Dual Intel CPU Mobo

[lans83]

I was searchin Newegg and came across this motherboard. I was wonderin if anyone has ever considered using one of these or a similar board for multiboxing. Any thoughts on wether or not it would be a good investment for future proofing?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813121330

[Chranny]

Don't think it would be very "future proof" since it's socket 771 and most new cpus are 775. Also the new Nehalem cpus from Intel will be out soon making the socket 771 even less attractive.

[daviddoran]

It's a cool motherboard, but very limited upgrade path. If you go that route, plan on keeping the system for a long time. the RAM for that motherboard is very expensive, but you can put a lot in. It'd be really cool to 5box, and give 1 cpu per instance, and 2 for the main instance, and still leave 2 for everything else. I bet 10 boxing on such a system would work well too.

But it's still too expensive, and you have to buy 'server' processors. Its only worth it if you really need it. Other than multiboxing, most games dont utilize more than 2 cores very well, with the exception of Supreme Commander. That game will use every CPU you throw at it.

[Nairi]

Better



http://www.asus.com/products.aspx?l1...90&modelmenu=1

You can put the QX9775 x2 or maybe the 6 Core cpu x2 oO?

would rock for mbing...

If your thinking of building a new rig for mbing just wait for the new cpus to come out next month.

[not5150]

I use the Skulltrail mobo... but the Asus is better.

The problem with the Skulltrail is that parts of it get REALLY hot. The memory controller and Nvidia SLI chip heat up and will overheat within 2 minutes if you don't have water cooling or a fan directly aimed at the mobo. I have a Vornado fan blasting air at my mobo whenever the pc is on.

Depending on how many instances of wow you want to run, the skulltrail is overkill and most of the machine cycles will go wasted.

I 5 box on the Skulltrail and my cpu usage never goes above 15%. So I run a VMWare window with CentOS in the background just to make myself feel useful

EDIT - I forgot to add that this motherboard is very afmoody. There's a high chance of it not posting after any hardware change like putting in memory or another video card. It's easy to get around, just short out the BIOS reset jumper, but I wasted hours of troubleshooting before figuring that out.

[elo]

Don't think it would be very "future proof" since it's socket 771 and most new cpus are 775. Also the new Nehalem cpus from Intel will be out soon making the socket 771 even less attractive.

I'm always cautious to make such statements cause I don't stay up on hardware like white on rice, but socket 771 is going away? Do you even know what you're talking about? Or do you just assume that 775>771? Socket 771 has been the Xeon socket for several years, Intel announce something new yet? (about time really).

[Multibocks]

the new i7 chips are insanely good, I'm currently waiting for mid-november for them to be released and getting a new system. I'm hoping to reach 45fps on each window of wow, one computer and one 30" screen. My current setup (2.83GHz quad core, 8800GTX) just doesn't have the juice.

[elo]

Thanks Multibocks, you're spot on. Looks like they're planning on 2 different sockets, LGA 1366 and LGA 1160 (for mainstream???). Great, sounds like a PITA to me but we'll see how it plays out.

"More surprising is Intel's decision to offer two different sockets for Core i7. At launch, the first high performance Core i7 chips will use the new LGA 1,366 socket. However, another new socket, LGA 1,160, will be used for mainstream models slated for 2009. That could make life tricky for enthusiasts who like to buy low clocking chips and run them at high speeds courtesy of performance-orientated motherboards." source

I can't find much info on what the Xeon socket will be but not likely of much benefit to our types.

Although if you want 6 core now(ish) there's a 6 core Xeon that's either out or soon to be out for socket mPGA604 boards. Some ghetto retailer has them listed for $3,084.23 now. I'll take two!!! lol