Mobo suggestions for dual Opteron 940

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nickcarr

Weaksauce
Joined
Dec 16, 2005
Messages
85
Hi Guys --

It's my first post here at the Hard forums. It's nice to find a place that discusses hardware and not software. :cool:

I've been lurking for a few days and reading some of the older posts. I'm hoping to get a few suggestions for my dual proc system I'm building. After reading a couple of posts on AMD vs Intel, I feel like I betrayed my family. I was planning to build a dual Xeon system -- Intel would be a switch for me. However, I found the light and read up on AMD's literature on the Opteron. I really thought the Intel would be faster, but a couple of forum users pointed out the defficiency of the Xeon CPU (SMP) and then a light when on. I read up on the HT system bus.

I found a great PDF that AMD points out about how they have built their MCH into the Opteron CPU. Intel still has to rely on a seperate MCH and thus creates a bottleneck for its memory bandwidth and performance actually *drops* when adding CPU's.

So as of right now, I'm looking for that ideal Opteron 940 mobo. From what I see online, the Asus K8N-DL seems to be the winner at the moment. It's price point is hard to beat -- and since I'm not into SLI (although I am going to run PCI-E 7800GT), it seems like the best option.

I've got about 15 years of PC building experience, and I still remember the days when Asus was relatively new in the market and was being squeezed by all the other big boys. I've watched them rise and fall and rise again. When I was building systems full time, Tyan was a big vendor but we had several (dozen) QC issues with their mobos. It seemed like every other board we got was bad -- especially their dual proc boards. I can't tell you how many systems we built with Asus boards -- it had to be in the thousands. (These were mostly Pentium, Pentium 2 systems.)

Anyway, I'd like to know which boards are reliable these days? I've looked at the other dual 940 options, and the only other boards seem to be SLI or true server boards. This is mainly going to be a high-end video workstation. Yes, I want to play the usual games but I also do some video-editing, photoshop and related work. I'm planning on getting two Opteron 248 CPUs are the moment.

Oh, one last question -- on the K8N-DL... is it *required* to run ECC Registered memory or can you still use faster non-ECC unbuffered RAM


Thanks,
-Nick
Bellevue, WA
 
Follow-up to my previous post. I'm deciding between the MSI K8N-Master2 FAR and the Asus K8N-DL. I like the layout of the MSI board better. It looks a lot cleaner (and it claims to be true-ATX.) I noticed that heatsink and fans are included for the Opteron CPUs as well. The price point is about the same -- an extra $35 for the SLi option.
 
I recommend the asus as well,mainly because the MSI boards basically limits your heatsink options as because the board is an atx form factor space is a limiting feature of the boards and not usually a good thing. Dual systems need real estate.

For the memory all socket940 opteron boards require ECC, this is not an option. It's not a limiting factor of the motherboard, the memory controller is on the processor and that's the way they designed the s940 line.

I personally recommened the tyan thunder k8we if you can afford it, the seperate memory banks will allow you to take advantage of NUMA later on if that interest you, and I love tyan boards because I've never had one die and they are stable as all hell. Not a great board for overclock or features really, but stable and I view that as far more important. Though I do still run an old asus dual p3 board so those are fantastic as well. MSI I've never been partial too.

Another thing to remember you will *NEED* and EPS12V powersupply if you want things to run stable. Avoid using adapters, it's kind of a lottery when using them. I've seen people not have problems and I've seen systems that weren't stable past post because people were using adapters/power supplies that just couldn't cut it.
 
Have you thought about simply getting a nice fast dual-core processor instead of bothering with a dual-processor option? The performance between them is actually very, very close. You'd save an awful lot of money by getting non-ECC RAM, one less processor, etc.
http://www.techreport.com/reviews/2005q2/opteron-x75/index.x?pg=1

A single (dual-core) Opteron 175 is faster than a pair of 248's in most of these benchmarks, plus it's socket 939 and uses significantly less power. It will run cooler, quieter, and faster than a pair of 248's.
 
^^^ It may depend on his upgrade plans for the future. He may want to go four cores later. Guess we'll need a bit of input from the original poster.
 
Yes, indeed. I would like to stay with dual CPU's and upgrade to 265's later on next year. I have actually thought of going with the Asus K8N-DL and just buying one Operton 265 and then waiting for a few weeks to pick up another. The jury is still out on that one. Given how CPU prices tumble, I *think* it'd be cheaper to just get 248's in the short term and buy dual-core 2XX later down the line (and possibly upgrade the mobo too.)

