Ratdude's main rig V3, maybe

[shovenose]

Re: Ratdude's main rig V3, maybe

That explains a lot.

I wasn't going to put that new of a card in anyway... Maybe Geforce 9 or so.

Don't bother those crappy old cards. I didn't count a case or OS since you have both already...
Give me one way that your dual CPU server/workstation system is more reliable or better than this... And it's not your Celeron even though you have yet to provide a solid reason that they are bad, except for "it's a Celeron" which is no longer a valid reason...
I've built myself a secondary PC with a Celeron G540, now the G1610 is available for the same price and I've built two computers for friends. (one was an upgrade from a P4 and one was an upgrade from an Athlon 64X2)... No complaints, and you know I'm picky. Both other people that got the Celeron G1610 were skeptical but they came around once I delivered

[ratdude747]

Re: Ratdude's main rig V3, maybe

Don't bother those crappy old cards. I didn't count a case or OS since you have both already...
Give me one way that your dual CPU server/workstation system is more reliable or better than this... And it's not your Celeron even though you have yet to provide a solid reason that they are bad, except for "it's a Celeron" which is no longer a valid reason...
I've built myself a secondary PC with a Celeron G540, now the G1610 is available for the same price and I've built two computers for friends. (one was an upgrade from a P4 and one was an upgrade from an Athlon 64X2)... No complaints, and you know I'm picky. Both other people that got the Celeron G1610 were skeptical but they came around once I delivered

It's consumer grade. uATX as well. No PCI-X (so bye bye HW hdd controller, I know everybody hates those too).

I know I coudl have built a faster rig using newer parts... but I'll say it one more freakign time... I DON'T WANT A NEWER RIG. I just don't.

I want a computer that I can look at and feel proud of, not some rig that screams "bottom of the barrel". I want a rig that looks like an expert built/modified it, not a rig built for a broke ass wannabe.

I used to push a newer rig built using the cheapest parts possible to make it run. That was Main Rig V1, based off an Intel DP35DP. At the time, it was one CPU model away from a celeron (a PDC 1.8ghz) and only had 1gb (later 2gb) of RAM. Every time I looked at the rig I felt depressed, seeing empty RAM slots... it ran like crap too.

V2, once built up, fixed all of those issues... It ran reasonably well (and then some) and being maxed out, I didn't feel ghetto using it. In fact, had I not been gifted the Board from JP, I'd still be using it full time.

Heck, once 3.5 is there (K8WE), then I'll rebuild V2 and use it as a second desktop.

---

GPU wise, If I get a K8WE, I'll probably grab 2 of these:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/EVGA-NVIDIA-...item589e9a515b

(of course making an offer).

[mariushm]

Re: Ratdude's main rig V3, maybe

Oh man...

9800 GT is a renamed 8800 GT ... just like GTS240 was almost a renamed 9800 GT. That's a 2007-2008 video card.
It's kinda pointless to even do SLI with those, you get maybe 20-30% extra performance for a ton of noise and power usage.

The 8800GT/9800GT is basically beaten by an ancient 4850 at anything above 1280x1024, and is weaker by about 10-20% compared to a new $50 Radeon 6670 that uses 20-30% the power a 9800gt uses and is almost inaudible.

A $90 radeon 7750 runs circles around two 9800gt, have a look at the benchmarks : http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/521?vs=535

Every time I looked at the rig I felt depressed, seeing empty RAM slots... it ran like crap too.

V2, once built up, fixed all of those issues... It ran reasonably well (and then some) and being maxed out, I didn't feel ghetto using it.

Can you honestly tell me that if your current motherboard supported only 8 GB of memory in total, you would have used 512 MB sticks just to have all slots used?

I honestly don't understand why it bothers you that much to have unused slots. You're often provided with lots of things for flexibility, not too feel bad about not maxing out things.

For example, there are boards that only accept 16 GB of ram but offer 4 slots, simply because they realized 8 GB sticks were more expensive than 4 GB sticks.

