Megarig!

[BillytheImpaler]

Hey boys, long time no see! I've been very busy and have had nothing but crappy laptops and a couple of old servers so my FAH output has been very low. Shameful, really.

Anyway, the new job is definitely paying off and I'm itching for a new überbox. For the first time in ages I can afford one!

What's the preferred FAH setup these days? I'll run Linux, of course, but could dual boot with Windows (which version?) if necessary. I have about a $2000 budget which is plenty but it need not all be spent. I'd prefer single-socket motherboards because it seems when you move to duals or more they increase the prices of everything by nigh on an order of magnitude. Furthermore dual/quad socket mobos tend not to have a sufficient quantity of PCI-e slots. I'm looking to buy in the next month or so unless something good is right over the horizon.

I know next to nothing about the latest graphics cards and their relation to FAH. Last I knew it was ATi 1k series-only, required Windows, and sucked.

Do me proud

 

[BillytheImpaler]

Thanks Chrissy! So for the GPU clients I'd have to use Windows, but for CPU clients Linux is the way to go?

Do the GPU clients still devour a whole CPU core to do their business?

So one i7, 12 GiB RAM (DDR3 mobos come with 6 slots, right?), and 3 GTX295 is tops for single-socket setups?

Has anybody tried a Mac Pro's 4 PCI-e slots? Do all the slots have to be 16x or will a lower number of lanes like 4x or 1x PCI-e do?

Pics will be requisite, of course!

Edit: What's the hot chipset these days? Is Intel's offering still the best, or has nVidia finally sorted their **** out?

Edit2: Not sure if anybody'd know, but is there a way to use the Linux CPU client on a Solaris rig? I know it takes a flag to use it with *BSD, but I haven't much experience with Solaris/Linux binary compatibility. I say this because I'm looking to do an OpenSolaris NAS so I can use ZFS. If it could also be a cruncher that would make it even better. Maybe Xen?

 

[BillytheImpaler]

How much system memory does each (highest-performing) CPU client take? Same for GPU? How many CPU clients do the cool kids run on an i7?

 

[BillytheImpaler]

How many CPU clients should I use on a quad core i7?

 

[BillytheImpaler]

Has anybody tried Xen? It might be interesting to use Xen to run the Windows GPU clients, and then run the Linux client naively on dom0. All these fancy new procs support IVT.

 

[BillytheImpaler]

Does it show the virtualised OS the hardware, or just virtual hardware. Seems a bit vague from their site, but VMware etc cannot show the VM the nvidia/ATI card. Not sure if that makes 100% sense, but unless Xen can give the virtualised OS access to the graphics hardware (a non virtual card), it may work. If it cannot detect that there is an nvidia 8800 etc installed, the client wont run.

I don't know. It is really just a hypervisor that schedules hardware time and it runs at an extremely low level. I shall endeavor to find out soon enough.

 

[BillytheImpaler]

It might be a few weeks before I can test. Since I'm on an extended out-of-town stay on business I've not got much hardware with me. I'm definitely going to look into it.