Defakto, have you seen the new Tyan Tiger K8WE? It's selling for around $325 and it looks to be a solid mobo. It just came out in November. The Thunder looks good, and I have considered that one. The price point is significantly higher than the Asus however.

I have purchased a FSPGroup FX-600 power supply from NewEgg:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817104014

Now if I can just find a decent case! :confused:

(I'm thinking about the Thermaltake Armor case. It is priced right and looks to have a lot of space to tinker around in. If anyone knows where I can look at one in-person in the Seattle area, then please let me know.)
 
IMO, you're going to end up spending far more money with a dual processor solution than you need to. It appears to be quite a waste of money for workstation purposes, unless your daly work will benefit significantly from having a pair of $700 processors that you're not even actually planning to buy in the immediate future.

Dual Opterons plus ECC RAM and a dual socket 940 MB is a ton of cash to lay out simply to protect "future" performance. In reality, by the time you're ready to lay out another $1000+ to upgrade the processors alone, you could buy a quad-core CPU, motherboard, and RAM for roughly the same price.
 
kumquat,

I don't understand your logic. Right now (2) Opteron 248's are $340 a piece right now. So, that's $700 plus cost of Mobo and RAM. I need a new framework anyway... so case, pwr supply, etc is nominal cost. The video card is necessary for what I do. That's $320.

I think ~$1200 (not being exact) for a dual operton system is a pretty good deal right now -- at current prices. I never said that this is performance in the future -- I need this performance now. Buying (2) dual-core CPUs would be a great upgrade option in the next year or so.

My current high-end Athlon /w AGP 8x (6800GT) is just not cutting it. The only reason I'm considering the SLI mobo -- is that SLI might be another option worth considering next year as well.

If you have a mobo + cpu solution ... then please put out details. Don't just tell me it can be done. I need details. :p
 
Both the thunder and the tiger are fantastic boards, I have friends running the tiger k8w, I run the thunder k8w and neither one of us has had any major complaints. For a case I surrounded mine in the spacious cooler master stacker and have been incredibly happy with it. Can't go wrong with a fortron power supply either.


As for the going to a single dual core system that people keep preaching to you. Hey, it's his choice, he's stated he's been building systems for quite sometime and he knows what he wants. He asked for motherboard advice, not complete system advice.
 
defakto said:
Both the thunder and the tiger are fantastic boards, I have friends running the tiger k8w, I run the thunder k8w and neither one of us has had any major complaints. For a case I surrounded mine in the spacious cooler master stacker and have been incredibly happy with it. Can't go wrong with a fortron power supply either.


As for the going to a single dual core system that people keep preaching to you. Hey, it's his choice, he's stated he's been building systems for quite sometime and he knows what he wants. He asked for motherboard advice, not complete system advice.
Click to expand...

One important thing to note about the thunder k8w and the tiger k8w is that they lack usb 2 and there are certian issues with some agp cards.
 
draksia said:
One important thing to note about the thunder k8w and the tiger k8w is that they lack usb 2 and there are certian issues with some agp cards.
Click to expand...

He's going PCI-e with the k8we series though, so it's not an issue.
 
Another option to check out is the supermicro H8DCE its has almost all the features of the KW8E but lacks pci-X which most people have no need for any way but tends to be quite a bit cheaper then the KW8E.
 
draksia, what's up with SuperMicro these days? I never knew they were so pro-Intel? I went to their site a few days ago and they list nothing about AMD or Opteron motherboards. I just checked again, and I still don't see anything regarding their boards. I know they make a few server boards -- but why don't they publish this information?

Also, I don't know what you mean by "lacks USB 2" ...? They both have USB 2.0 ports... per their web site.

(And yes, I'm only interested in PCI-E video.)
 
Because their dealings with intel supermicro is one of those cases named in the AMD lawsuit where Intel intimidates companies. Still they only sell the products as OEM and if notice there is no nice easy to find link to the AMD products.

The address for the their AMD products is http://www.supermicro.com/aplus/


I purchased mine through monarchpc, I believe ewiz also carries their products. I quick search on froogle will lead you to retailers.

edit : The older tiger and thunder K8W only have USB 1.1 the newer KW8E has USB 2.0.
 
