8-core motherboard for hackintosh?

[vlad1966]

That ASUS Z7S WS is mighty interesting - I'd consider it for my next Hack build, but it has no audio (damn!).

I'm considering all kinds of mobos for my next build.

 

Why would ASUS make a board without any audio at all???

 

What would be a good audio solution for this board?

 

EDIT: Never mind about the audio, just saw on NewEgg ($500) that it uses an MIO audio card that has SPDIF

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16813131272

 

This is one wicked board!

 

Recently, I think ASUS's quality & support have slipped - I just hope the reliability is there!

[redmodel]

z7s has the same issue as the DSEB-DG board. But, as of right now, there isn't an option in the bios to disable Snoop Filter.

 

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=183499

[vladthebad]

I'm not all up on the quoting system... anyways, from Ultimai's post... my replies in parenthasis.

 

 

I don't know why people are saying that the mac pro is such a good deal. If you ignore the currently artificially high margin of the 2.8ghz quad xeons and get the more reasonable 2.5Ghz quad xeons at half the price, you get this:

 

Western Digital Caviar SE WD5000AAJS 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM

$89.99

 

(Caviar drive = trash. I don't always agree with what drives apple uses, but I'd be looking at the Seagate ES.2 or the WD RE2 series stuff)

 

 

ASUS DSAN-DX Dual LGA 771 Intel 5100 SSI CEB Server Motherboard - Retail

$299.99 (can take a x16 ePCI card)

 

(Wrong chipset.. 5100 is the low end chipset, only dual channel ram, and uses normal DDR2, not FB-DIMM. That mobo also doesn't support 1600 mhz FSB, or 800mhz FB-DIMM, and thus has less than half the memory bandwidth, also has less overall PCIe bandwidth due to the "low end" 5100 northbridge (beefy compared to most desktop stuff... sissy compared to the 5400.

Overall bandwidth:

x16 + x8 + x4. Using AIO slot changes to x16 + x8 + AIO. Using 2nd electrical x8 slot changes to: x8+x8+x8+x4 or x8,x8,x8+AIO

= 28 lanes

Compared to: 40 lanes, 32 being PCIe 2.0

x16, x16, x4, x4 with both x16 slots being PCIe 2.0, and thus, twice as fast... very usefull for PCIe expansion chassis usage.

A more comparable board would be the Tyan 5397 without SAS in the $440 range, although I'll take the SAS version...)

 

 

Intel Xeon E5420 Harpertown 2.5GHz LGA 771 80W Quad-Core Processor Model BX80574E5420A - Retail

$349.99 *2 = 700

 

(1333 mhz FSB version, not the 1600 mhz FSB chips apple is using. Apple is using the E5462, they're about $800 each)

 

Transcend 2GB 240-Pin DDR2 FB-DIMM DDR2 667 (PC2 5300) ECC Fully Buffered Server Memory Model TS256MFB72V6U-T - Retail

$65.99 (up to 6 sticks of ram), add $80 if you want the 800Mhz version

 

(Wrong memory for the board you used.. the 800mhz version is the right memory for mac pro equivalent. And yes, apple's ram prices are high. So are IBM's, so is HP and dell on server/workstation quality stuff. Buy it with minimum ram and add your own.... like virtually everyone)

 

MSI NX8800GTS 320M OC GeForce 8800GTS 320MB 320-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Retail

$139.99

 

(Apple's using the 512mb 8800GT, running about $200 without mail in rebate on newegg. Apple charges 200+removes the stock 2600pro, so really more like $350.)

 

= 1300 + 200 for the case, powersupply, keyboard & mouse, DVD drive, external sound card. = 1500, half the price of the mac pro!

 

(No idea where you think you can get a mac pro quality power supply for that cheap... max draw is 1200-1400 watts, figure 80% efficient for a high quality power supply, you're looking at something near a 1000 watt supply... that has been tested enough for apple to put their reputation on the line for. If bunches go belly up 5 years down the road, Apple will most likely cover them anyways like they did the G3 ibook logic board problem. Try getting THAT support from even a $200 power supply. The PC Power and Cooling EPS12V 750w suppy on newegg is $160, the 1000w is $479. In the 1000w stuff, Antec, Enermax, Coolermaster are all in the $200+ pricerange.

 

THEN add a nice case... if you use a Lian-Li or something with equal fit and finish you're most likely looking at $150+. So yeah... if you're willing to skimp out, you can go 8 cores for a lot less than apple. If you are trying to spec something equal or at least in the same category, then you really won't save all that much. Maybe 30%. Apple's profit margin being about 25%... so yeah, you just saved apple's profit roughly.

 

Compare the Mac Pro to a similar Dell....

