Its about time I pensioned off these old beige mini towers and bought something a bit newer.
What I want to do is build a system which I can use as a host for virtualised Systems, probably under a flavour of Linux with a couple of regular use windows guests for day to day stuff thats best suited to windows.
The Windows guests will probably be XP and maybe windows 7 but XP will almost certainly do everything I want from windows.
What I want to do in addition is be able to build a good test bed of Solaris X86 and Linux systems.
As a result I need a base system with lots of cores and lots of memory.
Any suggestions for a good multi-core motherboard with support for 16Gb or more of memory ?
I like the idea of 12 core AMD chips but is this the best route for a desktop system ?
going in the office I presume, so noise level needs to be at minimum. How many pennies in the pot? I spent more than I do normally on my i7 sandybridge, and it’s awesome, the 16Gb ram and 8threads means four windows server VMs are all happy with 3Gb each (32bit vms) and nice and usable. I don’t think you’d need much more over that, mine do as they are damn windows VMs and that means gfx, not fire up, forget and ssh.
The issue I see you might have, is support for linux on the newer boards that do support lotsa memory, I’ve not used Solaris for many years now so no idea on how that roadmap has gone. Very much need a ballpark figure, or expected lifespan of machine to stay in business, those ebuyer beige boxes have done mighty fine 
DT.
Budget and lifespan, hmmm.
On a Shoestring and just until I’m rich would be the answer to those.
In real terms I would be looking at £500 tops (ex Vat) and since these beige boxes boast about NF3 when they boot you can guess how long its likely to be around.
Cores and memory are my only requirements.
Clock speed and masses of storage are not vital, certainly dont need SSD at the moment and graphics are not high on the requirements list as I havent played a PC game for years.
This is just a work-horse for the moment, I mught chuck a rootin-tooting, hot-stepping graphics card in later, but equaly I might not ever bother.
so a board with onboard gfx, and the ability to have a nice chunk of ram, and AMD for sure with the budget 
You’ll need a psu as well, it may as well be a new beige (all cases seem to be black now) case.
I’ll have a tinker tomorrow with the various suppliers
I’ve just squeezed in a machine with 8core, 32Gb of ram and gubbins to include a 1Tb HD as well, new power supply but no case in list.
I’ve tried looking up the exact compatibility of the ram, I know a lot of Intel boards are REALLY picky with anything over 16Gb. The other G.Skill ram in the same series is definately listed in the qualified vendors list, but Asus only list a single 8Gb module in the QVL and I can’t find it for sale in the UK, in fact anywhere 
The board would probably need a bios flash by the supplier as well to accept the FX AMD chip.
https://www.aria.co.uk/WishList/26Xh6YkyZTTSXvhQC313Xg,
or
as I know Aria can be cheap, but as people on here can also say, the aftersales can at times be very frustrating. They will however bios flash the board before sending out your order. I’d recommend a nice supplier with good pre-sales so you can get system compat guarantee from them, might be worth choosing a case and paying the £50 for Aria to build it, that way all the ifs are removed. I’d go for getting them to confirm the ram and board when they flash the board to accept the FX and build myself, but I have a spare boxed case to put it into from a charity auction I won 
I’m actually quite tempted to build one of these for myself now …
BRB,
Damn you both… you’ve given me the itch for a new cruncher now. I’ve got enough bits lying around at home all I need are the mobo and CPU…
Should a BIOS update be required for CPU support, I take it AM3+ mobos will run an AM3 CPU? I’ve still got that Sempron 140 lying around from when I ran into the same problem previously with the X6.
[QUOTE=mackerel;463238]Damn you both… you’ve given me the itch for a new cruncher now. I’ve got enough bits lying around at home all I need are the mobo and CPU…
Should a BIOS update be required for CPU support, I take it AM3+ mobos will run an AM3 CPU? I’ve still got that Sempron 140 lying around from when I ran into the same problem previously with the X6.[/QUOTE]
I believe they will, but I would get the retailer to do it if they offer the service, jHorner had to take his board back to Novatech to have it flashed to accept the FX.
I forgot I doubled the quantities, that was for a work quote which also had a case in there as well, primary + failover replication pair.
DT.
Saw the Sempron on the supported CPU list for the mobo. I don’t get how they list the memory compatibility list though… is everything on the list ok, if so why do some have the black dots listed on the right?
Shall have a little think later. Although I have the right bits lying around, it means rearranging bits from my existing farm so I might as well get some new bits too, and the costs creep up putting me off again.
nice chaps at Aria have tried the combo, and the full 32Gb of ram did indeed register on the board with the 8150cpu (not the 8120 as in the specs).
Well I have my feet under the table on a new contract so if the quote is still valid once I get some money in I’ll stick in an order.
Some of the quoted items are counter collection only, were you planning a trip to get some bits DT ?
