$8000 to spend. 2 x E5-2687W, 16 real cores, 64Gb RAM

[muxecoid]

If you have 8K$ to spend on computer you should change your hobby to 3D movie rendering.

[NATIONAL12]

If you have 8K$ to spend on computer you should change your hobby to 3D movie rendering.

This is typical of the stupidity i see on this forum.

i have saved money all my life and now can spend it on what i want.
You whoever you are are trying to tell me what i spend my money on.

If i decide to buy a new computer instead of a new car that is my business,why am i interested in your hobby of 3D movie rendering.

[tano-urayoan]

This is typical of the stupidity i see on this forum.

i have saved money all my life and now can spend it on what i want.
You whoever you are are trying to tell me what i spend my money on.

If i decide to buy a new computer instead of a new car that is my business,why am i interested in your hobby of 3D movie rendering.

Somebody is suffering from paranoia or narcissism here, the message you replied is directed at the original poster not at you.

[Suj]

any xeon 5500/5600 can be overclocked on EVGA-SR2 motherboard as the bclk is unlocked.
Multipliers on certain high end models are also unlocked for more oc.

None of the 2011 socket-E5 XEONS are overclockable as yet.

[diep]

First, may I introduce myself to this learned and distinguished forum? I am a research engineer with limited brains but still more limited money to spend on my hobby of Chess and Go.

So to my question. For chess research and other, gp uses, I am now ready to spend $8k on a Windows PC, now. I plan (all parts are shipping already):

2 x E5-2687W Intel Sandy Bridge Xeon S2011 CPUs. 8 Real Cores per CPU. Here http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/xeo ... ,3149.html is the review. It will run all 16 cores at 3.4GHz in turbo mode, even before overclocking. Today many top engines are not so good above 4 cores, but soon this can change.

64Gb Corsair PC3-12800 (1.6GHz) DDR3 Quad Channel RAM (4 x 16Gb). This gives 4Gb per real core. Ideal?

SuperMicro X9DAi motherboard with SATA III 6Gb/s, PCI-E 3.0. Here http://www.supermicro.com/products/moth ... /X9DAi.cfm are the specification.

SSD HDD for fast EGTB access, capacity to be researched but I think 0.3Tb is enough, I can move needed EGTBs from main HDD as needed. Big SSD/array are still too expensive.

Top-end air-cooling. Or?

Rest can be obvious, Windows 7 64 bit Ultimate (8 will be bad, microsoft alternation good-bad-good-bad-), very fine 0.9kW modular PSU, some cr-p graphics card for kids, 3Gb 120Hz Barracuda HDD...

I would like commentaries, critiques and recommendations. E5-2687W looks like the real winner, but you may have more information? AMD quad CPU each 4/6-core? What chess and overclock speeds can I expect? Is there a better mobo for overclocking? Is RAM chosen a bottleneck? Other understanding error by me? Anyone else already got similar system? I can see one kburcham was considering this: http://www.talkchess.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=41204. A Sedat Canbaz benchmark yet? Help!

TU, friends.......

You can also get a 128 core cluster for this money with fast mellanox network, it's just a software issue.

$8k for a 16 core box i would find too much.

forget about turboboost at supermicro when using all cores and all memory controllers at same time. AMD is too much behind to consider for 2 socket machine.

but well if you have the cash to buy a 16 core box...

I'd take a bit bigger psu though. 900 watt definitely is too little for this thing if you want to add some graphics later on. Go grab an antec earthwatts platinium, or otherwise if you're in europe a BeQuiet! 1200+ watt thing.

Note that to overclock, supermicro never overclocks (let me assure you that having a bunch of them here for cluster), make sure that the evga board you buy is of the correct socket. the old sr2 is socket1366.

if you use an evga board and want to overclock, realize these cpu's are high power, also you need unlocked xeons preferably.

this eats way more power than the cpu's before, even the tpd shows that.

That's mostly because of the added AVX functionality, which i suspect most engines can't use at all. It extends the registers and gives bigger throughput for number crunching.

Yet if you overclock you still eat that juice. So some expensive watercooling is what you need. Use big tubes, not a simplistic $100 kit.

If you go for supermicro then no overclock at all and aircooling is enough.

Over here i do everything with aircooling of course. Big 14CM fans.

When overclocking this i'm guessing it'll eat a watt or 800 with everything added.

[diep]

any xeon 5500/5600 can be overclocked on EVGA-SR2 motherboard as the bclk is unlocked.
Multipliers on certain high end models are also unlocked for more oc.

None of the 2011 socket-E5 XEONS are overclockable as yet.