Even cheaping out and using 1333 FSB stuff and slower ram:

Dell Precision T7400

Subtotal $3,928

 

Quad Core Intel® Xeon® Processor E5440 (2.83GHz,2X6M L2,1333)

Quad Core Intel® Xeon® Processor E5440 (2.83GHz,2X6M L2,1333)

Genuine Windows® XP Professional, SP2 with Media

256MB PCIe x16 nVidia NVS 290, Dual Monitor DVI Capable

2GB, DDR2 SDRAM FBD Memory, 667MHz, ECC (2 DIMMS)

16X DVD-ROM with Cyberlink Power DVD™

320GB SATA 3.0Gb/s,7200 RPM Hard Drive with 8MB DataBurst Cache™

 

= $1000 more than the mac pro.

 

Going up to 3ghz on the dell and 1600FSB and same ram=

$4,698 for the dell vs $3599 for the Mac Pro

Going up to 3.2 ghz on the dell to match the high end mac pro=

$5,478 for the dell, vs $4399 for the Mac Pro

 

So apple really isn't expencive when you compare workstations.... just when you compare the mac pro vs the single socket desktop stuff.

 

Quote:

also i don't know what's the fascination with skulltrail, it seems your still limited to the same dopey 4 RAM slots. SLI, maybe? [but the mac pro even doesn't offer sli, its cheapo radeons are probably @ special ePCI 8x speeds]

another nice thing about macs is that they don't have the artificial distinction between the pro & consumer video cards, letting you have all the features!

 

Reply:

Skulltrail is getting the fascination because its an intel board with SLI, all the fixins, and 8 cores... and some fancy pants engineering sample style uber-processors with intel turning a blind eye and actually supporting overclocking in a fairly big way. Frankly, if you really look at the board, its crippled. The SLI is made possibly by the Nforce100 chips. So instead of the x16, x16, x16, x16 that it claims, its really x16 shared to a pair of x16 slots (they think they're x16, but really if you use both, they're basically x8's) and a second x16 shared to a second pair... so really its basically x8,x8,x8,x8 (or in real world SLI usage: x8,x8 + xY+xZ, where Y+Z=16) The OTHER problem with skulltrail, is that it only has 4 FB-DIMM slots. You really don't max out memory bandwidth until you get 2 sticks per channel.. As a gamer board it makes no sense. FB-DIMM's are about bandwidth and slot count, not low latency for FPS games. As a high end workstation, it makes no sence, since you could do SLI anyways if you use Quadro cards. Its really more of a big {censored} contest thing and a playtoy. People that really need the CPU power of 8 highly overclocked cores would most likely want more memory bandwith and the option for more ram total.

 

Apple doesn't offer SLI or crossfire because its fairly pointless on the professional side, and it often has glitches and bugs. SLI also doesn't work in multiple monitor configurations. It would also require quite a bit of time and effort for apple to write into the drivers, and for basically zero gain other than silly gamer stuff. I say silly gamer stuff, because gamers don't buy lots of $3000 workstations. And not all that many gamers run SLI or crossfire, just some of the very vocal hardcore gamers that are very much NOT apple's target market.

 

Furthermore, Apple's radeon cards are x16 versions.

 

 

 

 

And yeah, that Asus board does look nice, but considering all the horror stories of Asus workstation boards... I'm not sure. If it was a Tyan or a Supermicro, or even an MSI, I'd put it into the consideration pile.

[deleted_account]

I don't know why people are saying that the mac pro is such a good deal. If you ignore the currently artificially high margin of the 2.8ghz quad xeons and get the more reasonable 2.5Ghz quad xeons at half the price, you get this:

 

Western Digital Caviar SE WD5000AAJS 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM

$89.99

 

ASUS DSAN-DX Dual LGA 771 Intel 5100 SSI CEB Server Motherboard - Retail

$299.99 (can take a x16 ePCI card)

 

Intel Xeon E5420 Harpertown 2.5GHz LGA 771 80W Quad-Core Processor Model BX80574E5420A - Retail

$349.99 *2 = 700

 

Transcend 2GB 240-Pin DDR2 FB-DIMM DDR2 667 (PC2 5300) ECC Fully Buffered Server Memory Model TS256MFB72V6U-T - Retail

$65.99 (up to 6 sticks of ram), add $80 if you want the 800Mhz version

 

MSI NX8800GTS 320M OC GeForce 8800GTS 320MB 320-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Retail

$139.99

 

= 1300 + 200 for the case, powersupply, keyboard & mouse, DVD drive, external sound card. = 1500, half the price of the mac pro!

 

(also i don't know what's the fascination with skulltrail, it seems your still limited to the same dopey 4 RAM slots. SLI, maybe? [but the mac pro even doesn't offer sli, its cheapo radeons are probably @ special ePCI 8x speeds])

(another nice thing about macs is that they don't have the artificial distinction between the pro & consumer video cards, letting you have all the features!)

