building a dual xeon system

[Wolfsraider]

budget is 3400.00 us

goal is to have at least 2 scsi 36 gig 36lp drives

want prestonia's for the processor's what size 2x1.8<1 2.2

motherboard recomendations (iwill vs supermicro or?)

scsi raid later if at all (see below)

video radeon 8500 ain wonder 302.00

case recomendations (thinking yeong yang black cube)work?

psu recomendations (460 watt or better)

i found a 64 compaq 5402 raid card for 300 obo good deal?

don't include monitor or keyboard mouse or speakers as unnecessary

soundcard recomendations (5.1 sblive qualityat least)

dvd,cdrw recomendations (16 vs 24 or 32 vs 40 mines an 8x)

ram amounts (256 512 768 1gig)

lets call it a gaming computer(as thats what it will be used for besides dvd ripping and video movies off camcorder)

also any news about 200+ 2.2 on march 26 is it worth it ?

thanks, mike

sorry but i know very little about smp/dualies

i'm asking here as you guys know what works what doesn't and how to do these things

 

[ScottMac]

I just built a similar system. 2X 2.0G Xeon, SuperMicro motherboard (I used a P4DCE+ so I could use an Adaptec 39160 for my own silly-ass reasons), Radeon etc...

I'm likein' the SM boards alot. This is the third one Ive had, and all three have been absolutely rock-solid..the most stable computers I've ever worked with.

Check out MicroPro.com. They have most of the stuff (in stock), shipped promptly for a semi-reasonable cost, no complaints except they will only ship to the credit card's billing address (or you have the option of contacting the issuing agency and getting them to OK shipping to a non-billing address, and they want YOU to sign a faxed copy of the CC slip and FAX it back to them before they will ship). I just took a day off work so I could be home to receive it.

CAUTION CAUTION CAUTION...couple of gotchas:

#1 The power supply is NOT COMMON...you can't just buy a ATX12 / P4 compatible power supply...it has to be SSI spec...which means that instead of having a 20 pin molex, a 4-pin molex, and a 6 or 8 pin square-block-kinda connector, it MUST HAVE a 20/24 pin molex, a 4-pin molex, and A SIX PIN MOLEX....the SIX PIN MOLEX is the unusual part. I got a PS from Motherboard express (460watt, lotsa connectors), I think SuperMicro also have some compaitble models (which MicroPro probably has).

#2 Processor #1 on the SuperMicro P4DC6+ or P4DCE+ is squarely located in what would be the hard-drive cage of my Antec 840 (or 1040) case...I tried 'em both, and ended up just ripping the drive cage and support shelf out of the case. Whatever case you get has to be deeper than yer run-of-the-mill cases, the SM boards are ATX-extended boards - 13" front-to-back. Choose our case accordingly.

In case you didn't catch any of the posts: XP is the Microsoft OS of choice. It's already rigged to take advantage of the SMT (Hyperthreading) features of the Prestonia...it shows up in BIOS as four processors, but XP Pro knows it's only two physical processors, with two additional "logical" processors. Windows 2K will see it as four processors...meaning you must use the Server version (Pro will only license for two processors). If you shut down HyperThreading in Bios, then WIN2K will run it as a dual processor machine (BIOS still shows four processors though).

Linux & BSD probably just whoop aong in the box, I haven't tried 'em yet (I use mine for video rendering), but when I put in the 15K SCSI drive for C: I'll probably load RH7.2 just to get a look at it.

Let me know if you have any specific questions, I'll do what I can to answer 'em. I've done some benching, but no real tweaking, so the values are probably somewhat less than the box can do (like Mad Onion 2001se is ~5000 with the 7500 Radeon, untweaked).

Good Luck, it's a wunnerful setup, I think you'll like it.....Oh, BTW: the Processor temps in a basically stock (i.e., no extra fans) Antec 840 case are 89-91 F, ambient case temp is 87 degrees (running an IDE drive and a single 10K 73G Cheatah), factory fans and heat sink, running Seti 7X24 and rendering ~4 hours at full-tilt).


FWIW

Scott