Quad-CPU motherboards (for a 48-core system)

[Duff-Man]

Okay, I'm looking to spec up a 48-core system, comprised of four 12-core Xeon E5-2600v2 processors, and as much RAM as possible. The system is for running large-scale parallel simulations - intended as a stop-gap between a regular desktop machine and renting time on a cluster.

I know that there are some quad-CPU boards around, but I haven't seen anything (yet) that's rated specifically for the 12-core 2600v2. For example these intel boards look pretty attractive, and 48 DIMM slots would be ideal, allowing up to 384Gb of RAM with standard 8Gb modules - which should be plenty. Unfortunately the board is, apparently, "only available in integrated systems".

Does anybody have any experience using quad-CPU boards? Any way to buy the board directly? Any support yet for the latest Ivy Bridge E Xeon processors? I've checked supermicro, and they don't have anything listed yet...

Mounting in a desktop machine could also be an issue, but with all the custom case designs around I'm sure I could find something to accommodate.


Ideally this machine will be water cooled, but that's another matter (depends on finding a sufficiently large case really!).

 

[Duff-Man]

Thanks for the tip, chorcen

 

[Duff-Man]

Thanks guys...

I've sent a few emails out to potential vendors. Unsurprisingly those that have come back to me so far are trying to sell me their integrated rack-mount setups. It'll take a couple of iterations to get them to accept that's not what I'm after, but at least there's two-way contact.

If / when I build it I will definitely post a project log As for folding... well, I would hope that the machine will be occupied running simulations for most of its life! Not going to be much time for folding I'm afraid!