Just FYI, one of the newest BIOS releases for the Asus K8N-DL adds NUMA ability to the board. The only complaint about my K8N-DL is that it has 6 RAM DIMMS split 4 & 2 between the CPUs. I don't plan to put that much RAM in, but if you wanted to put in more than 4 (2 per), you're kinda in a hole.
 
draksia said:
Another option to check out is the supermicro H8DCE its has almost all the features of the KW8E but lacks pci-X which most people have no need for any way but tends to be quite a bit cheaper then the KW8E.
Click to expand...
Ooh, I hadn't realized that was out. Looks like I have a new object of geeklust, especially considering it's only $346.70.

One question, though: in the manual, on page 8, it shows the x16 slots branching off of x4 slots. What does that mean, and is it representative of reality? Seems like an odd design.

 
unhappy_mage said:
Ooh, I hadn't realized that was out. Looks like I have a new object of geeklust, especially considering it's only $346.70.

One question, though: in the manual, on page 8, it shows the x16 slots branching off of x4 slots. What does that mean, and is it representative of reality? Seems like an odd design.

Click to expand...
I believe the way PCIE works is that you have x number of lanes to use, whether they're in x16 slots, x8 slots, or x1 slots. For instance, a chipset will have pins corresponding to say 40 PCIE slots, and they can be wired up to 2 x16 and 2 x4 slots, or 10 x4 slots, or whatever. I think the manual is just trying to show that each chip has one x16 slot and one x4 slot wired to each chip.
 
I have been very impressed with my Tyan Tiger K8W motherboard (aside from one little nit pick). It has been rock solid since day one, which is a must for me.

You will need a big case for these extended ATX motherboards though. I personally have mine in a Lian Li PC75, and it fits in nicely. Add to that a PC power & cooling 510watt power supply, and I'm very impressed with my opteron build (system in sig).

~Hope this helps, and keep us posted
 
I am in the process of replacing my aging Tyan 2460 Athlon MP machine. The stability and performance that Tyan provided with this machine was stunning, Their support when it fried out the ATX connector was also top notch. I do similiar work to what the original poster mentioned on a professional level. So far, only the Tiger K8WE and the Supermicro H8DCE provide what I am looking for. My heavy graphics work requires me to use 3 monitors and I plan to add a 4th, so 2 PCIe 16x slots is critical, I don't see SLI ever being used.

I decided to go with the Tyan for a couple reasons:
- Previous excellent history with a Tyan on the AMD platform
- Supermicros timid commitment to AMD
- The H8DCE is a OEM only board, future support is not assured
- The H8DCE lacks FireWire, critical for DV video editing, K8WE has 3 ports
- The K8WE costs about $70 more, but a manufactures warranty means a lot,
specially when I know Tyan will stand behind it.
- That $70 savings will be lost if you add in a quality Firewire card to the H8DCE.

I think a paid about the same for that Tyan 2460 and 2 MP1800's as the K8WE and a pair of 246's will cost today. That machine lasted 3 years, a new record for me. Knowing I can go eventually go to atleast a pair of dual core 3 ghz chips later makes me giddy when I think how long this investment will last me!
 
Thanks for all the feedback.

Here's what I'm planning to go with:

Cooler Master Stacker case /w Fortron 600w EPS12v
Asus K8N-DL
(1) Opteron 265 D/C
(2) Kingston 512MB CL2 ECC REG (The high-end Kingston!)
EVGA PCI-E 7800GT (517 model)
160GB SATA (will likely go RAID 0 /w couple of SATAII later on)

In early Jan --

Pick up 2nd Opteron 265 (and) 2nd 2x512MB of RAM (or 4, 1GB modules)

Notes:

I'm not going SLI for now. I think I'm going to wait till the next video evolution (prob some time late next year.)

I think I'm just going to buy (1) Opt 265 dual core CPU now and pick one up in a few weeks. Any problems with doing that? Are you still suppose to buy (2) CPUs at the same time -- for matching reasons?
 
nickcarr said:
Follow-up to my previous post. I'm deciding between the MSI K8N-Master2 FAR and the Asus K8N-DL. I like the layout of the MSI board better. It looks a lot cleaner (and it claims to be true-ATX.) I noticed that heatsink and fans are included for the Opteron CPUs as well. The price point is about the same -- an extra $35 for the SLi option.
Click to expand...

