Iwill's new dual Opteron workstation

[Audioaficionado]

IWILL announced a new DK8X workstation motherboard for 64-bit AMD Opteron processors. DK8X supports up to 2 x Opterons, HyperTransport; features AGP Pro/8x and PCI-X slots.

DK8X main specs:

* AMD Opteron (Socket 940) CPU
* AMD 8111 + 8131+8151 chipset
* Memory: up to 16Gb dual-channel DDR333/266/200 w/ECC, 8 x DIMM sockets
* AGP Pro/8X slot
* 2хPCI-X (64bit/133MHz), 1хPCI (64bit/66MHz), 2хPCI (32bit/33MHz)
* Built-in 1000Mbps Ethernet: 3COM 3C940
* Serial ATA controller: Silicon Image Sil3114, 4 x Serial ATA ports supporting RAID 0, 1, 0+1
* 2 x Ultra DMA 133/100/66/33 channels
* TI TSB43AB22 IEEE1394 controller
* NEC USB2.0 controller
* eATX form-factor (12" x 13" or 304x330mm)
* Power: EPS 12V (460W)


http://www.overclockers.co.nz/news/images/iwill_dk8x.jpg


I like this one best so far :cool:

[kaltag]

Am I crazy or is that an AGP slot in the middle of the other slots? That definately a new one on me :D got a price on that bad boy?

Edit: Is that a new type of auxilary power connector on the board too? 8 pins instead of 4 now? this things full of surprises.

[Xtc4u]

wonder if they'll make em for longer than thier last dually board.

[Audioaficionado]

The Xeon duallies have those 8 pin auxilary power connector too. They've been around a while.

Iwill hasn't offically released it for sale but maybe sometime later this month someone will review it.

[Albigger]

Man that thing looks nice!! I wish I could afford that and the hardware to go with it.

[cmcquistion]

Finally!!!! A dual Opteron board that has decent features.

This is the first one I've seen with AGP and PCI-X. I like the fact that it has a couple 33 MHz/32 bit PCI slots, too, so people can use their old PCI cards.

Maybe in a year or two, I'll be able to afford one.




P.S. That board looks like it has EIGHT fan headers!

[IFMU]

Ok, Im a lil confused here... are you sure that brown one is an AGP? From the way it all looks, and from what Ive heard, the PCI-X is supposed to be different then the standard PCI slots, and what I see there is a 2 PCI and 3 PCI 64bit... so I would presume the brown is the actual PCI-X slot?! Which again, from my very limited understandings, the PCI-X is going to be replacing the AGP anyhow. Right?!

As for the 8connect extra plug in, from the other Opt rigs, they have all had that 8 connector in comparison to the 4.

[Xaotic]

The brown slot is AGP Pro/8X.

The three at the top are PCI-X and one 64/66.

PCI-EXpress is to be the replacement for AGP(theoretically).

They have located the PCI 2.0 under the AGP to enable running WS graphic cards that require running PCI daughter cards, without impacting PCI-X performance.

[IFMU]

Originally posted by Xaotic
The brown slot is AGP Pro/8X.

The three at the top are PCI-X and one 64/66.

PCI-EXpress is to be the replacement for AGP(theoretically).

They have located the PCI 2.0 under the AGP to enable running WS graphic cards that require running PCI daughter cards, without impacting PCI-X performance.
Interesting, and glad to know. Im a little confused on the PCI-X and 64/66 there though... So the new PCI-X slots will be the same as the 64/66 slots? In that shot the appear to be pretty much the same. Im sure the volts or amps or whatever are more then likely different, but I find it a little hard to believe they are sloted the same... compatiblity issues?!

Or am I just blind and am missing something?

[cmcquistion]

PCI-X is 133 MHz/64 bit.

The other PCI slots (like we have on AMD 760MPX boards) are 66 MHz/64 bit.

From what I've heard, PCI-X slots are backwards compatible with slower cards (provided they have the right cutouts) and PCI-X cards are backwards compatible with slower PCI slots.

[IFMU]

Ok, Im getting really lost here....

Ah... and typos in my post.. didnt mean 64/66, was supposed to be the other way.... 66/64 sorry...

So anything PCI-X can go into pretty much any of the PCI slots... And older PCI cards can go into the PCI-X, but need the right slotting.

So then the 66/64 slots are and do look pretty much identical to the new PCI-X 133/64 slots. ¿

[Xaotic]

Unless there are voltage differences, they'll generally work. There are some 5V cards that are noncompatible with the 3.3V IO and vice versa.

When you put PCI 2.0 cards into PCI-X/ 66/64, it will normally limit the bus to that mode. The good news is that on many of the higher end boards, there are multiple PCI-X buses.

Socket-wise, mostly they look the same. Some manufacturer's use color coded slots to denote differing speeds. I have seen 133/64 slots, with an additional extension as well.

