This is how the backside currently looks:

I'll stick it in an old Antec bigtower case, as the more modern cases I have are all too small to accommodate this 304*331 mm E-ATX beast.

A few things worry me though:

1. The copper coolers are splendid, but very heavy. As the CPU's are on the top right of the board, these two heavyweights will pull some stress on the board, as they are not fastened to the case itself.
2. Just like the Dell, I'll dual boot Ubuntu and Windows. The Dell only accepts Windows Vista, apart from XP, for some reason or another I can't get 7 to install on it. For comparison's sake, I'll install Vista as well, unless there's a reason not to.
3. Any suggestions on graphics cards?

The system is finally completely assembled and received its 32GB of FB-Dimm craziness:

With the original fans on, the whole case was resonating. One of the blades of the first fan was damaged, so it rotated out of balance, shaking the whole case along. In the end I decided to do away with both fans and I installed a Noctua 12cm over both heat sinks. Even with the two 8 cm fans at the back end, the whole system is reasonably quiet. Counting in the GTX275, I think we did a fair job on reducing noise.

So that's the system as it currently stands. Nothing fancy, nor particular, nor authentic, just an old Antec case, with a lot of hardware in it. I've added a Soundblaster Audigy 2ZS Platinum Pro, and a USB3.0 VIA-based controller.

The DVD/CDRW is IDE, the slave is a very old IDE disk cage which is currently empty. The SATA triple disk cage only holds two, as one of the doors has broken off due to my lack of patience, and, let's face it, buying on the cheap. There was originally an ONTRACK 30GB tape drive in the case, but I'll try and install that in another build where that would be more time-appropriate.

Both Ubuntu and WinVista run excellent on this powerhouse.

You forgot a 3rd excuse for a duel socket system. More is always better! 😉
The stand off hack looks really good. If you didn't tell anyone I doubt they would notice.

Which PSU do you have installed? Do you know how much is the idle and load power consumption?
(120W + 120W + 219W , TDP CPU + CPU + GPU)...

I'll have a look. It will easily pull 300+ out of the socket, but I'll try and do a test on both dual xeons (Supermicro and the Dell). Efficiency will definitely not be their strong suit.

A quick 3DMark06 test on the Dell (2X5365/32GB/GTX960) with the standard benchmark gives a pull of 434,7 W on my el cheapo "CHACON" measuring plug. 17387 3DMarks as a result, no tweaking.
A even larger pull in PCMARK Vantage: 450,2 maximum Wattage.

The same 3DMark06 test on the Supermicro (2X5460/32GB/GTX275) resulted in a 499,5 W pull and the GFX stopping prematurely before the end of the test (screen went blank, system remained responsive as far as I could tell (CTRL-ALT-DEL'ing dropped the load by half). I hope I did not fry the GPU, but that's for later to check.

Second run with 3Dmark06 on the Supermicro board and the GTX275: 16117 points, 506,4W max pull, about 300W idle pull.

I've upgraded the Supermicro system with a GTX960 and the 3Dmarks went up from 16117 to 18767. Need to do a Watt check, but the stress will be less I presume.

I absolutely love gaming setups built on server hardware, looks great! 😁

I am using an HP DL370 G6 (rackmount) with dual X5690's, 72GB RAM and a 1070 Ti myself - it is my main SteamLink rig for the TVs around the house. 😀

I'm running into serious issues on Windows Vista on this system. Constant x101 errors ("This indicates that an expected clock interrupt on a secondary processor, in a multi-processor system, was not received within the allocated interval.") and x124 ("This bug check indicates that a fatal hardware error has occurred. This bug check uses the error data that is provided by the Windows Hardware Error Architecture (WHEA)").

I was able to replicate the x101 error when installing one of the SIMS2-discs, so I thought it had to do with the disc drive. I swapped it, swapped the cable, but the same error kept producing when I try to start the SIMS2.

I disabled HT in the Supermicro BIOS, but no luck. Strange that the system is able to run 3dmark06, but fails to get through a simple installation.