That msi board is waaaaay obsolete. No dual core support even! I thikn it's agp also, not pci-e so no 7800GT either.

Rob
 
nickcarr said:
Thanks for all the feedback.

Here's what I'm planning to go with:

I think I'm just going to buy (1) Opt 265 dual core CPU now and pick one up in a few weeks. Any problems with doing that? Are you still suppose to buy (2) CPUs at the same time -- for matching reasons?
Click to expand...
Double check which motherboard your going to use, read their manual. Right now I'm running a single opteron in a dual opteron mobo (With my motherboard, when using a single processor, I had to install in in a specific socket).

Ide say just ploop down the money for a single 1gb stick right from the start.
 
towert7 said:
Double check which motherboard your going to use, read their manual. Right now I'm running a single opteron in a dual opteron mobo (With my motherboard, when using a single processor, I had to install in in a specific socket).

Ide say just ploop down the money for a single 1gb stick right from the start.
Click to expand...


Yep that is important because with the KW8E the 2050 chipset is connected only to the second cpu so the one of 16x slots and one of the gigabit nics are not useable.
 
Robstar said:
Supposedly the new K8WE killer is the new gigabyte board . I just snagged one and it's very nice. No problems thus far.
The guys at 2cpu seem to like it. The K8N Master2-Far looks interesting too!
Click to expand...
The K8N doesn't have [edit]the dual-channel-like[/edit] NUMA, last I checked. The manual doesn't have a block diagram (!), though, so I can't verify that this is still the same board. And it took some digging to get that link.

On the GB board: looks good. They've attached the second chipset to the second CPU, which IMO is how it should be done. However, as is fairly usual with these things, the block diagram is as blurry as all get out (page 72). Drives me crazy.

 
i know you've decided and all but i still have to recommend as others have to get an x2 and sli motherboard that doesn't require registered ecc memory.

the performance is nearly identical between the x2 and dual opterons.
the ram is cheaper on an x2 based system.
for 3d rendering and gaming you'd get more speed advantage with 2 7800 gt's in sli than a second dual core processor would provide.
and for the cash a second dual core opti costs you could instead get a second 7800.

most apps if multithreaded are actually threaded to take advantage of only an extra core/cpu. going four cores doesn't provide hardly any increase in most pro 3d apps. you get to run more apps while mutitasking but how often are you gonna run 2 instances of 3d studio?
 
just so you know i just upgraded my system from a dual opteron setup to a single x2.
the difference from the initial purchase of the opteron allowed me to get more ram and faster video card this time around and i have a dual core system that is just as fast as a dual opteron at the same speeds. except i have more ram as i could get something on sale not whatever the cheapest registered ram is.
 
Wetware,

Yes, I was considering the single CPU option last night. But, I need this system to last me for (hopefully) 1-2 years. I don't forsee anything else happening (other than greater multi-core), so a quad-core system will benefit me there.

I guess I didn't really mention it, but my cost/value concern is not a huge priority. I still have 48 hours before I can order this stuff, so I'm still debating between the Thunder and the Asus board. The Thunder would be a nice option, but as of now, I'm not really considering SLI. If that becomes a necessity, then I can upgrade my board when necessary.

Robstar, I also considered the Gigabyte board as well. My current Athlon is a Gigabyte setup and I am usually loyal to a working setup. However, I've had a strange video issue that I can only chalk up to either a mobo and/or BFG incompatibility. BFG tech support was virtually no help (they're useless)... so I'm compelled to move on to a different manufacturer (of both mobo and video.)
 
The more I look at the H8DCE the better it looks. It's only a little more than the Asus, and each processor gets its own memory banks - IIRC the asus k8n-dl doesn't have that, and it really helps memory bandwidth under the right circumstances.

 
unhappy_mage said:
The more I look at the H8DCE the better it looks. It's only a little more than the Asus, and each processor gets its own memory banks - IIRC the asus k8n-dl doesn't have that, and it really helps memory bandwidth under the right circumstances.

Click to expand...

The K8N-DL does split the memory DIMMs. It's just not an even split--it's 4 for CPU1 and 2 for CPU2. The H8DCE is probably a better board either way though.
 
Volkum said:
The K8N-DL does split the memory DIMMs. It's just not an even split--it's 4 for CPU1 and 2 for CPU2. The H8DCE is probably a better board either way though.
Click to expand...

