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The dual Xeon beast lives *PICS!*

MichaelD

MichaelD

Lifer
After months of collecting parts, the Xeon Beast lives.

Specs:

2 x 1.60GHz Xeons (Prestonia Core) @ 2.40GHz
2 x Coolermaster E3W-NPTXS-04 passive heatsinks (Socket 604/Nocona bolt thru design Link)
1GB Corsair XMSPC3200 (2 x 512MB sticks) @ 150MHz (CAS2, 3-3-7)
ATI 9800 (OC'd to Pro speeds)
Asus NCCH-DL motherboard
Antec EPS550 PS
Audigy2 ZS
LSI Megaraid 1600 Elite SCSI card (finally, in a proper 64-bit/66MHz slot!)
2 x 18GB SCSI (15K RPM, Fujitsu MAS drives)
120GB WD-SE IDE drive
DVD-RW/CDRW/DVD drives
Yep, a floppy 😛
Round cables
Case - Yeong Yang W201
120mm exhaust fan (came with case...some brand...fairly quiet)
92mm intake (swapped stock fan for aPanaflo medium-speed fan, and dremeled out front grill 😀)
Running WinXP Pro SP1 (SP2 is teh debil)

The interesting thing about the overclock is that it required some dangerous (IMO) mods. Called the "U-wire trick" it involves inserting jumpers made of a single strand of speaker wire, about 10mm long, into specific CPU socket holes.

In all, I needed six jumpers to raise the CPU core voltage from 1.30v to 1.60v. Some people are getting the same OC I am on stock voltage; some are not. I didn't want to take any chances, so I jumpered right off the bat. I may be able to get 2.60GHz out of these CPUs, but for now, I'm happy with a 50% (800MHz overclock 🙂)

*PICS!!*

Pics of the jumpers in one socket (look in the upper left-hand corner of the socket)
U-wires in socket

Here's the page where I got my U-wire mod from. I learned SO MUCH doing this project. My IQ went up 10 points. 😀
Page showing Xeon U-Wire mods


Here's some pics of inside the case; I think it's fairly neat, considering how much stuff is in there. Airflow is EXCELLENT and it's fairly quiet as well.
Inside case 1

Inside case 2

Front of case with door open
Front, door open

Front of case w/door closed
Door closed

Obligatory rear of case pic showing luvly 120mm exhaust fan
Rear

Some Benchmarks
Not outstanding, but not bad, either. System responsiveness is AWESOME. Dual CPUs + SCSI = :heart:

SANDRA
Memory: 3354/3353
CPU: Dhrystone ALU = 14384
Whetstone FPU = 6043

Super PI 1M
60 seconds even (1 minute)

3DMark2003
5664

Aquamark
40408


With a better videocard, this thing would be Terminator 4. Now it's just a T2. 😉 So far, so good. I just got everything loaded today (this is my main rig, so email/Office/etc)...this has been a 4-day project.

Comments/questions? Fire away.

ps
I didn't want an A64 or P4 rig. I wanted a duallie; that's why I built a duallie.

 
damn nice! Im guessing somewhere around 4 pounds of aluminum on those CPUs 😀


(this thing must write emails hella fast 😛)
 
Sweet system, but isn't it a bit overkill for email, office, everyday stuff? Or do you do a bunch of graphic design and rendering?
 
Originally posted by: Mrvile
Sweet system, but isn't it a bit overkill for email, office, everyday stuff? Or do you do a bunch of graphic design and rendering?
Click to expand...

Overkill is my middle name. :evil: I game a lot and I run F@H. I've always wanted a dual-CPU rig to play with. I'd love to be able to afford a brace of the new Nocona (800FSB) 3.2GHz Xeons, but I'll start here. 🙂
 
Dualies are for fun sometimes. Yeah, mine might be overkill too (dual 2.8 Ghz here, @ 3.3 Ghz) but hey, it's fun to do, the responsiveness is great, and I love that I can decode a DVD while I play a game with no loss of performance. 😉

PS - How are you liking that motherboard? I have a PC-DL, and I thought about going to that motherboard from this one, just for the PCI slots like you mentioned. Does it have any voltage changes in BIOS, or is all of it through mods? And does it support the 200 FSB?
 
Originally posted by: Sideswipe001
Dualies are for fun sometimes. Yeah, mine might be overkill too (dual 2.8 Ghz here, @ 3.3 Ghz) but hey, it's fun to do, the responsiveness is great, and I love that I can decode a DVD while I play a game with no loss of performance. 😉
Click to expand...

:Q Ooooooh. Can I borrow your CPUs? 😉

I made the investment in these Nocona HS's; they weren't cheap. So I"m prepped for the future. I don't plan on burning up this board anytime soon. It's an investment. Thats' why I'm not going to wring the last MHz out of these poor bastard CPUs. I figure a 50% overclock is enough.
 
Still lovin the stuff (and I'm not criticizing, just curious), but do the games run off of both CPUs? I thought programs had to be made for dual CPU, such as 3DSMax and Photoshop and stuff like that.
 
Originally posted by: Mrvile
Still lovin the stuff (and I'm not criticizing, just curious), but do the games run off of both CPUs? I thought programs had to be made for dual CPU, such as 3DSMax and Photoshop and stuff like that.
Click to expand...


Most games run off of one (some rare ones will use 2). But windows will use the other for any other processes (like windows itself, messengers, IE, anything open in the background).

So it makes the system more responsive.
 
That's sweet, but Special1Sauce I'm sure only a few games out there run dual. Dual CPU is cool but I'll stick with single myself since dual is a bit complicated. Plus I don't know how to get the watercooling set, personally water in a comp scares me.
 
Michael, I've been following your progress over at 2CPU. Nice work! Glad to know that all the time you've spent on this project has finally paid off. :thumbsup:
 
Originally posted by: Sideswipe001
Originally posted by: Mrvile
Still lovin the stuff (and I'm not criticizing, just curious), but do the games run off of both CPUs? I thought programs had to be made for dual CPU, such as 3DSMax and Photoshop and stuff like that.
Click to expand...


Most games run off of one (some rare ones will use 2). But windows will use the other for any other processes (like windows itself, messengers, IE, anything open in the background).

So it makes the system more responsive.
Click to expand...

He hit in on the head. I'll just elaborate a bit.

Here's a typical scenario. You've got email, IM, 5 IE windows and something else open. You want to leave them open. You decide to play a game. If you have one CPU, the OS will share your single CPUs power amongst all those apps you have open AND the game.

In a dual CPU rig, one CPU will run all the aforementioned apps and another CPU will run the game.

^^Now, that's not 100% completely true; i.e. 100% of 100% of the already open processes will only run off "this CPU" but it's close enough for the purposes of this thread. 🙂 Suffice to say, system respossiveness, even at only 200MHz more than I'm used to, is awesome. :beer:
 
Originally posted by: LeadFrog
May I ask how much you shelled out for that beast?
Click to expand...

I think his 1.6's were the LV versions that were running at $120/pair for a while. As to the rest, he'll have to answer that...
 
Originally posted by: Mloot
Originally posted by: LeadFrog
May I ask how much you shelled out for that beast?
Click to expand...

I think his 1.6's were the LV versions that were running at $120/pair for a while. As to the rest, he'll have to answer that...
Click to expand...

Jeez good deal!!
 
Hella clean setup. And nice OC... I love seeing that. Shows a lot more sense and skill than emptying your wallet on a $4000 dually.:thumbsup:
 
I bet you could get much quieter and better air flow by taking a pair of tin snips to that very retrictive looking 120mm grill?
 
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