[cmcquistion]

Yes, the 66 MHz/64 bit slots look identical to 133 MHz/64 bit slots.

[Chris]

hmm its got an interesting layout i'll say that, actually i quite like the layout especially the way they have spaced the cpu sockets apart...

[aftermath]

Xaotic you are right.
that looks like agp pro slot too me.
graphics cards are going pci express. i think a 133/64 pci-x slot has 1056 mb/s i think that pci exprees is suposed to exceed agp 8x (some thing like 10+gb/s ?)

[Audioaficionado]

Tyan has one that looks just as good. I'm hoping Iwill can implement a BIOS that would allow lots of adjustments and maybe even some overclocking eventually. The overclocking might be a stretch but adjusting mem timings would be important IMHO.

[speedy4500]

Originally posted by cmcquistion
EIGHT fan headers! [/B]

I actually count 9. Either way, it looks like it'll be a monster.

[kaltag]

Originally posted by Audioaficionado
Tyan has one that looks just as good. I'm hoping Iwill can implement a BIOS that would allow lots of adjustments and maybe even some overclocking eventually. The overclocking might be a stretch but adjusting mem timings would be important IMHO.
Curious, If the memory controller is in the processor then will a BIOS be able to adjust the memory timings and whatnot? I don't know much about how one can control these things with all this built in controller fuss :D

[Audioaficionado]

Read the front page article by Ed. Some one has over clocked a single AMD64 by adjusting the memory settings and fsb.

[Softgod]

I have to say that I like it. Also I see that in the sigs that there are a few people with dual Athlons. GIven the attention that they are showing to this they must enjoy there duallys enough to even think about this jump. I am hoping that AMD will sell the chipsets cheap so the motherboards will be cheaper than the Xeon boards since that is why I have not gone with a dual Xeon setup already. I think that it would be a good move on there part since most of the guys with dually will go threw (an average for me atleast) 3 sets of processors over the life of the board. That is six processors sold to one guy just for one machine. Heck, i will just start a new post about it.

[Audioaficionado]

I was going to go with the dual xeons but now that Opteron is doing so well, I'll just get an MPX duallie for now and make the leap to Opterons or much less expensive Xeons next year. A win-win situation IMHO.

[speedy4500]

Regarding the layout, the thing about the AMD 8131 chipset that this board is based on is that the chipset does not natively support the AGP standard. Therefore any motherboard with an 8131 and AGP must use what is called an "AGP Tunnel" chip. It essentially translates AGP signals to something 8131 can understand. On the Iwill, the AGP Tunnel is the smaller silver chip right beside the AGP slot. Thus the AGP slow is positioned there to keep trace lengths to a minimum. The larger silver chip is the PCI-X Tunnel.

EDIT: Actually now that I'm looking at the traces, it appears the larger silver chip is the 8131, the smaller silver is the AGP Tunnel, and the black chip might be some sort of IDE/floppy/32 bit PCI controller.

Also, don't confuse PCI-X with PCI-Express. PCI-X has been around for at least a year I believe, as many older Xeon boards are equipped with it. PCI-X simply means that it can be used with many different speed and width configurations, i.e. 66/64, 133/64, 66/32, and so on. PCI-Express is the future video card standard, and as of right now there are no motherboards/chipsets with PCI-Express.

I just want to find a regular ATX form factor 2x Opteron board with AGP and at least 2 PCI-X slots. I hate big cases.

[Softgod]

Let me get a towel to wipe off my keyboard. The bad thing is that there is so much new technoligy coming down the pike that it will be wise NOT to buy anything for quite along time. From the stuff that I have been reading it looks like if you buy ANYTHING now it will be useless in a year as far as the next new hardware is concerned:(. I would recomend getting a K7D Master used on EBay and two 2500+ chips and run them at 2266 with a 17 multiplier. That is what I done and I hope that it lasts me another year since I have been running this board for a year already.

[Softgod]

Let me get a towel to wipe off my keyboard. The bad thing is that there is so much new technoligy coming down the pike that it will be wise NOT to buy anything for quite along time. From the stuff that I have been reading it looks like if you buy ANYTHING now it will be useless in a year as far as the next new hardware is concerned:(. I would recomend getting a K7D Master used on EBay and two 2500+ chips and run them at 2266 with a 17 multiplier. That is what I done and I hope that it lasts me another year since I have been running this board for a year already.

[mateo]

Originally posted by speedy4500
I just want to find a regular ATX form factor 2x Opteron board with AGP and at least 2 PCI-X slots. I hate big cases.

I'm looking for the same thing, too. So far, the closest thing is the Gigabyte GA-7A8DW, which isn't released, but there's a few pics circulating. Its like an inch longer than normal ATX it seems, but nothing like EATX.