Sujay we know how glad you help people out, but referring to oldie Xeons is no good idea except when they are dirt cheap;
the SR2 really is socket 1366, and he wants 8 core Xeons, called sandy bridge.

Those need the EVGA SR-X

Buying socket 1366 processors right now is a waste of money, except when that massively drops in price.

http://www.evga.com/products/moreInfo.a ... oards&sw=5

If you can't overclock, go get a cluster man.

$200 per machine on ebay for 2 socket L5420's.
that's 20Ghz. Get 16 of them, it's $3200 then and you have
an easy 320Ghz in total.

Only needs good Mellanox network and rest is for powerbill.
On ebay i see 36 ports switch for couple of hundreds of dollars,
and DDR cards (connectx) for $100 a piece. Cables do $25 a piece.

It's peanuts. Note this is not as good as later networks.
QDR isn't that much faster in latency, yet sure a lot more expensive
(have that here). FDR is total superior to this, yet need to pay
newprice for it. Guessing it's $550+ a card, switch guessing $5k or so.

Oh you'll need good software then!

Of course eats a bit more juice. about a 160-170 watt a machine,
versus this box is 800+ watt or so when overclocked, but sure it runs most chessprograms then...

If you overclock the i7, which is a far better processor of course than these oldie Xeons, you end up even overclocked to 4Ghz at:

4Ghz * 16 cores * 1.3 (hyperthreading) *1.05 (better processor) = 87Ghz
that's the same Ghz like the above 320Ghz, just factor 4 slower.
Reduce some overhead of cluster, factor 3 slower.

If you have a tad more budget, and of course more power usage, realize that the latest mellanox network can get used then which is total superior for clusters, the FDR network. Released end 2011.

If you just have 2 machines, no switch needed; just 2 Mellanox network cards and a $40 cable.

[Dragulic]

This is typical of the stupidity i see on this forum.

i have saved money all my life and now can spend it on what i want.
You whoever you are are trying to tell me what i spend my money on.

If i decide to buy a new computer instead of a new car that is my business,why am i interested in your hobby of 3D movie rendering.

Somebody is suffering from paranoia or narcissism here, the message you replied is directed at the original poster not at you.

I am the original poster. Didn't you find what muxecoid Michael Golub wrote is somewhat Bizarre?


NOTE FOR MODERATORS: Please not listen to Mr Terry McCracken who sends me PM implying he can fool moderators that "muxecoid" be an insult and so get me deleted or banned. "muxecoid" is the USERNAME of Mr Michael Golub. I do not know if it has good meaning, bad meaning or (according to dictionary) no meaning. Apology of Mr Julien Marcel is graciously accepted/

[Dragulic]

None of the 2011 socket-E5 XEONS are overclockable as yet.

This is the heart of the problem.

Sujay we know how glad you help people out, but referring to oldie Xeons is no good idea except when they are dirt cheap;
the SR2 really is socket 1366, and he wants 8 core Xeons, called sandy bridge. Those need the EVGA SR-X Buying socket 1366 processors right now is a waste of money, except when that massively drops in price.

These exactly were my conclusion also, thank you for confirmations.

If I build a cluster per your specification, will I be able to also use it for gp (general purpose)? Please see original post in thread, thank you.

[Terry McCracken]

This is typical of the stupidity i see on this forum.

i have saved money all my life and now can spend it on what i want.
You whoever you are are trying to tell me what i spend my money on.

If i decide to buy a new computer instead of a new car that is my business,why am i interested in your hobby of 3D movie rendering.

Somebody is suffering from paranoia or narcissism here, the message you replied is directed at the original poster not at you.

I am the original poster. Didn't you find what muxecoid Michael Golub wrote is somewhat Bizarre?


NOTE FOR MODERATORS: Please not listen to Mr Terry McCracken who sends me PM implying he can fool moderators that "muxecoid" be an insult and so get me deleted or banned. "muxecoid" is the USERNAME of Mr Michael Golub. I do not know if it has good meaning, bad meaning or (according to dictionary) no meaning. Apology of Mr Julien Marcel is graciously accepted/

You are paranoid and an instigator. No one was trying to fool anyone. None of us realised that "muxecoid" was a user name.

You don't have to pour kerosene on the situation to keep it really hot for a long time. I made an error and I apolgise for the error.
However, what you are doing is far and away much worse.

[Dragulic]

You are paranoid and an instigator.
...
kerosene
...
However, what you are doing is far and away much worse.

Correct. Seeking advice for buying a computer suited for computer chess in a computer chess forum most definitely deserves 4-5l kerosene on my head, like the Free Tibet demonstrator http://news.sky.com/home/world-news/article/16197941
Thank you for your assistance, I now understand this place and its ownership better.