Or, in the case of the latest processors, AMD recommends users to only use 2 modules even though there are 4 slots on the motherboard if they want to use memories with frequency at or above 1866 Mhz, simply because above this speed the signal from four modules can be degraded or be affected by the distance of traces coming from the other modules (theres lots of differential traces going to cpu from all those modules) and other factors.

It's the same story with pci express connectors - every manufacturer know most video cards take two slots, some take 3 slots, so they put pci express x1 slots between two pci express x16 slots, which have lanes coming from the slower southbridge.
Are you going to have seizures because you can't fill that x1 slots? It's just silly... the manufacturer puts x1 slots there just because otherwise space would be wasted and it's cheap to add them and if you don't have a x16 card you can use them, but you shouldn't think you have to.

It ran reasonably well (and then some) and being maxed out, I didn't feel ghetto using it.

I guess each has its own tastes about how a system feels ghetto.

I bought an Aerocool Xpredator case (without the red fans on the side) : http://content.hwigroup.net/images/p...ck_edition.jpg - yeah it's expensive at about 150$ but I can afford it, there are cheaper cases out there.

Anyway, it's full black inside, lots of space, cable management heaven.
The Seasonic X-650 psu is full black with the cables in black mesh.
The motherboard is black, a 140$ gigabyte ga-990fxa-ud3 : http://www.gigabyte.com/products/pro...px?pid=4001#ov
The ram sticks are two corsair low profile sticks, black again : http://www.pcforce.co.nz/images/veng...onboard_x4.png
The dvd writer is black ... sata cables are black, leds and power switch cables are black,
video card is a dark blue/black pcb with black heatsink, a radeon 7770 ghz edition

basically the contrast between the black everywhere and the white capacitors on the board and the back headers and the large heatsink on cpu is just awesome and the system looks anything but ghetto.. and best of all it's probably under 800$ overall.

The point is the most expensive parts are the processor and the case ... i simply need a fast processor because i do a lot of video encoding... you could use a 50$ cpu and it wouldn't make a difference visually, won't feel more ghetto.

[ratdude747]

Re: Ratdude's main rig V3, maybe

Oh man...

9800 GT is a renamed 8800 GT ... just like GTS240 was almost a renamed 9800 GT. That's a 2007-2008 video card.
It's kinda pointless to even do SLI with those, you get maybe 20-30% extra performance for a ton of noise and power usage.

The 8800GT/9800GT is basically beaten by an ancient 4850 at anything above 1280x1024, and is weaker by about 10-20% compared to a new $50 Radeon 6670 that uses 20-30% the power a 9800gt uses and is almost inaudible.

A $90 radeon 7750 runs circles around two 9800gt, have a look at the benchmarks : http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/521?vs=535



Can you honestly tell me that if your current motherboard supported only 8 GB of memory in total, you would have used 512 MB sticks just to have all slots used?

I honestly don't understand why it bothers you that much to have unused slots. You're often provided with lots of things for flexibility, not too feel bad about not maxing out things.

For example, there are boards that only accept 16 GB of ram but offer 4 slots, simply because they realized 8 GB sticks were more expensive than 4 GB sticks.

Or, in the case of the latest processors, AMD recommends users to only use 2 modules even though there are 4 slots on the motherboard if they want to use memories with frequency at or above 1866 Mhz, simply because above this speed the signal from four modules can be degraded or be affected by the distance of traces coming from the other modules (theres lots of differential traces going to cpu from all those modules) and other factors.

It's the same story with pci express connectors - every manufacturer know most video cards take two slots, some take 3 slots, so they put pci express x1 slots between two pci express x16 slots, which have lanes coming from the slower southbridge.
Are you going to have seizures because you can't fill that x1 slots? It's just silly... the manufacturer puts x1 slots there just because otherwise space would be wasted and it's cheap to add them and if you don't have a x16 card you can use them, but you shouldn't think you have to.



I guess each has its own tastes about how a system feels ghetto.

I bought an Aerocool Xpredator case (without the red fans on the side) : http://content.hwigroup.net/images/p...ck_edition.jpg - yeah it's expensive at about 150$ but I can afford it, there are cheaper cases out there.