Agreed. Plus you don't have to pay the premium for PCI-X. When I bought the Tyan K8WE, the K8N-DL was already out. The problem was, that it didn't support SLi. I worried about it's NUMA capabilities because of the memory configuration. Come to find out, the board supports NUMA fine. You can have NUMA in six modules, provided that the last two are on the remote processor. IE Processor 2.

If I was buying today, the Supermicro H8DCE would likley be my choice.
 
Update!

Here's what I've bought:

Cooler Master Stacker Case /w Fortron 600w P/S
SuperMicro H8DCE
(1) AMD Opteron 265
(2) 1GB Kingston ECC/REG DDR modules
EVGA 7800GT

Will be running XP64 and Vista! I'm trying to have this all built before Christmas. I'll send a photo out when it's all up and running! Should look sweet with the Dell 2405pfw widescreen!

(Damn you guys!) :p
Seriously, thanks for all the help and suggestions!
 
nickcarr said:
Update!

Here's what I've bought:

Cooler Master Stacker Case /w Fortron 600w P/S
SuperMicro H8DCE
(1) AMD Opteron 265
(2) 1GB Kingston ECC/REG DDR modules
EVGA 7800GT

Will be running XP64 and Vista! I'm trying to have this all built before Christmas. I'll send a photo out when it's all up and running! Should look sweet with the Dell 2405pfw widescreen!

(Damn you guys!) :p
Seriously, thanks for all the help and suggestions!
Click to expand...

Yea, keep us posted on how everything turns out for sure! Sounds like a killer rig.
 
Sir-Fragalot said:
I can't imagine Gigabyte being anywhere near the Tyan for stability or reliability. Any Gigabyte board I've worked with has been less than impressive.
Click to expand...

This is my first gigabyte board and the only problem was my intel pro/1000 MT NIC. If i put it in, it would freeze at "detecting raid" for the nvraid. I couldn't even get into the bios.

My dk8x was worse than that. I've had 3-4 msi boards worse than that. The very first gen of my a7n8x, not overclocked, locking up in the bios was worse than that.

Outside of this, no problems.

Outside of this, I also need PCI-X (I have an 8 port sata controller). One of my requirements was at least 2 pci-x slots.
 
Robstar said:
This is my first gigabyte board and the only problem was my intel pro/1000 MT NIC. If i put it in, it would freeze at "detecting raid" for the nvraid. I couldn't even get into the bios.

My dk8x was worse than that. I've had 3-4 msi boards worse than that. The very first gen of my a7n8x, not overclocked, locking up in the bios was worse than that.

Outside of this, no problems.

Outside of this, I also need PCI-X (I have an 8 port sata controller). One of my requirements was at least 2 pci-x slots.
Click to expand...

I've replaced alot of Gigabyte boards over the years, (Not in my personal machines) and I can't honestly recommend them. Stability has been another factor that's made me shy away from them.

Perhaps I'll get a Gigabyte review sample at some point and they'll change my mind. But going with my existing experience, it hasn't been good. Gigabyte is not a brand I can generally recommend.
 
Robstar said:
This is my first gigabyte board and the only problem was my intel pro/1000 MT NIC. If i put it in, it would freeze at "detecting raid" for the nvraid. I couldn't even get into the bios.

My dk8x was worse than that. I've had 3-4 msi boards worse than that. The very first gen of my a7n8x, not overclocked, locking up in the bios was worse than that.

Outside of this, no problems.

Outside of this, I also need PCI-X (I have an 8 port sata controller). One of my requirements was at least 2 pci-x slots.
Click to expand...

Actually, when googling my NIC problem, it appears to happen to a number of boards with nforce chispet, so I'm even hesitant to call it a gigabyte problem.
 
My current A64 setup is usign a Gigabyte board and the only complaint I have is that it has a passive heatsink on the northbridge...and it runs like 70C which is ridiculous. Of course it also runs under where the video card extends out to...so there aren't too many options for replacing it.
 
I got my parts today and hit a few minor build-issues, which I'll post later. There are some "gotchas" to the SuperMicro motherboard, so you'll want to read my notes *before* you buy this motherboard.

Here's a photo for you guys, just so you can see my setup. This is a real photo and what you see is real - Windows XP 64 Retail. I've just hooked up the debugger so I can find out what's going on.

Ironically, Windows Vista installed just fine -- but I can't use it due to a lack of ethernet driver support.

xp64.jpg
 
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