AMD Opteron Test System
The basis of the Opteron test system - coolers, CPUs, memory and mainboard - were kindly supplied by AMDBased around an IWill DK8X mainboard, the system built using the supplied hardware was as follows.
2 x 2.4GHz AMD Opteron 250 Processors (12 x 200, 1MB L2)The Stacker didn't even need its X-Flow fan for temperatures to stay down. The sole 80mm fan blowing over the disk enclosure (nearly silent) and the two cooling fans on the Opteron heatsinks were all that were spinning, the system very quiet during normal use. While I'm sure the very loud fans in the Supermicro chassis that the Xeon used were overkill, for peace of mind more than anything, the CPU cooling fans were still very loud on their own. Thinking of putting together a dual Nocona box? Change the retail coolers.
2GB of Mushkin ECC Registered DDR PC3200 2:3:2 (4 x 512MB (2 per CPU), 2.5-3-3-7, Winbond CH-5 DRAMs)
IWill DK8X Mainboard (dual-Socket 940, AGP8X, 8 DDR slots (16GB max), AMD 8000-series)
2 x Hitachi 400GB SATA 8MB cache Disks (HDS724040KLSA80)
NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT 256MB AGP w/ dual-DVI
Cooler Master Stacker
AGP graphics and DDR memory, barring the CPUs of course, are all that's different between the two systems. The Xeon system's Hitachi disks were supplanted into the Stacker and hooked up to the DK8X's Sil3114 SATA RAID controller, which is a decent match for the ICH5/R on the Supermicro.
Pictures
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The photograph was taken before the installation of the Hitachi disks, hence the single SATA cable to the Raptor used for initial testing. Ignore my inability to tidy up a Tagan TG480-U01 either.
The Stacker is a fair bit taller than the Supermicro chassis, by approximately one PSU in height, since the Stacker takes a PSU at the bottom too, underneath the mainboard area.
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Four of those were in the Opteron system, two for each CPU's memory controller. Run at DDR333, 2.5-3-3-7 latencies, the DK8X mainboard was happy running them in ECC and non-ECC modes.
Finally, just for kicks, a picture of the Stacker with its sides on, standing tall.
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