One of those mini Shuttle cases ... the cube lookin things.
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Would be kind of neat if someone could pack a dual system into a shuttle case :D not much room for two HFS's though
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a dual opteron board that doesnt suck, comming right up:
http://www.tyan.com/products/html/thunderk8w.html |
nice.
love to see if it OCs |
Hellion, I already disclaimed out the K8W up top due to the lack of any real BIOS modifiers though that is a frickin' sweet board otherwise. If I had to do this now I would go that way, but otherwise I won't buy a board that I can't tweak all to hell ... especially when $500 is on the line!
I've totalled up the cost of this project from top to bottom all tricked out how I want and it is around $3950 ... though to get the full shebang on the memory brings it to $4600. If I'm going to do this then I'm going to do this right, because at that cost I better not screw it up. That cost assumes the following parts: Thunder K8W, 2xOpteron 246 (248 in two weeks, methinks), 2 GB TWINX1024RE-3200LL, 9800XT 256, Audigy2 ZS w/ faceplate, Seagate 120GB EIDE, Maxtor 160GB SATA, DVD-R/RW, CD-R/RW, TruePower EPS550, Casetek EATX case (nice case for cheap), clear round cables, wire wrappings, multiple 80mm blower fans, dual Venus 12 K8 HSFs, a HDD fan kit (to cool the forward RAM banks) and miscellaneous costs for minor case mods to enhance breathing to account for the 90 degree blowers. The reason I want to use the blowers is to be able to pull air off of the rear RAM banks and GPU in a controlled manner so that air is brought in from the front and not pulling heated air from my cooling chest exhausts. The Venus 12 kits will be able to adequately cool the processors when tuned down, so no watercooling will be needed (at full tilt they tested a FX-51 with one in a 75F room and it only reached 31/41C ... that is more than acceptable, especially considering the fact that at full tilt it only generates 36dB and this will overshadowed by the 36dB coming from the watercooling rack). When all is said and done I will have a dually with twin 1GB RAM banks (2GB if I decide to really splurge) in a dual channel setup. Combine that with the XT and the fast SATA HDD and I'll have one hell of a killer winblows box, and the EIDE HDD is for gentoo use (the support for SATA in the current stable kernel blows ... but I have two Serillel kits for when that problem is rectified, hehe). The only thing holding me back at this point is the board, really. When the NF3 duallies appear I'll probably jump then, since the 248 chips should be available at current 246 costs, and I may swap that XT card for a Volari Duo V8 at that time ... I am really turned on by that card, and at only 50-60W total heat output, it won't be too much of a liability in a solely air-cooled case. When I put this together (barring emergencies that force me to give up the project) I will definitely do a MASSIVE write-up with gratuitous pictures so all of the hardcore geeks among us have something to wank over, hehe. Pro/Cooling has been off the front page of AMDMB and AMDZone for too long, dammit. |
Oh, and for anyone else looking to go the Opteron route, check out those TWINX1024RE-3200LL sticks at Newegg. $323 for twin 512MB sticks at PC3200/2-3-2-6 timings. If the Opteron can perform some rapage on other platforms with PC2700 CAS2.5, imagine what it can do with PC3200 CAS2 .... You can barely pick up registered ECC PC2700 at that price, so it has to be the deal of the year.
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Didn't I list the proper steps to get it to work once? If not, here is the rundown:
lspci This gives you a list of your pci devices (though for some reason this isn't working on this last install ... I have no idea why, though it should work for you). Ensure that your card is listed. cd /usr/src/linux make menuconfir ->[M] AGPGART ->[ ] DRI/DRM (DO NOT SELECT THESE!!!) then compile your kernel emerge ati-drivers modprobe fglrx opengl-update ati You should get that to work now. If you error out, you have problems. Once that's done: /sbin/lilo (if using lilo ... otherwise write your grub crap to disk) Reboot modprobe agpgart modprobe fglrx fglrxconfig mv /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 /etc/X11/XF86Config nano -w /etc/X11/XF86Config edit the BUS ID to match the one in lspci. configure your drivers as you see fit, but for god's sake: USE THE EXTERNAL AGPGART !!! The internal one doesn't work for sh!t. ALSO: do not VSync, as that slows down your frame rates. That's how I did it with the 9800 Pro, and that uses the same stuff as the 9700 Pro. Good luck. Also, if you haven't already, re-emerge the ati-drivers, since they are now using a new set that were updated in mid-September by ATi. |
yea you did. Tried it, didn't work.
:( Im looking arround still for a solution. |
So, what is holding you up, then? What step? It may just be a matter of editing your Xconfig file.
Perhaps it isn't your video card, but rather it is your monitor. Are you sure you're inputting the right values for it into your config file? This can cause it to not work. Try 800x600 resolution and put in exactly the refresh rates of your monitor and see if that will help. |
I think i may know what my problem is. The video card is dual head, but I'm only using one monitor. When xconfig asks me if I have a dual card, do I tell it that I have a single head or dual head? Iv'e been telling it that I have a dual, and inputing all zeeros for the second monitor. Should I just tell it I have a single head?
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Hehe, that's exactly the problem. Just tell it single head. I believe the VGA port is head0, so you should be connected to that. Doing it your way will guarantee a crash.
Does anyone know when the 248 Opterons are coming out? I'm itching to do this very soon and I think that will be my trigger. I find out today if I get the bonus I was expecting .... UPDATE: damn cheap bastid cut my bonus ... looks like I'll be waiting a while. |
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I think so. My default port is always the VGA port.
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It looks like I may be toning down the project a bit ... I'm going to try to pick up a FX-51/SK8N combo in the next couple of weeks (unless I have more bad news, rrr). Combining that with a Swiftech 5000 series 940 block should give me some goodness, especially since I can leave it in the rack case (unlike the other boards I was looking at that were all EATX) for some watercooled overclocking goodness.
BILLA, if you're around that is, could you give info on the performance of those babies? Any reported problems with the anodizing that you can report? I'd hate to corrode my radiator of doom. |
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I'm watching it closely. It is looking like this project will have to wait until March or so to get off the ground, so I may even be looking for a PCI-express version of that by then ... who knows?
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if you are waiting till then and still pondering the FX line then I'd consider waiting until the 939 pin and the lack of registered ram. It might save a few bucks and OC better.
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Because of the wait I'm still aiming for a dually system. That, IMHO, is where this architecture shines the brightest, and it is what suits my uses the best.
My dream is a dual opteron NF3 board with PCI-express and a built-in giganic. Oh, and while I'm dreaming, I'd like the SATA and nic on the 64 bit bus. |
i'll change your sata for scsi any day of the week. but tastes are tastes ... :D
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Yeah, I know ... but I suppose HDD speeds aren't something I want to worry too much about. While there are benefits, I typically run my system with no swap or temp file space, so that eliminates quite a bit of disk access right there. Since I'm planning on having in excess of 2GB (possibly 4GB) of memory in this thing, I don't think I'd get too much of a gain from the SCSI equipment.
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This is a little off topic but I figured dual CPU board fans would look at this thread and might like the attached pic. Can you say Quad Opteron board? Damn it would cost a fortune to load that board up....
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