Board/Chip compatibility questions

Would something like this:
http://www.emicrox.com/eShop/product.aspx?pid=554635

work with something like these:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=51055&item=6734435813&rd=1

I know it says DDR 200 registered memory, but a lot of xeon boards say that.. and I keep reading that xeons don't require registered memory. I (might) have a spair 2x512 of pc3200 that I would want to stick in there.

Would a board like that be able to support the big overclock that people talk about all the time? I mean.. it would be nice to have that fancy Asus board, but I'm trying to put together a really cheap yet pretty decent system here. I haven't seen any other motherboards for less than 150 bucks aside from this one here.. Any advice?

First of all, let me point out that the board, and almost all(if not all) xeon boards requires ECC memory. Now some xeon boards don't require registered, but let me just show you this, taken from your first link.

"up to 12 GB of ECC DDR200/266 MHz (Registered Memory only)"

That means that it has to be either DDR200 ECC reg, or DDR266 ECC reg, no two ways around it.

As far as your pricing issue you get what you pay for. That board only supports a 400mhz FSB meaning that your overclocking will be very limited, and you would have to be able to do it Via the bios.

Plus i have never seen an ATX layout like that, not a very good design at all.
1)It doesn't have an agp slot, and so your graphics will be very very limited.
2)Only one pci slot
3)No onboard sound, combine that with the only one pci slot, its either video or sound : /

If your wanting to overclock, go with the asus board, you will be better off in the long run. The motherboard is almost if not more important than the procs.

It's a rackmount mobo (1U or 2U according to the description), which would explain the lack of an AGP port, sound card, and the single PCI slot.

TimP said:

It's a rackmount mobo (1U or 2U according to the description), which would explain the lack of an AGP port, sound card, and the single PCI slot.

Click to expand...

Right.. hmm.. could have sworn that there were more pci slots..

coldfuzzion said:

"up to 12 GB of ECC DDR200/266 MHz (Registered Memory only)"

That means that it has to be either DDR200 ECC reg, or DDR266 ECC reg, no two ways around it.

Click to expand...

Ok.. good to clear that up. Just through my reading, I saw that "Xeons dont require ECC, and Opterons do" That lead me to thinking that the ECC Xeon issue was either just a "suggestion" or only neccesary you were using up to 12 gigs or whatever.


So the general suggestion is still the Asus boards? Are there any other boards still available somewhere closer towards the 100 dollar range? Pricewatch comes up empty on a lot of the boards listed in the sticky up there, and Ebay comes up with just dell workstation motherboards, and my guess is that I don't want one of those :-]

The cheapest overclocking board in decent stock right now is the Asus PC-DL, which I found on pricewath for $190. To go any cheaper it will have to be a used board from someone on E-bay or various FS/FT forums on hardware sites.

remember that ECC and Registered are two different animals...

Registered RAM is also call buffered and can be ECC, but doesn't have to be ECC

ECC RAM may be registered, but doesn't have to be registered...

and the Asus PC-DL, NCCH-DL and the IWILL DH800 do not require registered or ECC memory...regular pc3200 RAM works fine...but, on the PC-DL the RAM will need to be able to run at 2.5v (at least without a VDIMM mod)


also, i have read of users getting pc-dl's that work fine and are about $150 at www.dumpinggoods.com