Anyway, it's full black inside, lots of space, cable management heaven.
The Seasonic X-650 psu is full black with the cables in black mesh.
The motherboard is black, a 140$ gigabyte ga-990fxa-ud3 : http://www.gigabyte.com/products/pro...px?pid=4001#ov
The ram sticks are two corsair low profile sticks, black again : http://www.pcforce.co.nz/images/veng...onboard_x4.png
The dvd writer is black ... sata cables are black, leds and power switch cables are black,
video card is a dark blue/black pcb with black heatsink, a radeon 7770 ghz edition

basically the contrast between the black everywhere and the white capacitors on the board and the back headers and the large heatsink on cpu is just awesome and the system looks anything but ghetto.. and best of all it's probably under 800$ overall.

The point is the most expensive parts are the processor and the case ... i simply need a fast processor because i do a lot of video encoding... you could use a 50$ cpu and it wouldn't make a difference visually, won't feel more ghetto.

If there is a specfic reason or if the rig truely ran well, then I'd be fine with empty slots. However, Unless I run an x32 OS, I'd need more than 4gb. heck, under xp x64 I'm using 3gb and I'm not really pushing it. Ok, maybe I have 25 tabs open in chrome, but aside from thunderbird, I have nothing else running. Not even close to peak usage.

I will say that it has been running pretty well. No performance complaints. Had it not been for the tuner card issue I'd call it good.

(too bad topcat hasn't chimed in, The trend of me building personal workstations was inspired by him. After all, he gave me the X5DAL used in V2).

Let me guess, you're next going to attack my web browsing habits.

[mariushm]

Re: Ratdude's main rig V3, maybe

Let me guess, you're next going to attack my web browsing habits.

Nope, here's how i work : http://savedonthe.net/image/1796/asdf.png

Each person works most efficiently in his own way. H

I simply suggested 4 GB of memory as lowest amount, in case you are on a budget. I have two 8 GB sticks in my system.

Sorry to see you view my comments as attacks. They weren't meant to come off as that.

[Uranium-235]

Re: Ratdude's main rig V3, maybe

is that 4C /w HT or an 8-Core AMD?

[shovenose]

Re: Ratdude's main rig V3, maybe

is that 4C /w HT or an 8-Core AMD?

I'm fairly certain mariushm was the little brother to my FX-8350, the FX-8320. So 8-core AMD.

[shovenose]

Re: Ratdude's main rig V3, maybe

It's consumer grade. uATX as well. No PCI-X (so bye bye HW hdd controller, I know everybody hates those too).

Those WD Raptor drives are nice, however you're not going to get any noticeably slower performance from a nice WD Caviar Blue 7200RPM 500GB drive. And it's quieter, has warranty, and uses way less power.

I want a computer that I can look at and feel proud of, not some rig that screams "bottom of the barrel". I want a rig that looks like an expert built/modified it, not a rig built for a broke ass wannabe.

That means nothing. Just because my computers don't use Supermicro cases, doesn't mean they are trash. I take pride in my computers... they are not trash. If I went and bought an HP at Best Buy, THAT is bottom of the barrel trash. Besides, if it's the exterior look that matters to you, those components of the system I built you on Newegg would go inside it just fine so you can have your damn "expert looking rig"...

I used to push a newer rig built using the cheapest parts possible to make it run. That was Main Rig V1, based off an Intel DP35DP. At the time, it was one CPU model away from a celeron (a PDC 1.8ghz) and only had 1gb (later 2gb) of RAM. Every time I looked at the rig I felt depressed, seeing empty RAM slots... it ran like crap too.

That system was a pile of shit. Empty RAM slots do not slow down your computer, they simply give you the opportunity to expand in the future without replacing your motherboard. I don't understand how you don't understand this - I know you're not stupid or anywhere close to stupid, in fact I'd say you're one of the more intelligent and/or clever people...
You're using an outdated Pentium Dual Core, 1GB of RAM which is nowhere near enough, a trash Intel motherboard... of course it's going to run like crap... is that not obvious? You can't reasonably assume that a modern computer would perform like crap just because something you had before that was junk would??
I dare you to fly over here, sit down in my room, and use my Celeron G540-based computer, and tell me after that if it's trash or not. You're paying for the plane ticket :P

Larry, none of your arguments make ANY LOGICAL SENSE.