 

 

I wanted to ignore this, but I guess I couldn't. It's not the first time this thread has turned to this direction, and it gets a bit tiring. So if I have repeated words, my apologies. Anyway, I'm glad you tried, as it was not the thoughtlessness this time. Bottom line, Everyone is entitled to their opinions, but just ONE thing, the least you could have done was to actually make a DECENT comparison that can justify your statement with a bit more credibility. Point is, you can express however you feel, but please make a comparison that is even worth discussing about. But hey, if you're okay with an inferior system, cool.

 

 

vladthebad has mentioned pretty much everything you missed. He knows very well what he is talking about well done, and excellent responses. nice job [if quoting if not your thing (i understand), maybe use colors to distinguish next time]

 

 

NOW,

Back to 8-Core motherboard discussion goodness

 

- I think the ASUS Z7S WS can wait, until the next BIOS fix that is. It may be the snoop filter.

[lordmozilla]

hey all.

 

I read a bit of this thread before purchasing my new system. Here are the specs:

 

Tyan i5400XL (S5396WA2NRF with SAS)

2x Xeon E5420 2.5ghz Harpertown 80W

16GB (8x2gb corsair value ECC registered FB-DIMM DDR2 667mhz)

512Mb Gigabyte 8600GT Passive

73.4 GB Seagate Cheetah SAS 15k ST373455SS

750 GB SATA Samsung HD753LJ Spinpoint F1 32MB cache

620W Corsair HX Series Modular

 

Cooling :

 

Coolermaster Cosmos RC-1000 V2

2x Thermalright HR-01X (XEON) 120mm

3x 120mm Sharkoon 1000 "Golf Ball"

 

all of that with Dual 24" Dell E248WFP

 

Hopefully that'll all work ;-)

I want this to be a very silent build (well as silent as you get with a 15k drive...) so thermarlright xeon

heatsinks and sharkoon fans. I chose a low wattage PSU (well depends what you mean by low), but I believe

all power supplies are overspecced these days, and this system should only take 400W at worst conditions.

 

Should be receiving all this lot at work tommorow... I'll report back wether it works with mac OS X, I'm not all that

bothered if it doesn't I'll be using Linux primarily, virtualise windows with Vbox, but i'd like to see if it runs OS X.

 

If you're interested in the UK I payed £2200 so i guess 4400 USD, that's with monitors and all... I think mac pro's are terrible

value compared to this... Quick look in the US (UK has tax and all), I get to 6549k USD as soon as I put 16GB of ram (and that's in 8x2GB).

That's without a SAS drive and a 750GB SATA. so the CPU's are clocked 300mhz faster but there are also no monitors...

[vladthebad]

Nice to have you in the thread LordMozilla.

 

Keep us posted how everything goes.

 

Like the board and your parts selection for the most part.... two VERY MINOR nitpicks....

 

A: I can't stand video cards without fans these days...... seen lots of them running WAAAY too hot. If you can point a system fan in that general direction to provide a bit of additional airflow (or take expansion slot blank cover off on neighboring slot to allow more airflow directly across heatsink)

 

B: Modular power supplies are great and all..... very clean looking. More connections that can break or become twitchy in the future... also more resistance..... NOTE: this is a TOTALLY 100% tiny nitpick about ALL modular supplies.... On a nice power supply like the corsair, I don't think it will be a problem....

 

Mad props on the box. Keep us posted and let us know anything else you find out for mobo specifics or whatnot.

[lordmozilla]

hey cheers,

 

Your nitpicks are very fair, I did think about both, the slots below the graphics card will all be empty, and there is a system fan at the bottom of the case. Also the 8600GT is a very low consumption card so hopefully I'll get away with it. The thermal paste is coming off though and will be replaced with AC5 which might help. The heatsink on the card seems reasonably beefy, but if needs be i'll go with one of those massive thermarlight heatsinks (i think they claim it can run 8800GT's without fans... so a 8600GT should be fine)

 

As for the PSU resistance, i've heard the argument, and gone against modular for all my pc's (cost did come in as well to be fair), but I really like my corsair VX550 that I had, and the HX620 was also one fo the only PSU's i could find with a 24pin ATX connector, an 8pin EPS12V and a 4pin P4 connector (all required on the Tyan i5400XT). Also I've been wanting to try out modular for a while, so i'll have to live with the extra resistance.... As for the breaking, well it's just I only need 3 SATA power connectors on this build, (not sure I even need 3, only ever used SAS in servers with hotswap so i'll have work out what that needs, but the back of the drive seems to indicate on cable which the motherboard is said to include. also I'll enventally add a SATA DVD-rom drive, but it's not planned just yet (and IDE drive will be plugged in for installations)). So the PSU back will be relatively empty. I didn't want all those extra PCI-E power connectors that I'll never use and I don't need any molex connectors..

