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Best Motherboard for a Large Memory System?

Posted by timothy on from the what's-this-system-for-exactly dept.

kimanaw writes "Due to a particular infrastructure need, and increasing OS support for 64 bitness, I'm looking into building a large memory server box (at least 16 gigs, possibly up to 64 gigs, probably config'ed into a big ramdisk). I only need a single CPU, and just minimal disk; most prebuilt systems w/ large memory seem to focus on more CPus and big RAID, all of which (over)inflate the pricetag. I've searched several websites (including Tom's Hardware), and I've googled, but can't seem to locate any commercially available AMD MBs supporting more than 4 sticks of RAM, or 4 gigs. Have any Slashdotters built a big-RAM server? Any pointers, hints, and tips much appreciated."

5 of 457 comments (clear)

  1. I don't know of such things... by Nate53085 · · Score: 0, Redundant

    But in order to get more the 4gigs of ram on that badboy with a single processor you will need a 64bit system since 32 bit system maxes at 4 gigs of ram.

    --
    So put that in your pipe and grep it
  2. Limitations by TEMM · · Score: 0, Redundant

    32 bit processors cant address more than 2^32 bits of memory, or 4 GB. This means you can only have up to 4 GB of memory per CPU in a system. You can have more than 4 GB if you have more than one CPU, or you use a 64 bit CPU that uses larger than 32 bit addressing. Also, you cant even use above 4GB for a ram disk because of the same problems.

  3. Apple Xserver G5 supports 16gb ram by Dtyst · · Score: 0, Redundant

    The Apple single processor Xserver G5 supports 16gb ram cost and additional 11600$ though.

    Check:
    http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/A ppleStore.woa/71701/wo/qF4yxwL1DfYE2umn6Pq1GNkmABL /0.0.11.1.0.6.15.0.3.1.3.0.3.1.6.1.1.0

  4. External enclosure by m50d · · Score: 1, Redundant

    Have you looked at getting an external scsi ramdisk? That might be easier than trying to find a motherboard you can fit it all in

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    I am trolling
  5. PowerMac G5 by for_usenet · · Score: 1, Redundant

    Actually, if you are looking for something relatively cheap, the 2.0 and 2.5 GHz PowerMac G5 models actually support 16 GB of RAM, if you can find matched 2G PC 3200 DIMMs to fill the slots. This was the info given in the developers docs for the memory controller. And compared to other boxes that can support this much memory, they aren't that expensive. Linux support is also coming along for them, though not all quite there yet.

    If you think your memory needs are going to rise above 16 GB, you'll need to look elsewhere, and I don't think there's a single board system out there now, that can do this, and qualifies as "cheap" ;-)