[Uranium-235]

Re: Ratdude's main rig V3, maybe

Larry, none of your arguments make ANY LOGICAL SENSE.

something about people with aspergers when we get this idea in our head, and visualize it, we have to see it through. Its why I made a music video of 30 seconds to mars 'this is war' with scenes from the revolutionary war. I heard the song in my head while watching the show, and, just could not get it out of my head until I made some progress with it.

Larry saw the insides of TC's computer and looked at his and his head said...'I have to do this'. It sticks inside, filling the recesses of his brain until its done. I'm the same way to an extent, but not as bad as larry :P

[shovenose]

Re: Ratdude's main rig V3, maybe

something about people with aspergers when we get this idea in our head, and visualize it, we have to see it through. Its why I made a music video of 30 seconds to mars 'this is war' with scenes from the revolutionary war. I heard the song in my head while watching the show, and, just could not get it out of my head until I made some progress with it.

Larry saw the insides of TC's computer and looked at his and his head said...'I have to do this'. It sticks inside, filling the recesses of his brain until its done. I'm the same way to an extent, but not as bad as larry :P

That's fine, but if somebody is always complaining and going on about how they have no money and how they're a broke college student and how they want to move out and how they hate living with their parents blah blah blah... they can't make constant threads about the next overpriced used stuff they picked up off eBay/Topcat/Shovenose (yes, I'm being a hypocrite here, but hear me out)...

I would be interested to know how much has been spent on rigs V1/V2/V3... (not counting the price of Windows 7 OS, and not counting that Supermicro case because due to personal preference ratdude747 wants his computer to look like a f*cking server and that case could be used for the new build)...
Compare that to the price of the Newegg build I threw together in five minutes a couple posts up.
I have a feeling my build would end up cheaper, in addition to being more reliable, faster, quieter, more environmentally friendly (if you give a shit), use less power so be cheaper to run, and just overall better.

[Uranium-235]

Re: Ratdude's main rig V3, maybe

That's fine, but if somebody is always complaining and going on about how they have no money and how they're a broke college student and how they want to move out and how they hate living with their parents blah blah blah... they can't make constant threads about the next overpriced used stuff they picked up off eBay/Topcat/Shovenose (yes, I'm being a hypocrite here, but hear me out)...

I would be interested to know how much has been spent on rigs V1/V2/V3... (not counting the price of Windows 7 OS, and not counting that Supermicro case because due to personal preference ratdude747 wants his computer to look like a f*cking server and that case could be used for the new build)...
Compare that to the price of the Newegg build I threw together in five minutes a couple posts up.
I have a feeling my build would end up cheaper, in addition to being more reliable, faster, quieter, more environmentally friendly (if you give a shit), use less power so be cheaper to run, and just overall better.

I know. and i've mentioned that. The G1610 beats the G530 by over 300passmarks btw for the same price. Rat wants something different than a new, faster system. There is no talking him out of it. I know he could of probably bought a i5 by now with a gaming board and a GTX 660, but thats not what he wants

[c_hegge]

Re: Ratdude's main rig V3, maybe

I have a feeling my build would end up cheaper, in addition to being more reliable, faster, quieter, more environmentally friendly (if you give a #\$÷), use less power so be cheaper to run, and just overall better.

I disagree. A used server board, like what has been used in these main rigs, will always be far more reliable than any band new consumer board. So even if his rig isn't as modern as yours, it's gonna be far more reliable than any cheap newegg build.

[shovenose]

Re: Ratdude's main rig V3, maybe

I disagree. A used server board, like what has been used in these main rigs, will always be far more reliable than any band new consumer board. So even if his rig isn't as modern as yours, it's gonna be far more reliable than any cheap newegg build.

Whatever you say... But you don't know the history of a used board.

[mariushm]

Re: Ratdude's main rig V3, maybe

I disagree. A used server board, like what has been used in these main rigs, will always be far more reliable than any band new consumer board. So even if his rig isn't as modern as yours, it's gonna be far more reliable than any cheap newegg build.