 

So far i'm a little worried about the FBDIMM's and the northbridge heating up, because I have little to cool them apart from the current northbridge cooler, and didn't really plan on having a system fan near the FBDIMMS....

 

I've got all the parts now, just waiting on the motherboard which has been confirmed to arrive tommorow! Feel free to nitpick more though, it's always interesting what people come up with. I've got quite a few personal small nitpicks about the build, but I'll report them once i've built it and can actually confirm them.

[vlad1966]

vladthebad,I have a Radeon 3870 by Powercolor that has no fan, just a massive heatsink on both side of the card.It takes up 3 slots! It's been rock solid in approximately the month I've had it. Running stock speed.Not only did I want a fast/quiet card, but I'd also heard there were problems with 3870 fan speeds soI decided to go with a card that has a cooling solution that's designed to not need a fan. So far, very happy with it. Just hope it holds up over time. The fins on the sinks get pretty toasty at times but nothing major.I've even played Crysis with all max settings & 2X anti-aliasing with good speeds for hours at a time when Ihad Vista (Blech!) installed on my PC with no problems. Then again, I'm using a nice BIG Lian-Li case

A: I can't stand video cards without fans these days...... seen lots of them running WAAAY too hot. If you can point a system fan in that general direction to provide a bit of additional airflow (or take expansion slot blank cover off on neighboring slot to allow more airflow directly across heatsink)

lordmozilla,That's a wicked motherboard!I don't suppose there are any provisions in the BIOS for overclocking, changing bus speeds?

hey all.I read a bit of this thread before purchasing my new system. Here are the specs:Tyan i5400XL (S5396WA2NRF with SAS)2x Xeon E5420 2.5ghz Harpertown 80W16GB (8x2gb corsair value ECC registered FB-DIMM DDR2 667mhz)512Mb Gigabyte 8600GT Passive73.4 GB Seagate Cheetah SAS 15k ST373455SS750 GB SATA Samsung HD753LJ Spinpoint F1 32MB cache620W Corsair HX Series ModularCooling :Coolermaster Cosmos RC-1000 V22x Thermalright HR-01X (XEON) 120mm3x 120mm Sharkoon 1000 "Golf Ball"all of that with Dual 24" Dell E248WFPHopefully that'll all work ;-)I want this to be a very silent build (well as silent as you get with a 15k drive...) so thermarlright xeonheatsinks and sharkoon fans. I chose a low wattage PSU (well depends what you mean by low), but I believeall power supplies are overspecced these days, and this system should only take 400W at worst conditions.Should be receiving all this lot at work tommorow... I'll report back wether it works with mac OS X, I'm not all thatbothered if it doesn't I'll be using Linux primarily, virtualise windows with Vbox, but i'd like to see if it runs OS X.If you're interested in the UK I payed £2200 so i guess 4400 USD, that's with monitors and all... I think mac pro's are terriblevalue compared to this... Quick look in the US (UK has tax and all), I get to 6549k USD as soon as I put 16GB of ram (and that's in 8x2GB).That's without a SAS drive and a 750GB SATA. so the CPU's are clocked 300mhz faster but there are also no monitors...

[lordmozilla]

hopefully there are a few overclocking options, but i doubt it. If there are though I'll try and clock it a little higher, even if it's just 3ghz, that would be cool. 3.2ghz is probably the max i'll go simply because that's the fastest xeons 5xxxx on the market atm. Getting to 2.8ghz would be good then it'd be truly equal to the mac pro CPU's ;-)

[vladthebad]

Vlad1966: Yeah, i've seen pictures of some passive heatsinked graphics cards that shouldn't ever have a heat problem...... but I'm not even willing to use cards that take 2 slots....... I "need" every slot I can get my hands on..... one more slot is one more doodad or thingamabob I can play with..... or more options in the future.

 

 

I should be 1 step closer to building my rig in a few days... got a 256mb 8400 and a 256mb 8600 as well as a 500 gig ES.2 showing up soon that will be going on my 965 board.

 

Then I'll be down to needing the Tyan board, a pair of xeons and FB-DIMM's...... but at least I'll finally have all the "extras" taken care of.

[vkd]

ON the contrary, I already own a MacBook Pro an, iMac and a Mac mini...so yeah.

 

 

 

...yea, me too.  In fact I got 1/2 dozen Mac minis and 3 iMacs (I think) 

[lordmozilla]

Then I'll be down to needing the Tyan board, a pair of xeons and FB-DIMM's...... but at least I'll finally have all the "extras" taken care of.

 

Isn't that like pretty much all of the cost? ;-)

 

what case are you going to use? fitting that e-atx mobo is a ****.

Also fitting the HR01 heatsinks must have taken me an hour... the 5400 chipset heatsink is in the way and thermalright don't make their retention clips very

easy to work with in tight spaces.

