Best Motherboards With Large RAM Capacity?

cortex writes "I routinely need to analyze large datasets (principally using Matlab). I recently 'upgraded' to 64-bit Vista so that I can access larger amounts of RAM. I know that various Linux distros have had 64-bit support for years. I also typically use Intel motherboards for their reliability, but currently Intel's desktop motherboards only support 8GB of RAM and their server motherboards are too expensive. Can anyone relate their experiences with working with Vista or Linux machines running with large RAM (>8GB)? What is the best motherboard (Intel or AMD) and OS combination for workstation applications in terms of cost and reliability?"

Comments

Tyan

[B5_geek]

Look no further then Tyan. The Tempest line (Intel CPUs) can hold 32GB of ram and the Thunder line (AMD CPUs) can hold 64GB of ram.

Now I am curious about one thing you said about Intel mobos:

and their server motherboards are too expensive If you are too cheap to buy a mobo that in your own words was "reliable, and solid", how the heck are you going to pay for the 32GB of ECC RAM?

I run a Tyan Thunder with two Opteron 270's (and 4GB of RAM) as my primary workstation, and I have never been happier. I can honestly say that this is the last workstation I will buy until it dies, I no longer need to worry about "but my computer can't run X".

With the memory sizes and data sets that you are talking about I wouldn't consider anything other then AMD CPU's. The bandwidth that the CPU and memory are shared on Intel boards, and each AMD cpu has a dedicated memory controller and dedicated RAM slots.

You posted this on /. so you know that Linux will be the preferred OS.

Go with AMD, you won't be disappointed.

Re:Tyan

[ZorbaTHut]

Funny thing about this, actually.

I jumped on the dual-processor bandwagon pretty much the instant that commodity CPUs officially supported it. Namely, the Athlon MP. I got a Tyan Tiger motherboard and a friend did the same. Shortly thereafter I lost contact with that friend.

A few years later I went to turn on my computer as usual and it wouldn't turn on. A bit of troubleshooting later and I realized that the PSU connector had burned itself into the motherboard power socket because something on the motherboard had randomly decided to short itself. Four of the pins had fried (in a distinctive pattern, see here and here) and I ended up buying a new motherboard from a different manufacturer and a new power supply (thankfully, the other components had survived fine.)

About a year after that I ran into my friend. We were talking about upgrades and I dug out those pictures. Turned out he'd lost three Tyan Tiger motherboards, with the exact same burn pattern, before changing manufacturers.

So, yeah, I'm not touching Tyan again. I've never actually had a computer component burn itself to death before, and one time was enough.

Re:Tyan

[phantomlord]

S2460?

I just went through the same thing in late October.I built the system in June, 2002. Had a problem with the initial power supply (Antec 430W) that came in my case not being big enough and I was getting random lockups. Switched to another power supply and everything was fine for years. I went away for a weekend and sshed in to read my email. On my way home, a friend called me and noticed that I wasn't logged onto AIM. Hmm, ssh was still up. I must have gotten disconnected and it didn't full reconnect right (gaim likes to do that from time to time).

So I get home and notice that my computer had rebooted rather than having a simple AIM disconnect. Odd, but whatever. A week goes by and no problems. I attribute it to a freak power problem since I notice my UPS battery isn't holding a charge. Suddenly, my computer reboots in the middle of playing nethack. Ok, that was weird. Power failure is set to turn the computer off, not reboot. Computer hangs before LILO runs. I reset it and it hangs at LILO again. Odd. So I take the side of the case off to make sure the CPU/GPU fans are spinning. No problems. I let it sit for a few minutes. Turn it on and everything is fine again.

I grumble about losing my nethack game and start anew. I get about 5 minutes in and my computer reboots again. This time, LILO starts loading Linux and the computer reboots before the image is uncompressed. It does the same thing again. I start smelling that aroma of burning electric and plastic. Ok, it's too late to deal with this. I power off for the night and decide to come back in the morning.

Same problem in the morning, as soon as the computer gets warm, it starts rebooting. Electrical smell is getting heavier. I start taking PCI cards and drives out to make sure they aren't causing a problem. I swap in a known working video card and that's the only thing connected to the motherboard. Same problem. Ok, maybe the power supply is flaking out. I go to disconnect it from the motherboard and it was stuck pretty good. Bad enough that I had to get out some pliers and really start yanking.

Exact same pattern as you, all the red (5V) connectors are burned out. Fearing the worst, I ordered parts for a new computer. Later that night, I decided to see how bad the problem really was. I took a scalpel and small finger drill and cleaned all the melted plastic out of the motherboard connector until I could plug my backup power supply in. Some quick testing showed everything worked, so I reassembled it and used it for a week until my new parts got here.

I think what happened, in my case, is that the UPS batteries went bad (I've since replaced them) and the minor power fluctuations caused something to burn out in the power supply, which in turn, affected the current it was providing. It's worth noting the rating on my power supply says it provides 42A across the 5V wires, so we're talking some significant juice to start with.

That said, it is interesting that we've all had the same failure result.

