Server Motherboards Question

[SulSeeker]

For both Intel and AMD...

What are the max # of sockets that can fit on a single motherboard.

I honestly don't know WHY, but I had a customer ask me this... and aside from TYAN, I don't think anything bigger than 4 for Intel and AMD is available. So I pointed him in that direction.

I don't know what hes thinking about building, or why, but I'm intrigued.

 

[plugwash]

Afaict the most you get on a "somewhat conventional" motherboard (e.g. one board but a pretty large one that won't fit in most cases) is 4.

There are systems with 8 processors in one system but afaict they all use assemblies of multiple boards supported by special cases to acheive that and are sold as complete systems. IIRC HP have one available (though I dunno the details) and supermicro seem to have one listed as coming soon.

Note that at least with the intel stuff the chips that are capable of more than two sockets have considerablly slower individual core speeds than the desktop and dual socket chips so you REALLY need to make sure your apps can take advantage of all those cores before getting such a system.

Also you need to think about what OS you will run. If you need to run windows on something with four sockets it will need to be at least "server standard" and for 8 sockets it will need to be "server enterprise". Further server standard has a max ram of "only" 32GB so if your application is ram heavy you are likely to end up wanting server enterprise even on a quad socket system these days (yes strange as it may seem desktop windows has a higher max ram but a lower max sockets than server standard).

 

[dashpuppy]

For both Intel and AMD...

What are the max # of sockets that can fit on a single motherboard.

I honestly don't know WHY, but I had a customer ask me this... and aside from TYAN, I don't think anything bigger than 4 for Intel and AMD is available. So I pointed him in that direction.

I don't know what hes thinking about building, or why, but I'm intrigued.

supermicro, intel asus tyan they all make server boards. I think the number of sockets we see right now is only 4, i could be wrong tho.

 

[seanmcd]

For both Intel and AMD...

What are the max # of sockets that can fit on a single motherboard.

I honestly don't know WHY, but I had a customer ask me this... and aside from TYAN, I don't think anything bigger than 4 for Intel and AMD is available. So I pointed him in that direction.

I don't know what hes thinking about building, or why, but I'm intrigued.

Perhaps he's going to run VMware ESXi (or the like) and wants all the clock cycles he can fit in one box? HP sells 8 cpu Nahalem servers (like the DL980 G7)

 

[dashpuppy]

Perhaps he's going to run VMware ESXi (or the like) and wants all the clock cycles he can fit in one box? HP sells 8 cpu Nahalem servers (like the DL980 G7)

Perhaps he is looking for a "retail" motherboard he can buy to build a server, the hp board is not retail

But if were talking about the number of cpus that can be stuff into one box, i'm sure hp ibm sun all those can top 8 cpus in one box that for sure.

j'

 

[untitled]

8 in one box is the "normal" maximum.
Motherboard 4P + Daughterboard 4P with a connector in one chassis.
After that, the severs get linked together with various interconnects.

 

[Dan_D]

4 is the maximum I think you'll see for E-ATX. Other form factors will allow for 8 or more.