I'll have to disagree here.

The only arguments for more stability on servers is the fact that memory uses ECC and/or is registered which reduces the number of memory errors and the fact that the systems are theoretically better cooled (very noisy high power fans forcing lots of air through them).

The first argument is debatable nowadays. Transfer errors happen all the time and ECC only catches corruption IN the memory modules themselves and repairs it. Corrupted data can also happen on the pcb lanes between the cpu and the memory slots (or between chipset and slots or chipset and cpu in case of this motherboard) in which case cpu or chipset requests another transfer to get the proper data or corrects the issue.
There's no question about it: data can become corrupted IN memory, so there's a benefit to ECC memory but statistically such in memory errors are rare, let's say 1 bit in 10^12 or something like that, let's say at best one bit every 30-40 days of 24/7 operation.
Data gets damaged far more often (don't ask me to give you white sheets/app notes etc, don't have these handy) between ram and cpu and here, we can start to discuss what is more likely to get corrupted data:
1. a system that has 16 memory slots all filled up with modules with data going from ram to chipset to cpu and from there to the other cpu for synchronization of caches and all that (so going throgh about 3-5 hypertransport links and a fifth of pcb) OR
2. a system that has 4 memory slots filled with 1 or 2 modules, moving data about 10-20 cm directly to the processor in a straight line, through high speed differential pairs

This is only the beginning. Keep in mind that the old hardware and the new hardware is like comparing 10 mbps to 1 gbps network cards.
A modern processor, just like a modern network card will have much better "brains" to filter noise and errors coming through the differential links.
To drive those 16 memory modules and to understand the signals, ddr1 needs something like 2.5-2.8v and the frequency maxes out at 400 Mhz (200mhz x 2)... there has to be quite a lot of voltage difference for the chipset to understand those bits of data and if theres some noise on the data path, the data may become corrupted easier.
In contrast, modern processors have better signal processing capabilities, just like 1gbps network cards have dsp units that engineers maybe didn't even imagine they would be possible in consumer hardware today.
The modern processor has the northbridge integrated, it talks directly to ram, it can handle even 2133 Mhz bus and the ram itself works at 1.35v-1.5v - i hope it's obvious the memory controller is such modern processors is much more capable to analyze the signal coming in at these speeds and filter and process it.
If you use 1333 Mhz or 1600 Mhz modules with such modern processors, for the processor it's a piece of cake to understand the data and the processor can tolerate much more noise on data lines before it needs to request a re-send from the memory.

We're not even going into how many individual memory chips are on 1GB ddr1 ECC modules compared to a modern 2-4 GB DDR3 module.
DDR1 1GB ecc is usually double sided, 18-20 chips on a module... you can get 4 GB DDR3 modules that have only 8 chips on them, like this one for example: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820301188

Do the math: what's gonna have errors sooner 20 chips x 16 modules (320 failure points), or 8 chips x 4 modules = 32 failure points?

Sigh... this is only memory.

next we have on server boards tons of chips that all require 1.8v, 2.5v, 3.3v, 5v or a mix of these so you need power converters throughout the board... you have chips that are made with high geometry so they waste power therefore generate a lot of heat (guess what happens to capacitors around those heatsinks)
Modern motherboards use better dc-dc converters (newer more efficient chips), the power supplies themselves give better voltages

Consumer hardware simply has fewer points of failure.

It's mostly designed to work on 12v, everything is more integrated, northbridge is in cpu, southbridge is directly connected to cpu, most devices you plug are powered directly from 12v, everything is much simpler, with less possibility of failure, you only have pci express (serial data through differential links) and usb (again serial data through differential links) and sata (again serial data though differential links) compared to ata/scsi/pci/pci-x all but scsi being parallel buses susceptible to noise.

Even cheaper boards come with polymer capacitors nowadays, with solid state dc-dc converters for cpu, more efficient therefore less heat generated (in contrast to server hardware which is designed with forced cooling in mind, high rpm coolers are supposed to blow air over vrm circuitry - this is painfully obvious in the motherboard layout)

[shovenose]

Re: Ratdude's main rig V3, maybe

Servers also spend their lives in a chilled room with stable power and nice cooling. Not designed to be in a normal room.