As it seems to be CPU-related, I'll try swapping the CPU's for two spare X5365, but this will mean disassembling the whole system. Any other ideas?

The X7DAE+ is off to be sold. A Tyan Tempest S5392 is replacing it, and I've put the two X5365 to use in that mainboard.

The X5460's also didn't go too well on the Tyan, so I'll keep those to upgrade compatible S775 boards.

3Dmark06 went down to 16802 pts with the 2X5365's and 16GB ram (as it only has 4 slots). Quite a hit compared to the equally specced Dell.

The errors in the Sims2 are gone, so the system seems to be solid enough again.

Any troublesome system is a lesson on its own... Ubuntu did not want to start on the X5365, while Vesta didn't complain. Still, I want Ubuntu to function , as this system will be a forensic test bed for disks.

After swapping mainboards and cpu's; testing ram and running a bare system to troubleshoot, the culprit is found: Intel's hunger for power.

The Corsair TX650 is just not up to feeding two X5460's nor the X5365's. The error any Linux distro gave me was a hang at "freeing smp alternatives memory".

The only possible solution was to revert to two 2.0 Ghz E5405... which brought the 3Dmark06 score down to an appaling 12206 points.

That is the reason the Dell is equipped with a 750W power supply...

No way.. I think this most of power went through FBDIMMs as well. They run real hot.

The two CPUs at 120W each is not a problem for the 650W, Unless you have a 200W GPU in the mix?

The power harness should not be split into two plugs/pair of wires from each wire with one connector each from PSU. If you don't have enough PSU modular connectors, get higher watt PSU and order custom harness, they will ask you what ends is made for mother and particular PSU. I got custom harnesses from there so I can modify the HP Z420 PSU properly for a GPU.

Ubuntu did not boot, whether with 1 stick or with all 4 slots populated, wether the GTX960 was attached or a simpler VGA was attached. The only part not switched out, was the PSU.

Maybe that PSU harness was not done correctly that motherboard requires. If any not plugged into all power connectors on that board problems will show up. Put the x5460 back in once you get everything right with PSU first. Too much processing loss with lower power CPUs.

GTX 960 is 120W or so. I have one in my HP Z220 with no issues with 400W PSU (HP PSUs around gold 90% efficient).

Cheers,

As much as I LOVE multi-cpu setups, stay away from the FB-dimm boards. Those memory dimms just suck down power like there is no tomorrow.

The closest board I own is the X7DCA-L, fully loaded with 48gb of ram & X5470's and it ran like a treat for years. Only issue I had was with memory. It was SUPER picky and anything not on the TML just would never post. But it too required a big beefy power supply and I had to put a 750W with mine. Granted I wasn't running a video card.

If i was in your position, I'd look out for the proper cpu mount hardware. its designed to keep the stress off the pcb.

Is there any watt figure per FB-DIMM stick?

Cheers,

The values I keep seeing are in the area of 5-6w per stick. It will vary by the FSB / capacity / manufacturer / moon phase, obviously.
It doesn't sound like much, but it adds up if you are using these systems for anything more than a few hours a day.

flupke11 wrote on 2020-01-08, 11:28:

The system is finally completely assembled and received its 32GB of FB-Dimm craziness:

X7_8.jpg

What is that that you're using to cool the memory with? Is it secured well?

I've got a very similar board (X7DBN) with the same amount of ram (8 sticks totaling 32GB) and am getting temps up to 127.5C on the ram. Some of this may be caused because I've mounted some (noctua) fans in front of the CPU (supermicro) heatsinks that blow across them towards the back of the case (and thus probably across the ram slots somewhat). I'm considering trying to squeeze a 40mm fan between the top-most CPU heatsink and the ram so there will be (better) airflow across the ram at least.

As a side note, I originally had oriented my CPU fans on top like you show but found the system would overheat. Moving the fans from the tops to the sides decreased temps at least 10C.