 

Unfortunately the build got delayed due to scan sending me the wrong ram, just got the right FB-DIMM's today, Kingston Value DIMMs 667mhz with small heatsinks. I'll be booting it for the first time tonight, everything else is in place. I did end up buying a £25 DVD+-RW SATA drive (samsung) from a local shop, so I should be all ready to go tonight. handy since ubuntu 8.04LTS just got released today, i'll try install OS X on a small part of the 750GB SATA or maybe even the SAS drive if i can, but i'd rather keep the SAS drive for ubuntu tbh.

[lordmozilla]

Right so lots of progress. First a few disappointments/problems :

 

Bios on the motherboard is not the latest and there are a few annoying bugs so gonna have to find a floppy drive to update

The bios is annoying in that in non quick mode it takes at least 3 minutes to go through the 16B of ram, but on quick there's no time to press F2 you just have to press

it while it boots and it beeps unhappily.

One CPU is hotter than the other (65C and 55C, bit weird, but then again neither of those temps are alarming)

My biggest dissapointment in the graphics card, first it does clone the output on the BIOS, which is weird for a dual monitor card, but ubuntu 8.04 with the nvidia utility is able to use twinview on it fine, so it's not really a big loss.

 

Ok so all these are pretty minor, but thought i'd mention it to anyone wishing to buy the same board. Oh and for a server/workstation board, if you don't have the LSI SAS controller (cheaper version of the board), the board boots really quick. The SAS controller takes a few seconds, but the board is fast, probably faster than my MSI P35 neo board.

 

So my next questions if anyone can help me is how do I get my monitors on this 8600GT to work on OS X at 1920x1200? I installed OS X on the SATA hard drive (ended up removing it all by installing ubuntu), and on install, the thing worked but had one monitor at 1024x768 and not options to go higher or activate the second one. I'm guessing I might have needed drivers for the nvidia card and how would I do that?

 

Secondly, blighty this thing is fast, i love it allready! To be honest in Ubuntu the beast is perfect, it's only in OS X that there are nags.

[vladthebad]

Its the majority of the cost yes.... but when my previous hardware qualified as prehistoric.....

 

Now i've got the graphics cards (playing with them tonight)

Seagate ES.2 500 gig (also playing with it tonight)

LSI SCSI card and drives

Chembro server case (the EATX one that newegg sells that I've linked to before, I love it.... nice mounting holes for the socket 771 stuff too.)

current board is a 965 board with 2 PCIe x16 slots (physically..... electrically they're x16 and x4 if I remember right)

 

So yeah, before... none of my old stuff would have worked really, now I'm down to just needing the board, processors and FB-DIMM... yeah, still $1000 away or so.... but I'm closer.

 

 

As far as the video card, try NVinject.

One processor is normally hotter than the other on the dual 771 boards, although 10 degrees is a bit of a difference, most of the stuff I see looks like 5-8 degrees. As far as overclocking, you can do the BSEL pinmod. Other than that, you don't have many real options.

[KellyKelly]

I rather go for a Mac PRO

[ultimai]

As I said, if your willing to go to the marginally better bleeding edge (like the 2.5Ghz vs the 2.8Ghz, or the 1333Mhz FSB vs 1600Mhz FSB) that the mac pro has in exchange for a 200% price increase, go ahead. The video card (and case, PSU, etc) decision was b/c I was getting tired of looking for newegg for that exact same match, and the mac pro starts w/ the el crapo radeon 2600 anyway. I thought all LGA771 boards were also forced to go FB-DIMMs (Which i've heard decrease possible perfomance), so I threw that in. Just pricing out one stick was because its up to you how much you want and the mac pro starts at 2 GB anyway. Also to be honest, most 7200RPM HDs are fairly equal, you get a 5yr warranty with them w/ the WDs, and if you want quality & performance, you go for higher RPM HDs in RAID configurations w/ SAS (or SATA to be cheaper).

 

Also the dell is more expensive because of this:

256MB PCIe x16 nVidia NVS 290, Dual Monitor DVI Capable

 

All pro workstation cards add a siginficant amount to the price. REALLY SIGNIFICANT. Even though there is no physical difference between their consumer versions at 1/5th the price except for drivers, maybe few switches in hardware and nicer support contracts behind the cards (the real reason for the high price).

 

SLI layouts are also useful for people in VFX who need the extra VRAM. Some setups @ ILM use it.

 

Thanks for the pointers although.

 

I'm not all up on the quoting system... anyways, from Ultimai's post... my replies in parenthasis.