[c_hegge]

Re: Ratdude's main rig V3, maybe

They are also aimed at critical environments - one where the user expects the board not to fail, unlike a consumer who upgrades their boards every few years. Thus, they are built to higher quality standards, and not with planned obsolescence in mind like all consumer gear.

[mariushm]

Re: Ratdude's main rig V3, maybe

They are also aimed at critical environments - one where the user expects the board not to fail, unlike a consumer who upgrades their boards every few years. Thus, they are built to higher quality standards, and not with planned obsolescence in mind like all consumer gear.

You'd think so, but not really.

There is a bit more attention paid to making them because due to all the extra hardware on the boards, there's more layers in the pcb, there's more data integrity stuff to be taken care of, more signal routing issues.

There's a bit more attention to how hot components (processors,vrm circuitry etc) are positioned on the board and making sure the heatsink fins don't impede the air flow - the whole system is designed with the assumption that fast moving air is blown over 24/7 while the system runs.

Often, since it's known in advance what processors will work on the board, and the bios is stripped by anything allowing overclocking, they can size the heatsinks and the vrm to handle just about a few percents above the maximum ever possible on a board.
Again, heatsinks would be a bit undersized because they know there's gonna be forced cooling from noisy large fans 24/7 over the board.

In contrast, desktop boards (not talking about the really budget stuff, just play 80-150$ board) often have vrm much beefier than server boards simply because they have to support future processors, they expect users will be overclocking etc etc heatsinks are sized adequately because you can't rely on cpu fan blowing air over the vrm if user uses water cooling.

Server motherboards also won't be made to consider air humidity and temperature, because it won't matter if user is in cold canada, hot australia, wet India, the server's going to be in a cold/air conditioned datacenter.

It's actually expected for motherboards to fail, these things are not really designed for maximum reliability and long warranty. They're more or less designed for minimum downtime, so that a datacenter technician can easily swap chassis (just eject drives and plug them in another chassis prepared in advance)

Here's my Gigabyte motherboard: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...irtualParent=1

Look at the warranty.. 3 years.

Now look at server motherboards...

intel server mb , 1 year warranty: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813121410
supermicro mb : 1 year parts , 3 year labor: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813182240
tyan server 3 years : http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813151270
asus 3 years : http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813131816

so what do you gain by going with server boards? Why don't they offer 5-10 years?


As a fun fact...on server hardware, what fails most often is actually onboard network cards and sas controllers... that can happen to any board.

Like i said, if you compare old server hardware with the current consumer hardware, consumer hardware wins. If you compare modern hardware, it is a bit more reliable. Is it really worth the extra price?
Depends on what you do with the hardware, but for home/workstation use it's not really worth it.

Last.. look on newegg.com at server motherboards. Look how many are full of 1-2 stars.
They're full of incompatibilities, like pci express slots not accepting video cards, onboard video cards with 2-4 megs of ram that only do 1280x1024, ram incompatibility or stupid stuff like the last two out of 8 memory slots not working until you do bios updates (really, quality control?!)...i could go on by i already wrote a ton of text.

[Uranium-235]

Re: Ratdude's main rig V3, maybe

You'd think so, but not really.

There is a bit more attention paid to making them because due to all the extra hardware on the boards, there's more layers in the pcb, there's more data integrity stuff to be taken care of, more signal routing issues.

There's a bit more attention to how hot components (processors,vrm circuitry etc) are positioned on the board and making sure the heatsink fins don't impede the air flow - the whole system is designed with the assumption that fast moving air is blown over 24/7 while the system runs.

Often, since it's known in advance what processors will work on the board, and the bios is stripped by anything allowing overclocking, they can size the heatsinks and the vrm to handle just about a few percents above the maximum ever possible on a board.
Again, heatsinks would be a bit undersized because they know there's gonna be forced cooling from noisy large fans 24/7 over the board.

In contrast, desktop boards (not talking about the really budget stuff, just play 80-150$ board) often have vrm much beefier than server boards simply because they have to support future processors, they expect users will be overclocking etc etc heatsinks are sized adequately because you can't rely on cpu fan blowing air over the vrm if user uses water cooling.

