bradholland Posted September 21, 2007 Share Posted September 21, 2007 Hey guys, My boss is a music producer, Although i have Just built him a bit of a beast system. passively Water cooled system quad core Q6600 with 4 gig ddr2 1055, asus p5k-deluxe (wrong choice as a lot of this doesnt seem to be working to well with this mobo) anyway, now he wants me to build an octa core system. this time around I would like to choose a motherboard thats going to work out of the box, but do boards even accept two quad cores yet? id like to get him as close to the apple pro itself as possible. I was thinking that there would be the intel equivalant board hopefully??? pci slots are still needed as he runs 2 UAD cards, (which still seem to work) he is currently running logic 8 and its pretty sweet as it is, but you know what its like once you have power, you want more!!!! hahaha so anyone have any ideas about that? Sweet Brads Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/63962-octa-core-possible-yet/ Share on other sites More sharing options...
Azurael Posted September 21, 2007 Share Posted September 21, 2007 http://www.apple.com/macpro/ ? Seriously, if you can get him to dump the UAD cards, it's probably a better option in the long term. Intel have demoed their V8 platform running two Yorkfield CPUs, but that's not due for a while. A Xeon system will cost almost as much as the Mac Pro, especially if you want to go 8-core (where Apple's prices for the 4-core Xeons are actually quite 'cheap') and because so few people have tried them under OS X, you probably won't be able to get much help for hardware that doesn't work. There is an Intel equivalent to the board in the Mac Pro (in fact, aside from the lack of risers for the FB-DIMM slots, the layout is very similar!) and it does have PCI slots of some sort (PCI-X or 64-bit PCI, I don't remember) but it's prohibitively expensive (like half the cost of the Mac Pro expensive), hard to get hold of and I can't remember the model number right now... Plus, you'd need new PSU, case, etc for the Extended ATX layout, which would again, be expensive (get the theme here?) Probably best to stick with 4-core until native 8-core chips come out otherwise. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/63962-octa-core-possible-yet/#findComment-452512 Share on other sites More sharing options...
bradholland Posted September 21, 2007 Author Share Posted September 21, 2007 Yeah i kinda agree, we have discussed this, but ihe begrudges paying that when we can build the system a lot cheaper, with more scope for upgrading in the future and silly things that we really wont / dont need to do like overclocking etc etc. and he uses the uad's on every track he releases (he wont drop the fairchild compressor) so if i mention that im likely to get a uad shoved up my ass...... sideways!!! Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/63962-octa-core-possible-yet/#findComment-452519 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Azurael Posted September 21, 2007 Share Posted September 21, 2007 You'd probably be able to build a 4-core Xeon system cheaper than a 4-core Mac Pro, but especially if you use a board from Intel themselves, I think you'd struggle a lot more to significantly beat the pricing of an octo-core Mac Pro (and if you're not beating it by a lot, there's probab;y not much point going with a hack over a Mac IMHO.) X5365s are not cheap. I guess you could go for lower clocked Xeons though, then it might be worthwhile... It might be worth having a look at boards from Tyan and Supermicro. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/63962-octa-core-possible-yet/#findComment-452530 Share on other sites More sharing options...
bradholland Posted September 21, 2007 Author Share Posted September 21, 2007 On my own machine Im currently fiddling with osx86 and logic 8 seems to run fine, but my mobo (asus p5B i think) does have a lot of issues, in the fact that nothing really works my nvidia 7900gs works a dream but with the jmicron {censored} and no ethernet / wireless etc i think im gonna get a bad axe 2, nothing special from what i can make out, but it seems to work good right?.so if there is no current VIABLE 8-core option, you think the best thing for me to invest in is a bad axe 2 for each of us? btw thanks for the info m8 brads Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/63962-octa-core-possible-yet/#findComment-452532 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Azurael Posted September 21, 2007 Share Posted September 21, 2007 Bad Axe 2 seems a very good choice for those looking for a reliable board for the quads, but be warned that they don't overclock too well (though i'd guess in music production you won't be overclocking anyway; I've noted music production types to be paranoid about even the remotest possibly of decreasing stability ) Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/63962-octa-core-possible-yet/#findComment-452533 Share on other sites More sharing options...
bradholland Posted September 21, 2007 Author Share Posted September 21, 2007 yeah its tough to be torn between a paranoid music producer, and a power hungy monster that loves seeing hardware running faster than its manufacturers intended it to. hehe Bad axe 2 it is for me then! Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/63962-octa-core-possible-yet/#findComment-452545 Share on other sites More sharing options...
strangedaze Posted September 21, 2007 Share Posted September 21, 2007 for 450 bucks you can buy mac pro motherboards. you could easyily make a 8 core machine with that mobo excepting 2 cpu's Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/63962-octa-core-possible-yet/#findComment-452604 Share on other sites More sharing options...
bonestonne Posted September 22, 2007 Share Posted September 22, 2007 it'll only work with Xeons right now. a Supermicro [arguably the best server motherboards you can buy] board + two Xeon X5355 or 5365's will fly. 4+ gigs of RAM, TB's of drive space available. but in all honesty, if you just made him a quad core system, what could he possibly be doing that would require more? to make it happen though, you could buy a small farm of the new iMacs for what an 8 core system would cost. just tell him its not worth it, and wait for penryn. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/63962-octa-core-possible-yet/#findComment-452901 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Diginerd Posted September 29, 2007 Share Posted September 29, 2007 it'll only work with Xeons right now. a Supermicro [arguably the best server motherboards you can buy] board + two Xeon X5355 or 5365's will fly. 4+ gigs of RAM, TB's of drive space available. but in all honesty, if you just made him a quad core system, what could he possibly be doing that would require more? to make it happen though, you could buy a small farm of the new iMacs for what an 8 core system would cost. just tell him its not worth it, and wait for penryn. Sorry mate but for audio more is definately more. I'm pretty sure I built the first Octazilla (I even beat Apple to the public punch by a couple of weeks), and boy I love it... UAD cards can go pee up a rope.. I get to run rings around my buddies PT HD6 rig, and all around I love it... Cubase blows with multi way support (Very inefficient), Pro Tools M Powered with the music Production toolkit & a light bridge gives you 48 STEREO tracks (96 voices), and 34 I/O (32 on 4 x ADAT Fiber Pairs+ SP/DIF), and wordclock support too. :-) Did I tell you yet that I love it? The trick is to be VERY VERY specific in your choice of parts. Mine even "Just worked" not a single hack or tweak required to run JaS 10.4.8 SSE2 on a pair of clovertowns. Parts List Very Scary Perf Test Results.. Screen Shot Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/63962-octa-core-possible-yet/#findComment-458794 Share on other sites More sharing options...
boha Posted December 25, 2007 Share Posted December 25, 2007 The trick is to be VERY VERY specific in your choice of parts. Mine even "Just worked" not a single hack or tweak required to run JaS 10.4.8 SSE2 on a pair of clovertowns. Diginerd, Which motherboard did you use? The thought of an install "just working" sounds very attractive. Congrats on a killer system. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/63962-octa-core-possible-yet/#findComment-551230 Share on other sites More sharing options...
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