 

 

I don't know why people are saying that the mac pro is such a good deal. If you ignore the currently artificially high margin of the 2.8ghz quad xeons and get the more reasonable 2.5Ghz quad xeons at half the price, you get this:

 

Western Digital Caviar SE WD5000AAJS 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM

$89.99

 

(Caviar drive = trash. I don't always agree with what drives apple uses, but I'd be looking at the Seagate ES.2 or the WD RE2 series stuff)

 

 

ASUS DSAN-DX Dual LGA 771 Intel 5100 SSI CEB Server Motherboard - Retail

$299.99 (can take a x16 ePCI card)

 

(Wrong chipset.. 5100 is the low end chipset, only dual channel ram, and uses normal DDR2, not FB-DIMM. That mobo also doesn't support 1600 mhz FSB, or 800mhz FB-DIMM, and thus has less than half the memory bandwidth, also has less overall PCIe bandwidth due to the "low end" 5100 northbridge (beefy compared to most desktop stuff... sissy compared to the 5400.

Overall bandwidth:

x16 + x8 + x4. Using AIO slot changes to x16 + x8 + AIO. Using 2nd electrical x8 slot changes to: x8+x8+x8+x4 or x8,x8,x8+AIO

= 28 lanes

Compared to: 40 lanes, 32 being PCIe 2.0

x16, x16, x4, x4 with both x16 slots being PCIe 2.0, and thus, twice as fast... very usefull for PCIe expansion chassis usage.

A more comparable board would be the Tyan 5397 without SAS in the $440 range, although I'll take the SAS version...)

 

 

Intel Xeon E5420 Harpertown 2.5GHz LGA 771 80W Quad-Core Processor Model BX80574E5420A - Retail

$349.99 *2 = 700

 

(1333 mhz FSB version, not the 1600 mhz FSB chips apple is using. Apple is using the E5462, they're about $800 each)

 

Transcend 2GB 240-Pin DDR2 FB-DIMM DDR2 667 (PC2 5300) ECC Fully Buffered Server Memory Model TS256MFB72V6U-T - Retail

$65.99 (up to 6 sticks of ram), add $80 if you want the 800Mhz version

 

(Wrong memory for the board you used.. the 800mhz version is the right memory for mac pro equivalent. And yes, apple's ram prices are high. So are IBM's, so is HP and dell on server/workstation quality stuff. Buy it with minimum ram and add your own.... like virtually everyone)

 

MSI NX8800GTS 320M OC GeForce 8800GTS 320MB 320-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Retail

$139.99

 

(Apple's using the 512mb 8800GT, running about $200 without mail in rebate on newegg. Apple charges 200+removes the stock 2600pro, so really more like $350.)

 

= 1300 + 200 for the case, powersupply, keyboard & mouse, DVD drive, external sound card. = 1500, half the price of the mac pro!

 

(No idea where you think you can get a mac pro quality power supply for that cheap... max draw is 1200-1400 watts, figure 80% efficient for a high quality power supply, you're looking at something near a 1000 watt supply... that has been tested enough for apple to put their reputation on the line for. If bunches go belly up 5 years down the road, Apple will most likely cover them anyways like they did the G3 ibook logic board problem. Try getting THAT support from even a $200 power supply. The PC Power and Cooling EPS12V 750w suppy on newegg is $160, the 1000w is $479. In the 1000w stuff, Antec, Enermax, Coolermaster are all in the $200+ pricerange.

 

THEN add a nice case... if you use a Lian-Li or something with equal fit and finish you're most likely looking at $150+. So yeah... if you're willing to skimp out, you can go 8 cores for a lot less than apple. If you are trying to spec something equal or at least in the same category, then you really won't save all that much. Maybe 30%. Apple's profit margin being about 25%... so yeah, you just saved apple's profit roughly.

 

Compare the Mac Pro to a similar Dell....

Even cheaping out and using 1333 FSB stuff and slower ram:

Dell Precision T7400

Subtotal $3,928

 

Quad Core Intel® Xeon® Processor E5440 (2.83GHz,2X6M L2,1333)

Quad Core Intel® Xeon® Processor E5440 (2.83GHz,2X6M L2,1333)

Genuine Windows® XP Professional, SP2 with Media

256MB PCIe x16 nVidia NVS 290, Dual Monitor DVI Capable

2GB, DDR2 SDRAM FBD Memory, 667MHz, ECC (2 DIMMS)

16X DVD-ROM with Cyberlink Power DVD™

320GB SATA 3.0Gb/s,7200 RPM Hard Drive with 8MB DataBurst Cache™

 

= $1000 more than the mac pro.

 

Going up to 3ghz on the dell and 1600FSB and same ram=

$4,698 for the dell vs $3599 for the Mac Pro

Going up to 3.2 ghz on the dell to match the high end mac pro=

$5,478 for the dell, vs $4399 for the Mac Pro

 

So apple really isn't expencive when you compare workstations.... just when you compare the mac pro vs the single socket desktop stuff.

