Our computers are getting pretty insane

[coldpower27]

Originally posted by: myocardia
There's absolutely no way to build a dual processor system for $1,500. No way. Just the RAM for the system would cost you between $1,000 and $1,200. Just the RAM.

How many GB worth are we talking here maybe he needs only 4x512MB? IF your talking 4x2GB sticks I can understand the 1K USD pricing but not for less then that.

 

[coldpower27]

Originally posted by: Furen

Originally posted by: Markfw900

Originally posted by: myocardia
There's absolutely no way to build a dual processor system for $1,500. No way. Just the RAM for the system would cost you between $1,000 and $1,200. Just the RAM.

I only have 4x512 meg registered ram in my dual opteron board. That is $300 today ! If I wanted to go to 4 gig with 4 more (I have 8 slots) its only $300 more.

Where is the $1000 figure coming from ? You want 8 gig ram ? Even for core duo systems that would be hard or impossible to do.

FBs perhaps? =)

Actually FB-DIMM isn't that expensive really unless you buy from Apple which is gouging like crazy on 1GB sticks and anything higher.

The difference also basically evaporates as well once your talking about FB-DIMM's vs Registered ECC DDR2.

Registered ECC DDR seems to have some advantage in terms of pricing, about 40% ish or so, but we are talking DDR400 vs DDR2-667 here.

 

[Markfw]

I just checked. The dual 771 motherboards are more than the dual 940, and they all use FBDIMMS, which appear to be 35-40% more than registered (newegg quick look), so dual 270's vs dual 771's would be close in price. What about performance ? I haven;t read that many reviews, they are both running at 2 ghz.

 

[coldpower27]

Originally posted by: Markfw900
I just checked. The dual 771 motherboards are more than the dual 940, and they all use FBDIMMS, which appear to be 35-40% more than registered (newegg quick look), so dual 270's vs dual 771's would be close in price. What about performance ? I haven;t read that many reviews, they are both running at 2 ghz.

http://www.gamepc.com/labs/view_content.asp?id=woodcrest&page=5

Here are some benchmarks which include the 5130 and the Opteron 270.

Hence why I chose the 5130 instead of the 5140 since the motherboard is for example the one used in the above benchmark is 475 for the Socket J system, while the motherboard used for the Opterons is about 260-280US.

Well 30% cheaper or 43% more expensive for the newer technology is inline though FB-DIMM's have additional features over the older ECC Registered DDR.

 

[Markfw]

Well, aside from the Apache and Sciencemark benches where the Opteron dominated big time, it was the reverse with the rendering. I must admit that the Woodcrest has a market for rendering that makes it the choice for those tasks.

 

[Pabster]

Originally posted by: coldpower27
Well 30% cheaper or 43% more expensive for the newer technology is inline though FB-DIMM's have additional features over the older ECC Registered DDR.

Yeah, one of them being they run HOT as hell. Have you seen the size and mass of the heatspreaders on an FBDIMM module? Apparently Crucial had to pull their FBDIMM's because the heatspreader wasn't adequate.

 

[neuralnut]

Mazeroth

You are correct that for scientific applications where you can allocate multiple threads or multiple applications to the cores the gains are almost proportional to the number of cores.

I am in a similar situation to you and have put together two identical rigs (E6400, P5W DH) both of which I are overclocked and stable at 3.2 Ghz.

I am hoping that when the quad core chips come out late this year or early next year that I will be able to do a chip swap without having to upgrade the motherboard

 

[coldpower27]

Originally posted by: Pabster

Originally posted by: coldpower27
Well 30% cheaper or 43% more expensive for the newer technology is inline though FB-DIMM's have additional features over the older ECC Registered DDR.

Yeah, one of them being they run HOT as hell. Have you seen the size and mass of the heatspreaders on an FBDIMM module? Apparently Crucial had to pull their FBDIMM's because the heatspreader wasn't adequate.

Well I am aware of the FB-DIMM's increase thermal requirements, over DDR/DDR2, as evidenced by the power charts listed in that particular review, if FB-DIMM's were cooler, then then the 2.0GHZ Opterons 270 would lose against Woodcrest 5130.

What matters is overall system power consumption in the end and performance/watt as you don't just run memory or processors without the other components along with it.

 

[coldpower27]

Originally posted by: Markfw900
Well, aside from the Apache and Sciencemark benches where the Opteron dominated big time, it was the reverse with the rendering. I must admit that the Woodcrest has a market for rendering that makes it the choice for those tasks.

Well Opteron does quite well in Apache, and Molecular Dynamics, but it is about even in Primodoria.