[glebe digital]

Here's a cheap spec which I'm about to press the button on.......

Samsung SpinPoint 500GB SATAII Hard Drive £59.55
Vista Ultimate 64-bit £104.73
2off Intel Quad-Core Xeon E5335 2GHz 1333 MHz £428.10 [for the pair]
2off Kingston 2gb Ddr2 667mhz/pc2-5400 ram Ecc FB Cl5 £110.13
Antec Black Titan 650 Server Case - With 650W TruePower Trio PSU £110.26
PNY QuadroFX 1300 GPU £45
SuperMicro X7DB3 mobo £120

£977.........would be cheaper if I could find a deal on those xeons......

[Mihai]

Any idea how much faster these Xeons would be compared to an overclocked Q6600?

[glebe digital]

From benchwell:

E5335: 14m 24s
Q6600: 16m 18s [screamin’ at 3.36Ghz!]
Q6600: 21m 31s [stock]

Overclocked renderboxes seem like a mad idea to me.........asking for trouble?

[Maximus3D]

Not at all a big problem, if you have good cooling in the case, motherboard, ram and cpu then you're fine. And ofcourse if you overclock within reasonable limits and not push it to far, that could cause other unwanted problems such as instability and crashes.

But as always, i could be completly wrong so don't consider this to be information you can trust.

/ Max

[glebe digital]

Yeah I know what you mean Magnus, and lots of people do it with no problems.........I just want to err on the side of caution.

Worse nightmare here would be the crate 'collapsing' in the middle of a big animation job, so stability and longevity are my biggest concerns.........oh, and fan noise too!

[Micha]

Here are three Q6600@3.4GHz slaves running, biggest Zalman at lowest speed, PC case open at the side - wonderful quiet and no stability problems - each engine approx. 600,- Euro.

So, Xeon 8x2GHz -> 16GHz vs. 2xQ6600 27GHz. But I ask me, could it be possible to buy cheap Xeons and overclock it like the Q6600?

Isn't Vista 64 RAM hungry? I like XP64 - light and stable.

[philhoole]

Hi,

I've been looking at doing something similar myself recently. You may want to download the user manual for that motherboard and read page 2-7. It says that if you install 4GB that you basically only get 2.84 available to the OS !! Ouch...

Also, aren't the E5420 at 2.5GHz not much more expensive?

I don't think it's easy to overclock Xeons in the same way that the Q6600 allows - Don't think the BIOS on the motherboards offer the options.

[glebe digital]

Micha, Phil........many thanks for piping in there. Appreciate it.

Yep I've recently bought a q6600, very nice system for a cheap renderbox........but.........leaving cases open is not an option here, too many urchins dropping in to play IL2 Sturmovik......and toddlers with screwdrivers looking for stuff to dismantle.......also neighbours cat, who casually drops by to sleep by the fans while I'm working.

Phil, the 2.84 is only applicable if you're needing the 2nd PCI-E enumeration area......without it one should get 3.3 of your 4 gig.......but then ram is as cheap as chips.

And Vista.......well I never thought I'd say this but I could live without xp64 no bother........vista64 is a sweet OS........seems to have a low appetite too, but I guess it depends how you've set it up............I turn everything I don't need off [all that fancy eye candy crap] side bar, transparent windows etc.......

Have you found an E5420 for sale?!? where ?!?

[Blitzor]

I have a q6600 system overclocked at 3.4 ghz. Its extremely quiet with my zalman 9700 HSF. I'd rather buy two machines like this than an 8 core xeon; much cheaper and just as powerful.

[philhoole]

Scan claim to have stock of this http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductI ... tID=752997

Is this a passively cooled version or am I mistaken?

Thanks for the correction about the RAM allocation on the motherboard.

Glad to hear you are liking Vista64. I had no trouble with XP64 but I wouldn't go back now. A lot of people are very negative about Vista but I'm very happy.

[glebe digital]

Holy cr*p that's cheap.........nice find Phil. hey that's someone else I owe a carwash to.

Yes that'll need an additional heatsink/fan [thanks JD] but at that price [if they REALLY have it, it'll be a very low price for 20Ghz......

[philhoole]

No problem. I'm fairly sure they had some in stock during the week but then again I have bought stuff from them before and then discovered it was mysteriously out of stock despite the online indication.

I thought that the 'P' versions shipped with a heatsink but no fan but I wouldn't like to be held to it !

I will trade my carwash if you tell me where you intended to get the motherboard from

[glebe digital]

that's an easy carwash get-out for me.........ebay. It's sitting on a shelf here, after testing it at my local I.T shop.

there's another that might be worth a punt:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... :IT&ih=011

[numerobis]

I would recommend a sys with harpertown's too - E5405, 2.0 ~185€; E5410, 2.33 ~218€, E5420, 2.5 ~265€.

If you would like to overclock i would chose the bigger ones because these are all 333MHz cpu's which have a lower multi, so you would need a higher fsb to get reasonable results.

I plan to build an 8core sys with some E5420's and overclock it to the maxx. Regarding ocing i will go with the upcoming "skulltrail" board Z7S from Asus. I think it will get some more options in bios , it supports fsb1600 (ddr800) has 6 ram slots (up to 24gb) and it's an ATX board!!!!!!
http://www.hothardware.com/News/Asus_Z7 ... neak_Peek/

[Becco_UK]

Save up more money and wait for Intels duel Xeon Skulltrain platform and new 'Harpertown' Xeons to become available! TG daily review: http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/34636/118/

I use OverclockersUk for my computer parts and they have the skulltrain board on pre order http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showprodu ... subcat=205

The new 'Harpertown' Xeons are also available for pre order http://www.overclockers.co.uk/productli ... subid=1074