guys, I'm going to ride the fence a bit.

Talk to your friend and explain that he could blow a lot of money on two CPUs and graphics cards for his Skulltrail system if he wanted to. Tell him that Nehalem or Core i7 is due out soon and will offer better performance. Tell him also that if he's not overclocking, much less expensive CPUs will do just as well as that Extreme chip.

If he still wants to build the Skulltrail system, it's his computer. He has the right to get what he wants, even if it isn't the savvy decision. Just make clear what your recommendation is so that three months down the road he doesn't come to you and say, "Hey, I thought we built this kickass system, but this guy down the street has something called 'Nehalem' and he's wiping the floor with me." At that point you want to be able to say, "I tried to tell you..."

 

[PeteRoy]

Originally posted by: DSF
While I agree with these guys, I'm going to ride the fence a bit.

Talk to your friend and explain that he could blow a lot of money on two CPUs and graphics cards for his Skulltrail system if he wanted to. Tell him that Nehalem or Core i7 is due out soon and will offer better performance. Tell him also that if he's not overclocking, much less expensive CPUs will do just as well as that Extreme chip.

If he still wants to build the Skulltrail system, it's his computer. He has the right to get what he wants, even if it isn't the savvy decision. Just make clear what your recommendation is so that three months down the road he doesn't come to you and say, "Hey, I thought we built this kickass system, but this guy down the street has something called 'Nehalem' and he's wiping the floor with me." At that point you want to be able to say, "I tried to tell you..."

That's a very intelligent response. Bravo

 

[aigomorla]

get the QX due to the unlocked multi.

The E5472 is a 1600FSB cpu meaning its stock is 400fsb so the multi is a craptastic 7.5 locked.

BOO! on overclocking for such an expensive processor.

If you can find X5470's , those would also be golden, but good luck, ive only seen 4 chips total in the entire production of yorkfield, which i managed to secure 2 for a friend.

Thats a 10x multi yorkfield as well.

 

[RanDum72]

How about X5472's? or X5482s?

So maybe ATI/AMD 4872x2's are better then?

I know Skulltrail uses FB-DIMMS, DDR2800 but are they really that much slower than regular DDR2800?

He wants to know the options. My first reaction, when he mentioned about building around a Skulltrail mobo, was to tell him to ebay it, get a nice X48 mobo, a couple of 4870/4870x2, DDR3 and maybe a QX quad-core to round it out. I guess he's intrigued by the prospect of having 8-CPU cores working together

 

[aigomorla]

no get the QX9775's

Trust me, if your friend is gonna spend that much on ST, he might as well build it properly.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Listen to Aigo, he knows what hes talking about.

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: RanDum72
I guess he's intrigued by the prospect of having 8-CPU cores working together

Doing what? There are very few desktop apps that will have 8 cores working together.

Excel is one of them though, does he do a lot of monte carlo simulations in Excel?

 

[Rubycon]

Originally posted by: Idontcare

Originally posted by: RanDum72
I guess he's intrigued by the prospect of having 8-CPU cores working together

Doing what? There are very few desktop apps that will have 8 cores working together.

Excel is one of them though, does he do a lot of monte carlo simulations in Excel?

Video rendering/encoding. I've gotten an interest in some folks after doing an 8 way demo with all processors humming at 100%. The more cores, the better. That system has 64GB ram so the next step is 256-1TB of memory. :Q

 

[RanDum72]

Originally posted by: Rubycon

Originally posted by: Idontcare

Originally posted by: RanDum72
I guess he's intrigued by the prospect of having 8-CPU cores working together

Doing what? There are very few desktop apps that will have 8 cores working together.

Excel is one of them though, does he do a lot of monte carlo simulations in Excel?

Video rendering/encoding. I've gotten an interest in some folks after doing an 8 way demo with all processors humming at 100%. The more cores, the better. That system has 64GB ram so the next step is 256-1TB of memory. :Q

Video encoding is exactly what he had in mind. I guess its the QX9775's then.
But I was wondering because of the new GTX280 and CUDA apps for video rendering/encoding (if available) would be faster instead? Or the combo 8-core, SLI GTX 280 even better?

 

[aigomorla]

your missing the entire point in skulltrail.

What is skulltrail?

Its a server platform WITH OVERCLOCKING.

So why do you get it? So you can overclock.

Good, then what cpu's do you need for a system that overclocks? Possibly something like GOOD OVERCLOCKING CPUs?

Otherwise WHY are you getting skulltrail? A supermicro Platform is much quieter, also more reliable, and more durable.

Why you getting ST? Oh yeah Overclocking.


So what makes a good overclocking cpu? High or unlocked multi. What are the two chips with high or unlocked multi?

High multi = the super rare, and super cherry E0 E5470, which you have almost 0 chance at getting.

Or the QX9775.



Your only option since your friend said okey to the expensive tag is to go skulltrail with QX's. If you dont, your friend will hate you when he talks to someone like me, and they rant to him on why you got him expensive xeon chips with low multi on a high end overclocking platform.

Originally posted by: Rubycon
That system has 64GB ram so the next step is 256-1TB of memory. :Q

Now tell me how in your CIA ways your gonna pull that off with 4 dim slots.

 

[Rubycon]

These motherboards don't even have memory slots. They have a two slots that look like really long AGP slots. Riser cards plug into those and they hold up to 32 DIMMS each.

 

[imported_smilingcrow]

Originally posted by: Rubycon
These motherboards don't even have memory slots. They have a two slots that look like really long AGP slots. Riser cards plug into those and they hold up to 32 DIMMS each.

That?s true of some of the server boards but the Skulltrail board has regular FB-DIMM sockets that are located in the same way as a standard RAM socket.

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: Rubycon
These motherboards don't even have memory slots. They have a two slots that look like really long AGP slots. Riser cards plug into those and they hold up to 32 DIMMS each.

Now you are getting into the middle-iron territory where the cheapest components in the box are the CPU's.

64 DIMMS fully loaded represents a sizable investment.

(yes, I'm jealous)

 

[Fox5]

Wow, does he actually have a use for Skulltrail? Because, probably because of the FBDIMMs, there are occasions when skulltrail offers disappointing performance compared to a desktop level quad core system. It would have been worthwhile to wait for Nehalem.