Chipsets

[niceone]

To narrow things down a bit, it's not about Motherboards - it's about chipsets. I've only been looking at Intel (AMD don't have the performance right now for music stuff) - Intel's current P35 and X38 chipsets both support 8GB memory max. If you need more then you have to look at one of the Xeon chipsets: the 5000X workstation chipset is the one to look at if you want to be able to run 2 processors (not sure what the equivalent one is for a single processor) - it supports up to 32GB of memory.

Best motherboards for 64-bit and large memory

[redstar427]

Standard motherboards are typically limited to 8 GB of ram, since they are designed for home users and gamers.
Server/workstation motherboards are the best solution at this time to go beyond this. Most people are only running 32-bit software, with 1-3 GB of ram, so it's not a problem for them.

Currently at work, I use a Tyan Tempest i5000XT (S2696) motherboard, with dual quad-core Intel Xeon cpu's, and 8 GB of ram. I will expand to 16 GB in 2008. This board can upgrade to 32 GB of ram, with 4 GB Dimms, which should be available sometime in the future.

I dual boot with 64-bit Fedora 8 Linux, and 64-bit Windows Vista Ultimate. I run Fedora 8 for all my productive work, and use VMWare with different versions of Linux and Windows, for testing and standard Windows work. I dual boot into 64-bit Vista Ultimate when I need Windows with direct hardware support for some multimedia apps and gaming. 64-bit Vista Ultimate seems a lot more compatible with current apps than 64-bit Windows XP Pro.

For my next home computer, I will choose a similar, but different Tyan Server/workstation motherboard.
The Tyan Tempest i5400PW (S5397) is also a dual socketed motherboard for dual quad-core Xeon cpus.
It has 16 memory sockets and can be expanded up to 128 GB of ram, with future dimms of 8 GB each.
I believe this is the best long-term solution for those that really need a lot of ram, at a reasonable price.
Even with just reasonable priced 2 GB dimms, it can hold 32 GB ram, which is a lot, even for large 64-bit apps.

While $450 for these motherboards is fairly expensive, they provide a lot of value, and good quality desktop motherboards cost $150-400, so it's not really that much more.

Re:I doubt the need for that much ram.

[jacquesm]

I love that attitude...

Some guy comes and asks an honest question. Then people go and tell him that can't be right and then go and give all kinds of suggestions taking into account that he isn't right.

Let's just for a second assume that the OP has a dataset that large. I can easily imagine it:

- complicated physics model
- computational biology problem
- datamining

and any one of a thousand other not so trivial computational problems.

If his 'luck' is the problem is not trivially parallelizable (I hope that's spelled right) then he's got two choices:

1) try to set up some kind of pipeline
2) get a single machine that can handle all the data

Apparently he has chosen for door #2 because that seems to be just about feasible.

There are some top of the line dell machines that will hold up to 128G of ram, the R900 series.

Re:Tyan?

[arivanov]

I would concur. Tyan Opteron motherboards are probably the best choice for this. The only annoyance is that most of them are EATX and fit only in high end huge cases.

The other thing to do is to abandon Windows. Matlab behaves considerably better on Linux or Solaris than on Windows (especially on big data sets). Most Matlab users I know have long stopped trying to run it on Microsoft platforms. They are simply not fit for purpose. AFAIK Vista is no exemption. So if you really make a living off matlab you should move your other windows stuff onto a cheap and cheerfull small PC and switch the matlab monster to a "proper" OS. That is the way I have maintained it for my matlab users in the past and they have been happy with the arrangement.

Your AMD Options

[this great guy]

All current socket AM2/AM2+ AMD processors (Opteron 1000 series, Phenom, Athlon X2, etc) support a maximum of four unbuffered DDR2 memory sticks. All current socket F AMD processors (Opteron 8000 and 2000 series) support a maximum of eight registered DDR2 memory sticks. (You can find this info in AMD's public datasheets).

As of today, unbuffered and registered DDR2 memory sticks of 4 GB or more are extremely expensive because the technology cannot be inexpensively mass-produced (yet). Only 2-GB DDR2 sticks can be found at reasonable prices.

For these financial and technical reasons, your are restricted to a total of 8 GB per socket AM2/AM2+ processor, or 16 GB per socket F processor. Therefore the cheapest option for an AMD mobo supporting more than 8 GB of memory is to buy a single socket F model. Newegg sells one for $136 (open box, though). Add a $180 Opteron 2212 processor, $240 for eight 2-GB sticks of registered DDR2-667, and you end up spending only $556 for a dual-core 2.0 GHz 16 GB barebone server assuming you have a chassis and a PSU lying around.

I'll leave other people comment on your Intel options. I am not very familiar with Intel server motherboards.

Re:I doubt the need for that much ram.

[TheSkyIsPurple]

Maybe he figured that most everyone else would answer his direct question, but he thought might have deeper insight into the problem?

I don't know how many times I've been focused on a problem for a long time, ventured down a solution path, and ended up asking for help for something complicated; only to have that guy ask me what I was thinking. When I explained the problem, it turns out I had missed something that drastically reduced it.

Sort of like the ol' America space pen vs. Russian Pencil story.

In other words, he was getting at the underlying concern, not the question asked. (think "Do I look fat?"... that's really not what they're asking)