Quad Socket Monster

Build looks awesome, i love a good 4P rig. I wish my school had done something that cool.

I only quickly read through the, A: in the first post you said about putting your 4870 in it, please tell me your not?
B: Where did you buy all this stuff? I can not find a good retailer for G34 stuff.
Sorry if you have already posted this info.
 
I can send you a link to the company we got the stuff off if you like....and no, the 4870 is staying well clear :D

Update: CPU's and heatsinks fitted, along with RAM. I'm getting the mats into the laser cutter next week, as i've finalised the 2D designs for the case. Then to run the cutter, file the edges, glue it and assemble! :D We've used light collecting Acryllic for most of it, which gathers all the light from the sides of the case and spits it out the edges. Looks really good, especially on the engraved areas! :D
 
Jamiman said:
They wanted a new charitable project, and i suggested this. They like the idea, as it makes them feel self important and happy that they are actually doing something useful. Also, it's a good teaching aid for various things too.
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You got £2k to build a monster folder? Sweet! :D Nice for the team as well (I presume you will put team 10 in ;))
 
MartinBen439 said:
Snap - Been looking at building a "special" rig based around the 16-core AMD processors (i.e 64-core monster).
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I'm so long out of the AMD stable (6 years) that I'm not comfortable spending £2k on bits that I'm not sure of, so I'd love to learn more about what's been assembled, how the build went, andwhat the power consumption is like. I've been reading recently about the Supermicro boards that you can bios flash and then overclock, which is what got me in here in the first place.

I'd like to build a folding+SQL Server monster but right now finances don;t permit. Can you run these boards with one chip in, and then add more as you go activating sockets as you go, for instance?
 
Yes you can add more chips as you go.

I wouldn't bother with the 16 core chips they aren't as good as the 12 core Magnycours, they are slower and use more power.
 
Thanks Biffa - so I could buy just 1 cpu and then add others on later - interesting.

What I have realised is that for a 4-cpu setup I would need Server 2008 as Win7 has a 2-cpu limit. Also on memory, Win7 Pro supports (I think) up to 192Gb ram but Server 2008 only 32Gb before you have to purchase the much more expensive Enterprise version.

Hmm, might just get myself a dual-Xeon setup instead based on the new 8-core cpu's but that will probably be way more expensive?
 
For Folding you would want to use Linux anyway, there is a bout a 300% increase in points using Linux.
 
Biffa said:
For Folding you would want to use Linux anyway, there is a bout a 300% increase in points using Linux.
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Yes absolutely Windows 7 is the constraint. Win 7 Home is limited to 1 socket, Pro and Ultimate are Dual socket.

BIGBETA work units which is where the real points lie, is only available through LINUX. I'm not 100% sure what the constraint on BIGADV units is now - whether these run on Windows or just Linux. I was going to go with Server 2008, but it'll be a while before I'll be able to afford to upgrade and build this monster. 48 Cores sounds a lot now, but by the time I have the funds by next January, I'm hoping that the pricing will have come down enough.
 
bigbeta is defunct now, all the bigbeta wu's are on bigadv they use the A5 core, and the A5 core is not available on windows.

So yes you can get bigadv on windows, but you won't get the WU's that require the A5 core that return the big points.

You could go Linux for the main OS and run windows 2003 in a VM or 2008 if you so desire :)
 
Biffa said:
bigbeta is defunct now, all the bigbeta wu's are on bigadv they use the A5 core, and the A5 core is not available on windows.

So yes you can get bigadv on windows, but you won't get the WU's that require the A5 core that return the big points.

You could go Linux for the main OS and run windows 2003 in a VM or 2008 if you so desire :)
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I was actually thinking the other way round - Server 2008 with a Linux VM.

Most of my development work needs to be in Windows, so that makes sense to me to be the host OS. I'm also using it as a platform to learn Hyper-V - the only constraint that I can see for having a folding rig hosted in a VM is that of the core count - Hyper-V is limited to 4 cores, so to take advantage of the many cores I'd have to use Virtual Box.
 
Yes virtualbox should be fine, maybe around 10-20% slower than native Linux, not sure of its performance with that many cores and memory. I only use it on lesser metal :)
 
I'll post up a parts list shortly...detailing costs etc. The reason we kept it under 2k was because we built our own case....would have been much more expensive if we had to buy one.

No piccys of case yet as we hit some minor laser issues...we should be back on track next week when we'll get the final cutting done and then it's just to stick it all together! :D

Might get it going nekked though... :D
 
Jamiman said:
I'll post up a parts list shortly...detailing costs etc. The reason we kept it under 2k was because we built our own case....would have been much more expensive if we had to buy one.

No piccys of case yet as we hit some minor laser issues...we should be back on track next week when we'll get the final cutting done and then it's just to stick it all together! :D

Might get it going nekked though... :D
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Well I'm subbed, and can't wait to see your progress.
 
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