Good, low cost Xeon mobo?

[glock20rocks]

I'd like to find a good, low-cost Xeon motherboard. I don't want SCSI, but do want dual-channel DDR. Anyone know if the 7205 will support Xeons, since it is mostly intended for servers? I'll probably wait until they have at least 533MHz bus Xeons, although 800MHz would be nice (but aways off ).

There's just something about looking at Task Manager and seeing 4 cpu's...go Hyperthreading!

[lightningbaron]

Intel 7505 will support dual Intel Xeon with 533 MHz system bus, but not aware of any motherboard out there using this chipset yet.

More info on Intel 7505 at:
http://www.intel.com/design/chipsets/e7 ... 05_wrkstn&

Below is the URL for Intel Chipset Comparison Chart - Server/Workstation Chipsets:
http://www.intel.com/design/chipsets/li ... _wkstn.htm

After 533 MHz, it's probably 667 MHz before we will probably even see 800 MHz.

[Derek]

If I were you, I would wait for Sledgehammer/Opteron before dumping serious cash into a Xeon system...

Just a thought.

Derek

[glock20rocks]

Yeah, if they ever come out

Hopefully soon! Quad Athlon-64's would totally rock!!

[Derek]

Give it a month or two and you'll know a more definate date. Is better performance for less money worth the wait?

Derek

[glock20rocks]

Well, I wasn't going to dive right in a grab a Xeon right now anyway. I'd rather have one based on the Granite Bay chipset. As for performance, we'll see

I've got several programs which would benefit from Hyperthreading, and having 4 virtual CPU's would really help them. Some of them will probably have 64-bit versions, and my programs I can just rewrite to support whatever system I get (64-bit or HT). In a way, the HT would be easier and cheaper software wise (don't need a new compiler or anything), but 64-bit might be faster...I'll have to look at the dev. specs for x86-64...

hmm.....

I'd just like them both to come out tomorrow so I can compare benchmarks

[Derek]

The way it looks, Athlon 64s and Opertons will bury the HT P4s.

http://www.heise.de/ct/03/01/018/bild.gif

These results are from a regular Athlon64 running in 32bit/64bit compatibility mode. Which means 32 bit OS, 32 bit program. No 64bit at all. The processor just does some 64bit instructions with the 32bit ones. The operton server processor will have more memory bandwidth and more onboard cache and a slightly different design. I'd like to see some Operton vs Xeon performance numbers befoer I do anything drastic, but this is a good sign to say the least. Imagine what it could do at a 2 Ghz launch speed in a 64bit environment!

Derek[/url]

[oharag]

Hey, didn't the new Intel chipset (the one that gets away from using RDRAM) just recently get recalled back. Apparently there was a bug in the system. I was told this because our IT guy at work mentioned it to me. Our company (large one) has standardized on IBM systems. For the high end they were going with the dual Xeon configuration. This rollout has been delayed because of this recall. Just my input.