I've been looking around for legitimate reviews on modern 2P server/workstation motherboards. By "legitimate" I mean by professionals who have some verfiable authenticity - random blogs from unknown people are more or less useless because one doesn't know whether the person writing the blog actually has a clue.
In particular, I'm looking at 2P Opteron and Xeon boards from Tyan, Asus and SuperMicro. Specifically, S2895, S2915, DSGC-DW and X7DAE.
Performance testing is interesting, though I find most benchmark programs to be slanted towards particular platforms.
What I would find more interesting is stability issues, compatibility, feature completeness, etc. For example, when something claims to be "USB 2.0 compliant", does it actually support the full USB 2.0 data rate. or does it simply allow a USB 2.0 device to be connected and then work at a USB 1.1 data rate? Can one actually use the system continuously for 12 to 24 hours without system crashes? When they claim to be RHEL 4 compatabile, can one really install RHEL 4 on the board, or does one need all sorts of specialized drivers and BIOS settings? Even things as simple as "does the thermal fan control really work" (I've seen blogs talking about the X7DAE that claim it does not despite marketing literature that says it does).
Basically, someone to do some testing to see if all the marketing claims are really true, or only technically true (i.e. not out-right lies, but certainly not what one would expect from a 'normal' understanding of the terms).
I am also *very* interested in stability and compatability issues. I have an S2895 and it has been giving me nothing but trouble for about a year now and just fried itself two days ago (blown capacitor from what I can tell). They claim compatability with RHEL 4, but I've never been able to get it to work completely correctly with RHEL 4. I would get periodic memory faults though memtest86 running for 24 hours would find nothing wrong with the memory. etc etc etc.
Basically, I am looking for a way to have some confidence that the next time I spend $3K+ for a system that it actually does what the literature says it does.
Anyone know of some place that has done these sorts of reviews?
Might AnandTech actually do these reviews?
In particular, I'm looking at 2P Opteron and Xeon boards from Tyan, Asus and SuperMicro. Specifically, S2895, S2915, DSGC-DW and X7DAE.
Performance testing is interesting, though I find most benchmark programs to be slanted towards particular platforms.
What I would find more interesting is stability issues, compatibility, feature completeness, etc. For example, when something claims to be "USB 2.0 compliant", does it actually support the full USB 2.0 data rate. or does it simply allow a USB 2.0 device to be connected and then work at a USB 1.1 data rate? Can one actually use the system continuously for 12 to 24 hours without system crashes? When they claim to be RHEL 4 compatabile, can one really install RHEL 4 on the board, or does one need all sorts of specialized drivers and BIOS settings? Even things as simple as "does the thermal fan control really work" (I've seen blogs talking about the X7DAE that claim it does not despite marketing literature that says it does).
Basically, someone to do some testing to see if all the marketing claims are really true, or only technically true (i.e. not out-right lies, but certainly not what one would expect from a 'normal' understanding of the terms).
I am also *very* interested in stability and compatability issues. I have an S2895 and it has been giving me nothing but trouble for about a year now and just fried itself two days ago (blown capacitor from what I can tell). They claim compatability with RHEL 4, but I've never been able to get it to work completely correctly with RHEL 4. I would get periodic memory faults though memtest86 running for 24 hours would find nothing wrong with the memory. etc etc etc.
Basically, I am looking for a way to have some confidence that the next time I spend $3K+ for a system that it actually does what the literature says it does.
Anyone know of some place that has done these sorts of reviews?
Might AnandTech actually do these reviews?
