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Category Archives: DIY
Nice deal on the Tyan 4985 Quad 1207 motherboard
The bad news is newegg stopped selling the Tyan 4980 Motherboard I featured in my 16-core workstation build last year. Fortunately, they are selling a better one now. The TYAN S4985G3NR Thunder has FOUR expansion slots to the 4980′s one. This means you … Continue reading
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DIY 16 core workstation part 4: Case & Power Supply
One very important detail on this build is the case. Building a system with a server motherboard requires an EATX case (Extended ATX). EATX cases are the only things large enough to hold the Tyan S4980 motherboards. So which one … Continue reading
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DIY 16 core workstation part 3: Memory & Heatsinks
-Continued from Part 2- It was a little tricky finding the right memory for the Tyan S4980 motherboard. You have to make sure that you use ECC, Registered DDR2 DIMMs 400, 533 or 667 Mhz. If you buy memory that … Continue reading
DIY 16 core workstation part 2: Processors
As you read in part 1, we are building an AMD 16 core workstation, so we need to find four Opteron quad core processors. Our Tyan S4980 motherboard only supports AMD “Barcelona” Opterons. Barcelona’s have two main product lines: the … Continue reading
DIY 16 core workstation part 1: The motherboard
I love virtual machines. Unfortunately running lots of them on one server can get very expensive. A 16-core Dell PowerEdge R905 for example, will set you back about 12 grand (without OS). So I set out to try and build … Continue reading
Buying a Socket 771 Quad-Core Xeon CPU
I’ve recently spent time researching Socket 771 Xeon CPUs, to figure out options when upgrading or building from scratch, finally I’ve been able to connect some dots. There are two series of Quad-Core socket 771 Xeon available: The Clovertown 53XX and the Harpertown 54XX. The Harpertown … Continue reading
Dual Quad-Core workstation on a budget – part 2
In my last post I wrote about trying to obtain a dual quad-core workstation on the cheap, I wrote that buying a new bare-bones dual Xeon setup (case, power supply and empty motherboard) would run $500-$700. Well the reason I started this article is … Continue reading
Dual Quad-Core workstation on a budget – part 1.
I use a Dell precision 490 at work, and it’s wonderful. Two Quad-Core 2.0GHz Xeon E5335′s, 4GB RAM, Raid 0 Striped HDDs. With 8 cpu’s I can run a lot of virtuals and still use the machine. But I’ve been spoiled by this machine, and now I … Continue reading
