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From: General Schvantzkopf on 24 Jan 2008 16:57
I'm starting to plan my next system. I would like to have support for >
8G of RAM which puts me on a server motherboard. I'll probably use a pair
of 3GHz dual core 45nm Xeons which I would like to overclock if possible.
My current fastest compute server is an 8G Core2 E6700 overclocked to
3GHz so the next system needs to be bigger and faster than that which is
why I'm shooting for 16G of RAM and four cores clocked at 3.5-4GHz. This
system is for Verilog simulation (which is single threaded, thus the need
a high clock rate, and FPGA place and routes. Storage will be a couple of
SATA drives in RAID0, I don't need SCSI. I don't care about the number of
PCI slots, this system will have a cheap PCIe graphics adapter or onboard
graphics because it will be running without X most of the time. What I
care about is compute speed, memory size and stability. Any
recommendations will be appreciated.

Is there any support for overclocking on a server motherboard. There are
a couple of SuperMicro motherboards that look good, the MBD-X7DWA-N with
8 FB-DIMM sockets and the MBD-X7DWA-N+ that has a whopping 16 FB_DIMM
sockets. Can these boards be overclocked?

From: Anton Ertl on 25 Jan 2008 07:54
General Schvantzkopf <schvantzkopf(a)yahoo.com> writes:
>What I
>care about is compute speed, memory size and stability. Any
>recommendations will be appreciated.
>
>Is there any support for overclocking on a server motherboard. There are
>a couple of SuperMicro motherboards that look good, the MBD-X7DWA-N with
>8 FB-DIMM sockets and the MBD-X7DWA-N+ that has a whopping 16 FB_DIMM
>sockets. Can these boards be overclocked?

We have a dual-Xeon 5160 box with 24GB of RAM based on the SuperMicro
X7DBE+ and are happy with it. The only funny thing is that, when we
turn it on, it does not show any sign of working for about one minute.

Concerning RAM, I recommend that you avoid FB-DIMMs if you can:
FB-DIMMs consume much more power (our machine consumes 280W when
idle), and require special cooling (we have a 5300rpm 80mm fan for our
FB-DIMMs, otherwise the machine would not work). Instead, go for
registered DIMMs (e.g. PC5300R instead of PC5300F DIMMs); if you want
to use a dual-Xeon board, that would mean the 5100 chipset.
Supermicro seems to have only a 6-DIMM board (X7DCL-i), whereas Tyan
has an 8-DIMM board in the Tempest i5100X (S5375); you might also want
to look at what Intel has to offer.

Concerning overclocking, there's little demand for that in servers, so
server boards usually do not support it. Looking at the manual of the
X7DBE+, I see no way to overclock the FSB. You can set the
multiplier, but that's probably locked on the CPU. One thing that may
be possible is to get a motherboard with a FSB1600, buy CPUs with
FSB1333, and try to run it at FSB1600. That would overclock a 3GHz
CPU to 3.6GHz. Unfortunately the 5100 chipset I recommended above
seems to be limited to FSB1333, and FSB1600 seems to be limited to the
5400 chipset, which requires FB-DIMMs.

- anton
--
M. Anton Ertl Some things have to be seen to be believed
anton(a)mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at Most things have to be believed to be seen
http://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/anton/home.html
From: General Schvantzkopf on 25 Jan 2008 08:47
On Fri, 25 Jan 2008 12:54:46 +0000, Anton Ertl wrote:

> General Schvantzkopf <schvantzkopf(a)yahoo.com> writes:
>>What I
>>care about is compute speed, memory size and stability. Any
>>recommendations will be appreciated.
>>
>>Is there any support for overclocking on a server motherboard. There are
>>a couple of SuperMicro motherboards that look good, the MBD-X7DWA-N with
>>8 FB-DIMM sockets and the MBD-X7DWA-N+ that has a whopping 16 FB_DIMM
>>sockets. Can these boards be overclocked?
>
> We have a dual-Xeon 5160 box with 24GB of RAM based on the SuperMicro
> X7DBE+ and are happy with it. The only funny thing is that, when we
> turn it on, it does not show any sign of working for about one minute.
>
> Concerning RAM, I recommend that you avoid FB-DIMMs if you can: FB-DIMMs
> consume much more power (our machine consumes 280W when idle), and
> require special cooling (we have a 5300rpm 80mm fan for our FB-DIMMs,
> otherwise the machine would not work). Instead, go for registered DIMMs
> (e.g. PC5300R instead of PC5300F DIMMs); if you want to use a dual-Xeon
> board, that would mean the 5100 chipset. Supermicro seems to have only a
> 6-DIMM board (X7DCL-i), whereas Tyan has an 8-DIMM board in the Tempest
> i5100X (S5375); you might also want to look at what Intel has to offer.
>
> Concerning overclocking, there's little demand for that in servers, so
> server boards usually do not support it. Looking at the manual of the
> X7DBE+, I see no way to overclock the FSB. You can set the multiplier,
> but that's probably locked on the CPU. One thing that may be possible
> is to get a motherboard with a FSB1600, buy CPUs with FSB1333, and try
> to run it at FSB1600. That would overclock a 3GHz CPU to 3.6GHz.
> Unfortunately the 5100 chipset I recommended above seems to be limited
> to FSB1333, and FSB1600 seems to be limited to the 5400 chipset, which
> requires FB-DIMMs.
>
> - anton

I read somewhere that SuperMicro does have some overclocking support on
their boards but they don't advertise the fact.

I probably won't build this system until March or April. I'm hoping that
4G DDR2 DIMMs will be available by then which would allow me to use a
desktop motherboard. I was looking at the Samsung and Micron sites and it
appears that they are both sampling 2G DDR2 RAMs which makes a 4G DIMM
possible, in fact Samsung was also sampling a 4G unbuffered DIMM.
From: AZ Nomad on 25 Jan 2008 10:16
On Thu, 24 Jan 2008 15:57:40 -0600, General Schvantzkopf <schvantzkopf(a)yahoo.com> wrote:
>I'm starting to plan my next system. I would like to have support for >
>8G of RAM which puts me on a server motherboard. I'll probably use a pair
>of 3GHz dual core 45nm Xeons which I would like to overclock if possible.
>My current fastest compute server is an 8G Core2 E6700 overclocked to

Why would you select a server motherboard for increased reliability, and
then overclock it to destroy the system's reliability?

Pick a faster processor if you need it to run faster.
From: General Schvantzkoph on 25 Jan 2008 15:44

> Why would you select a server motherboard for increased reliability, and
> then overclock it to destroy the system's reliability?
>
> Pick a faster processor if you need it to run faster.

The only reason that I'm looking at server motherboards is for the large
memory support. Desktop motherboards are limited to 8G which is starting
to be a problem for me, I would like to have 16G in my next system. If 4G
unbuffered DIMMs get announced in the next couple of months then I'll
stick with a desktop motherboard.

My current Core2 is overclocked and it's been completely reliable. I've
been running it 24/7 for about 15 months without an issue. My server room
is air conditioned in the summer and in the winter I keep the heat down
to 60 so I don't have to worry about running in a hot room. My Core2 is
using stock Intel cooling, I plan on using a heavy duty cooler like the
Zalman 9700 in the next box which should allow me to get another .5GHz.
With my Core2 system I used sys_basher to find it's breaking point, then
I backed off by about 15%. I also underclocked the memory system, the
RAMS are DDR2800 but I'm running them at 600 which gives the memory
system plenty of margin.
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