As far as I am able to determine, AMD's latest Phenom II processor goes 
up to 4 cores, and Intel's Core i7 is 4 cores as well (with plans for 6 
soon, but no products yet).

It seems that AMD has a 6-core Opteron, and Intel has a 6-core Xeon.

(Don't you just love the way it's really hard to track down this 
information if you haven't been paying attention for a while? Sure, lots 
of places allow you to get the latest in-depth product detail, but if 
you just haven't looked for a while and you're trying to get back up to 
speed, forget it.)

I wonder - what would it cost to buy a twin 6-core Opteron or Xeon box?

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Invisible a écrit :
> As far as I am able to determine, AMD's latest Phenom II processor goes
> up to 4 cores, and Intel's Core i7 is 4 cores as well (with plans for 6
> soon, but no products yet).
> 
> It seems that AMD has a 6-core Opteron, and Intel has a 6-core Xeon.
> 
> (Don't you just love the way it's really hard to track down this
> information if you haven't been paying attention for a while? Sure, lots
> of places allow you to get the latest in-depth product detail, but if
> you just haven't looked for a while and you're trying to get back up to
> speed, forget it.)
> 
> I wonder - what would it cost to buy a twin 6-core Opteron or Xeon box?

A lot of money... as in "start with a 4 figures number for each CPU,
whereas current lambda-user market just runs in the 3 figures (higher)
range, with short incursion under 2000 for a full system."

CPU: 4 figures
Memory... guess what, you might need ECC correction, not common (so,
expensive)
Motherboard: Tyan makes a few, expect 500€ / $750 (ok, maybe 400/600 ?)
PSU: you need some real powerbox... at 140W/cpu... about 100/200

Easier part: disk, CD/DVD/BR & case, you might go with standard
components (but check the MB size for the case, as well as enough room
for cpu-cooler). Keyboard & mouse are not so expensive.

What graphic card would you plug in ? probably yet another 200 to 500.

What display would you use ? (a 13" LCD ? or a set of 26" ?)

Last (but not least): the OS, might be a bit expensive too. (lesser
version might not recognize all memory & cores).

Finding the CPU & MB is the hardest part.

-- 
A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.<br/>
Q: Why is it such a bad thing?<br/>
A: Top-posting.<br/>
Q: What is the most annoying thing on usenet and in e-mail?

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> CPU: 4 figures
> Memory... guess what, you might need ECC correction, not common (so,
> expensive)
> Motherboard: Tyan makes a few, expect 500€ / $750 (ok, maybe 400/600 ?)
> PSU: you need some real powerbox... at 140W/cpu... about 100/200
>
> Easier part: disk, CD/DVD/BR & case, you might go with standard
> components (but check the MB size for the case, as well as enough room
> for cpu-cooler). Keyboard & mouse are not so expensive.
>
> What graphic card would you plug in ? probably yet another 200 to 500.
>
> What display would you use ? (a 13" LCD ? or a set of 26" ?)
>
> Last (but not least): the OS, might be a bit expensive too. (lesser
> version might not recognize all memory & cores).
>
> Finding the CPU & MB is the hardest part.

Alternatively he could just learn C++ instead of Haskell :-)

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scott wrote:

> Alternatively he could just learn C++ instead of Haskell :-)

Yes, because that'll make POV-Ray run *so* much faster. :-P

Actually, I guess the correct response would be: Alternatively, you 
could help the guys hacking on the GPU backend for Data Parallel Haskell 
and leave all those silly C++ programmers in the dust. 0;-)

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>> I wonder - what would it cost to buy a twin 6-core Opteron or Xeon box?
> 
> Finding the CPU & MB is the hardest part.

Indeed. Both the Opteron and Xeon are server-class processors. It 
wouldn't surprise me if the only way to get a twin 6-core box is to go 
to somebody like HP and buy an actual server. This, presumably, is 
freakishly expensive.

Still, it would be interesting to see just *how* expensive it is. I 
remember looking at an HP ProLiant server a few months back - a big 
rack-mount thing with hot-swap RAID, redundant PSUs and fast CPUs. And 
while it *was* very expensive, it wasn't as expensive as you might 
imagine...

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"Invisible" <voi### [at] devnull> wrote in message 
news:4b067828$1@news.povray.org...
> (Don't you just love the way it's really hard to track down this 
> information if you haven't been paying attention for a while? Sure, lots 
> of places allow you to get the latest in-depth product detail, but if you 
> just haven't looked for a while and you're trying to get back up to speed, 
> forget it.)

A good source for info of this sort is MaximumPC magazine, or their 
corresponding web site (http://www.maximumpc.com/). They keep up on the 
bleeding edge, have up to date articles and product comparisons, and their 
target audience has always been build-it-yourselfers who want computers that 
need tp be chained to the wall lest they fly away at the speed of sound.

--
Jack

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Le_Forgeron wrote:
> 
> Last (but not least): the OS, might be a bit expensive too. (lesser
> version might not recognize all memory & cores).
> 

Sorry, but I just have to hit here: Linux.

;-)

-Aero

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Invisible wrote:

> I wonder - what would it cost to buy a twin 6-core Opteron or Xeon box?

If you have to ask, you can't afford it.

Regards,
John

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John VanSickle <evi### [at] hotmailcom> wrote:
> Invisible wrote:
>
> > I wonder - what would it cost to buy a twin 6-core Opteron or Xeon box?
>
> If you have to ask, you can't afford it.

I'd think an X-box is definitely cheaper. ;)

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nemesis schrieb:

>>> I wonder - what would it cost to buy a twin 6-core Opteron or Xeon box?
>> If you have to ask, you can't afford it.
> 
> I'd think an X-box is definitely cheaper. ;)

I'd think even an X-box /cluster/ is cheaper ;-)

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