On Sat, Jan 05, 2013 at 09:22:10AM +1100, Andrew Voumard wrote: > Can anyone offer any suggestions regarding the following requirement > for a new motherboard/system. It is only being used for business, and > mainly for compiling/running multiple back end Java, C+++ etc applications: > > 1. Gaming/overclocking not a priority at all. A $20 graphic card or > onboard graphics should do fine. > > 2. Stability & performance are most important. > > 3. MUST be *certain* that it is possible to disable UEFI secure boot > on the mobo, to hence run any Linux distro without any secure boot hassles. > > 4. Want to be able to install at least 64G of RAM on the mobo, to be > able to run a big ramdisk for very fast I/O when repeatedly & > concurrently building (fast rebuild times) & testing database > intensive applications - all on ramdisk.
AFAIK, if you want 64GB then you need an X79 motherboard (all Z77 motherboards I've found only have 4 DIMM sockets, and support a maximum of 32GB). e.g. Asus P9X79 LE ($217) or P9X79 PRO ($319) or Sabertooth-X79 ($348) they all have 8 DIMM sockets and one serial port. amazingly, they all also have a ps/2 port. http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/Intel_Socket_2011/P9X79_LE/#specifications http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/Intel_Socket_2011/P9X79_PRO/#specifications http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/Intel_Socket_2011/SABERTOOTH_X79/#specifications i quite like the Sabertooth series boards - i've got a couple of AMD CPU Sabertooth 990FX boards here, high quality boards aimed at professionals rather than gamers (as their Rampage boards are) > 5. 4 core CPU would be ideal (singlethreaded performance is > important, so don't want to spread CPU grunt across too many cores, > but a degree of application concurrency is important too for > concurrent building/running applications in the background). yeah, don't underestimate the usefulness of 'make -j' - multicore compile is really worthwhile. and multi-core CPUs won't sacrifice the speed of single cores (Speeds start from around 3.2Ghz these days and both amd and intel have similar-but-differently-trademarked features which will boost the speed of one core if the others are idle). > > 6. Want Intel (not AMD) based, probably i7 & proably Ivy Bridge. X79 is for the LGA2011 socket, so your CPU choices would be Core i7-3820 ($295), i7-3930K ($579), or i7-3930X ($1076). the i7-3820 seems to best match your criteria, 4 cores at 3.6GHz (and TurboBoost to 3.8GHz) The 3930K is 6-core @ 3.2GHz (Turbo-Boost to 3.8GHz) > 7. Either a PS/2 mouse port or 9 Serial port is essential (for the > special mouse I use) - either onboard or via a PCI/e expansion board are ok. > > 8. Boot drive will be an SSD (probably 256G Crucial m4 or Samsung 840 > Pro), The OCZ Vector is getting excellent reviews too. $289 for 256GB. > backup drive probably a 1TB non raided WD RE4. I would recommend two drives in RAID-1 (or btrfs for snapshot capability) for your backup/bulk-storage drive. > Cost is not the main criteria .. but I don't want to waste it either. > A budget of 1500 would be good if it could get me what I want but can > spend more if need be. some rough figures for you to play around with: Sabertooth X79 $348 i7-3820 $295 SSD $300-ish 2 x WD RE4 $248 case, psu $200-ish or more, a good PSU is essential 4 x 16GB kits @ $80 = $320 2x8G sticks each, DDR3-1600 (faster would be more expensive) GT210 video card $26 ----- $1737 ----- It'd be hard to shave off much from that...a cheaper SSD maybe, and the extra WD RE4 adds $124. if you prefer Radeon GPUs (better GPL drivers than nvidia but worse proprietary drivers), a Radeon 5450 is $1 more. (i tend to put stuff like this in a spreadsheet with various options for m/b and cpu and play with it until i get the best bang for the buck...and then have a shopping list for MSY or whoever) if you can live with 32GB RAM then you could do it for under $1600 with the same CPU & M/B as above with only 32GB (but room to add another 32GB later) or with a Z77 motherboard and LGA1155 CPU for around $1500. craig -- craig sanders <[email protected]> BOFH excuse #404: Sysadmin accidentally destroyed pager with a large hammer. _______________________________________________ luv-main mailing list [email protected] http://lists.luv.asn.au/listinfo/luv-main