 

Quote:

also i don't know what's the fascination with skulltrail, it seems your still limited to the same dopey 4 RAM slots. SLI, maybe? [but the mac pro even doesn't offer sli, its cheapo radeons are probably @ special ePCI 8x speeds]

another nice thing about macs is that they don't have the artificial distinction between the pro & consumer video cards, letting you have all the features!

 

Reply:

Skulltrail is getting the fascination because its an intel board with SLI, all the fixins, and 8 cores... and some fancy pants engineering sample style uber-processors with intel turning a blind eye and actually supporting overclocking in a fairly big way. Frankly, if you really look at the board, its crippled. The SLI is made possibly by the Nforce100 chips. So instead of the x16, x16, x16, x16 that it claims, its really x16 shared to a pair of x16 slots (they think they're x16, but really if you use both, they're basically x8's) and a second x16 shared to a second pair... so really its basically x8,x8,x8,x8 (or in real world SLI usage: x8,x8 + xY+xZ, where Y+Z=16) The OTHER problem with skulltrail, is that it only has 4 FB-DIMM slots. You really don't max out memory bandwidth until you get 2 sticks per channel.. As a gamer board it makes no sense. FB-DIMM's are about bandwidth and slot count, not low latency for FPS games. As a high end workstation, it makes no sence, since you could do SLI anyways if you use Quadro cards. Its really more of a big {censored} contest thing and a playtoy. People that really need the CPU power of 8 highly overclocked cores would most likely want more memory bandwith and the option for more ram total.

 

Apple doesn't offer SLI or crossfire because its fairly pointless on the professional side, and it often has glitches and bugs. SLI also doesn't work in multiple monitor configurations. It would also require quite a bit of time and effort for apple to write into the drivers, and for basically zero gain other than silly gamer stuff. I say silly gamer stuff, because gamers don't buy lots of $3000 workstations. And not all that many gamers run SLI or crossfire, just some of the very vocal hardcore gamers that are very much NOT apple's target market.

 

Furthermore, Apple's radeon cards are x16 versions.

 

 

 

 

And yeah, that Asus board does look nice, but considering all the horror stories of Asus workstation boards... I'm not sure. If it was a Tyan or a Supermicro, or even an MSI, I'd put it into the consideration pile.

[s7eve]

I don't know why people are saying that the mac pro is such a good deal. If you ignore the currently artificially high margin of the 2.8ghz quad xeons and get the more reasonable 2.5Ghz quad xeons at half the price, you get this:

 

Western Digital Caviar SE WD5000AAJS 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM

$89.99

 

ASUS DSAN-DX Dual LGA 771 Intel 5100 SSI CEB Server Motherboard - Retail

$299.99 (can take a x16 ePCI card)

 

Intel Xeon E5420 Harpertown 2.5GHz LGA 771 80W Quad-Core Processor Model BX80574E5420A - Retail

$349.99 *2 = 700

 

Transcend 2GB 240-Pin DDR2 FB-DIMM DDR2 667 (PC2 5300) ECC Fully Buffered Server Memory Model TS256MFB72V6U-T - Retail

$65.99 (up to 6 sticks of ram), add $80 if you want the 800Mhz version

 

MSI NX8800GTS 320M OC GeForce 8800GTS 320MB 320-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Retail

$139.99

 

= 1300 + 200 for the case, powersupply, keyboard & mouse, DVD drive, external sound card. = 1500, half the price of the mac pro!

 

(also i don't know what's the fascination with skulltrail, it seems your still limited to the same dopey 4 RAM slots. SLI, maybe? [but the mac pro even doesn't offer sli, its cheapo radeons are probably @ special ePCI 8x speeds])

(another nice thing about macs is that they don't have the artificial distinction between the pro & consumer video cards, letting you have all the features!)

 

This is my first post, I found this while researching my next purchase and the BSEL mod.

 

I was compelled to respond as even though others have pointed out that it is not a fair comparison the obvious has not yet been stated. That is the fair comparison.

 

The system you have described is one you must build yourself and you are comparing it to a factory package, most Mac users don't go down the build it yourself path due to the high initial cost and the risk of voiding a great warrantee but for the sake of comparison here is a build it yourself option with similar specs.

 

Refurbished Mac Pro 8-core 2.8GHz Intel Xeon $2399

 

Sell the 2* E5462 2*$900 = -$1800

 

Intel Xeon E5420 Harpertown 2.5GHz LGA 771 80W Quad-Core Processor Model BX80574E5420A - Retail

$349.99 *2 = 700

 

$2399 - $1800 + $700 = $1299

 

At that price you still have to purchase case, powersupply, keyboard & mouse, DVD drive, external sound card, OS, ETC.

 

With this system you would be able to upgrade the GPU to 8800 GT and still have money left over.

[wentakura]

Has anyone tried the ASUS Z7S WS cuz it looks great? It even supports crossfire and by rumours it will be ready for clocking aswell.