Server motherboards also won't be made to consider air humidity and temperature, because it won't matter if user is in cold canada, hot australia, wet India, the server's going to be in a cold/air conditioned datacenter.

It's actually expected for motherboards to fail, these things are not really designed for maximum reliability and long warranty. They're more or less designed for minimum downtime, so that a datacenter technician can easily swap chassis (just eject drives and plug them in another chassis prepared in advance)

Here's my Gigabyte motherboard: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...irtualParent=1

Look at the warranty.. 3 years.

Now look at server motherboards...

intel server mb , 1 year warranty: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813121410
supermicro mb : 1 year parts , 3 year labor: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813182240
tyan server 3 years : http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813151270
asus 3 years : http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813131816

so what do you gain by going with server boards? Why don't they offer 5-10 years?


As a fun fact...on server hardware, what fails most often is actually onboard network cards and sas controllers... that can happen to any board.

Like i said, if you compare old server hardware with the current consumer hardware, consumer hardware wins. If you compare modern hardware, it is a bit more reliable. Is it really worth the extra price?
Depends on what you do with the hardware, but for home/workstation use it's not really worth it.

Last.. look on newegg.com at server motherboards. Look how many are full of 1-2 stars.
They're full of incompatibilities, like pci express slots not accepting video cards, onboard video cards with 2-4 megs of ram that only do 1280x1024, ram incompatibility or stupid stuff like the last two out of 8 memory slots not working until you do bios updates (really, quality control?!)...i could go on by i already wrote a ton of text.

+1

now if he was looking for a workstation board, that would be a different story. I built a single Xeon Sandy Bridge WS system for my sisters ex boyfriend and that thing was tits. It was an asus board with ICH10R raid. But Intel ICH raid 1 is actually not that bad, and the software that manages it is pretty good (was intel matrix storage-preferred, now intel rapid storage). It took ECC DDR3, though it would not go into ECC mode cause the sticks didn't have a certain flag in the SPD profile. The board had no Enable/Disable ECC, it was 'automatic', and if your sticks did not have ECC in SPD, ECC would be disabled. That sucked but the system /w 16gb of ram & 2 500G WD blacks raid 1 as OS and 2 WD blacks 1.5gb as project storage (professional audio editing software). In a supermicro case with a 4-drive hotswap bay. Thing was awesome

oh yeah win7 pro 64-bit

go to newegg, go to server boards, look for anything with onboard audio, there is where things get closer to workstation than regular plain server boards

[severach]

Re: Ratdude's main rig V3, maybe

Old server boards are only good if you have free power. If power costs money than go with anything 1155 such as the Asus P8B-M. No point in saving money on an aging server only to pay the difference to the Power Company.

The point of server boards is to prevent downtime. Of course this goes beyond just the board. You need power control, access control, storage control, service intervals, redundant connectivity, and staff. Short on any one of these and you're wasting your time buying a server board. You're not going to get the 5 nines the board promises so why bother with old slow junk when new not slow not junk is dirt cheap.

I run 3 servers with MSI h61 boards and Celeron G630. Two servers take 17W at idle & 42W at full CPU and GPU. The other server has more hard dries so it takes 36W at idle and idles all the time. That's 3 servers at about 100W average and they have fabulous uptime, more uptime than I need because I can take them down any time I want.

The 3 Core 2 servers these replaced took 65W at idle and 130W at full CPU and GPU. That big difference caused an immediate and large drop in room heat. Summer's coming pplz!

Lesson: buy server hardware when the desktop hardware is not making the grade. My desktop hardware makes the grade.

[Uranium-235]

Re: Ratdude's main rig V3, maybe

you can do even better power-wise by getting a mini ITX server board /w an Atom D525 (Or Celeron 870something-ivy bridge)

One thing that makes server boards so expensive isn't 'higher grade parts'...its the remote management software. Built in firmware connected to a specific NIC port grants someone who has rights to reboot, flash the bios, or, if supported, take PS2-controller-emulation over the system, not requiring any kind of remote software