Cheap Intel Quad-Core Xeon

[zombeh]

Link (https://www.ewiz.com/detail.php?name=XEON5310BX)

Yes I know it uses a 771 socket not 775, but a low end 771 board isn't much more than a high end 775 board. And you can stick 2 of them in :D

[AKA_RA]

where did you see cheap low end 771 boards? i looked around a bit and the only ones i saw were like 400-500 bucks

[Airbozo]

This is a great idea IF your software can handle it. No game on the market (that I know of) is multi cpu aware. Not just using the hyperthreading on p4's, I mean the game being programmed to take advantage of more than one processor. Very few _real_ software is MPI capable. I have a dual proc xeon (with hyperthreading) workstation here (Super Micro X6DA8 mobo w/2x3.4ghz cpus and 4gb of memory) and without doing a full-on benchmarking on the system, I have not noticed ANY improvement with any games with one or two cpu's. But now you got me curious and I will have to do an "official" game cpu test, to see if it makes any difference. One advantage is the amount of memory you can put in this system but that is related to the type of cpu (xeon) 16gb (I think)

That said, it is possible to assign system specific tasks to one cpu and to have your system use the second cpu for only specific tasks (like BF2). I have not ried this and have only read about it. I will also test this function if I can find out how.

[nil8]

Maybe someone wants to use it for something other than games?
Xeon's are typically server procs anyway and most servers aren't used for gaming. Server or game hosting perhaps.

Still, good find.

[CanaBalistic]

The motherboard must have some function to be able to use both cpu's at the same time. There wouldnt be any point in having 2 procs if the software could only run on one at a time.

[Airbozo]

Windows or linux will use both procs and you can set the threshold level when the second proc will take up the load or specifically designate the processor on which an application will run.

What I meant by my last statement, is that unless the program was specifically programmed to take advantage of multiple cpu's by forking off processes on each cpu, then it will run only on one processor at a time and the OS will control the processing cycle allocation. You could for instance limit system processes to the primary cpu and everything else (or one specific program) on another cpu. This can be done in windows, and linux, but I have not tried it. I have done cpu allocation on sgi machines so it should be similar. It is almost the same as designating specific runtime priorities under the Task Manager. I will find the how to on this later, off to a hockey game! Go Sharks!