[fabriciom]

Has anyone tried the ASUS Z7S WS cuz it looks great? It even supports crossfire and by rumours it will be ready for clocking aswell.

 

I'm looking at this as well.

1 * Asus Z7S - 300€

2 * Xeon E5420 - 568€

1 * 4GB DDR2 800mhz Ram - ?

 

I guessing everything for less than 1000€

[acy76]

Hello all -- I've been following this thread with interest, as I've just assembled my first Leo box and am more than impressed with it - impressed enough to want to go beyond the dual-core I'm using now and into dual-Xeon territory. I do architectural work, which includes 2D graphics as well as 3D modeling and rendering, so the horsepower is something I could certainly use.

 

I've got two Intel 5400-based server boards picked out at NewEgg, one of which supports a 1600 MHz FSB and DDR 800 and one which is slightly slower at 1333 MHz FSB (I believe) and DDR 667 RAM. Part of my decision-making includes pricing the RAM to go with the board.

 

The question I've got is this: it seems to me that NewEgg lists Mac Pro DDR 800 as being substantially cheaper than their regularly-listed FBDIMM server RAM at the same speeds (for certain sizes, in this case 2x2GB sticks, comparing the cheapest in each category, mac vs. standard). Anyone have a guess as to why? I am thinking that these boards would be able to use mac pro-listed RAM, as they've got the same chipset and it's all DDR2 stuff with ECC and buffering. Am I missing something?

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16820349019 [Mac RAM]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16820134648 [std. FBDIMM]

 

Thanks.

[El Jefe]

I am looking for the best dual Xeon board to run as a Hackintosh. I am hoping someone in here with real Hackintosh experience with 5400 series Xeons can make a recommendation.

 

First, not to brag, but I have access to lots of free Xeon stuff. I literally have a bucket of 51xx, 53xx and 54xx procs. Ram and disk as well. The only reason why I don't go to the Apple store and buy a MacPro is that I have all of this stuff laying around and it is a shame not to use it. I cant give it away or sell it (its work, I can use it like crazy though).

 

What is the best motherboard to use? Intel with EFI? Tyan? Supermicro?

Which distro is best for a Xeon? Leo? Kaly? Is it better to use a MB with native EFI (Intel)?

 

My goal is to make a dual boot workstation that is OSX 10.5.x and WinXP.

 

I have some experience building a JaS 10.4.8 box on a Core2 box and I found that a motherboard that has compatible stuff on it is huge.

[Team Scream]

I am looking for the best dual Xeon board to run as a Hackintosh. I am hoping someone in here with real Hackintosh experience with 5400 series Xeons can make a recommendation.

 

First, not to brag, but I have access to lots of free Xeon stuff. I literally have a bucket of 51xx, 53xx and 54xx procs. Ram and disk as well. The only reason why I don't go to the Apple store and buy a MacPro is that I have all of this stuff laying around and it is a shame not to use it. I cant give it away or sell it (its work, I can use it like crazy though).

 

What is the best motherboard to use? Intel with EFI? Tyan? Supermicro?

Which distro is best for a Xeon? Leo? Kaly? Is it better to use a MB with native EFI (Intel)?

 

My goal is to make a dual boot workstation that is OSX 10.5.x and WinXP.

 

I have some experience building a JaS 10.4.8 box on a Core2 box and I found that a motherboard that has compatible stuff on it is huge.

 

Look at the first system in my signature, I have had this system up and running completely stable for a LONG time now, it is fast, reliable and works great with all the pro apps.

It is by FAR the most stable Hackintosh I have built yet.

I love it.

[El Jefe]

With a xeon MB and the Kalyway distro, are you using EFI? A Tyan EFI bios or the software "fake" EFI booted as a bootloader underneath Kalyway?

 

(no offense meant calling the software EFI "fake", just lacking a better term)

[OG_LOC_08]

What about the Intel D5400XS. it supports all the Xeon and even the Intel Core2 Extreme QX9775 3.2GHz . Also it works with Mac OS X 10.5.2. I have the Mother board running two Q9770 at 4GH each on air. I am using 3 ATI 3870 X2 Video cards for 3 22 inch apple screens. one screen per vga i know it is over kill but i don't cair . I am using 3 300 GB VelociRaptor for Each os (Ubuntu Linux, Mac OS X 10.5.2 With 10.5.3 Combo Update, Windows Server 2008. Best PC i have ever oned.

[GIBRONGIB]

P5WDH QUATRO 3400 4BG RAM 2 500 BG WD HD IN RAID 0 1 250 BG WD SYSTEM

IM A BIT CONFUSE, CAM THIS MB ASUS D5400XS RUN 771 AND 775 CPU THANKS.

IM BUILDING A 8 CORE HACKINTOSH TOO SO IM JUST CHECKING FOR THE RIGHT CONFIG.