Beagle
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Dual Xeon
I know of a place that sells pulled Dual Xeon 2.8-3.0GHz rack mount systems for really inexpensive and was considering getting one for a "mobile rig" to go into my rack case with my mixer, my rackmount soundcard, some preamps, etc.
I seem to remember that the dual xeons only work with certain versions of MS OS, is that correct? and if so, which versions? are there any other considerations with respect to using this as a sonar rig should I think about before purchasing one?
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tarsier
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Are you talking about the circa 2005 Xeons? We used Dual Xeons with XP Pro and Sonar for many years. We had boxes with 3.0 and 3.6 GHz chips in them. No problems there. The biggest headache was finding a decent, quiet heatsink for that chip. I forget the socket style, but those old Xeons ran hot and thus came with a nasty loud fan. Verify that they're either quiet, or that you can replace the heatsink/fan with a quiet one and factor that into the cost.
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Beagle
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yes, I think so (re: year). thanks for the tip on the heatsink/fan.
XP pro runs the dual xeons, then. thanks - for some reason I was thinking it needed MS NT Server or something to run the dual Xeons.
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jcschild
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you are far better off with a new Core i7 than Any Xeons of the past
dont waste your money
Scott ADK Home of the Kentucky Fried DAW!
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Beagle
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no doubt scott, but I can't get a rack mounted i7 for less than $200!
this isn't meant to be my main DAW, just a recording system for recording mobile.
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jcschild
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you are getting a working xeon system for $200? not bad
what interface will you use?
Scott ADK Home of the Kentucky Fried DAW!
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Beagle
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yes, a working pull. hard drives are SCSI and very low capacity, but for my purpose that wouldn't matter, I'd transfer the recorded files over to my main DAW upon returning home. I haven't worked out the easiest way to transfer them yet. I'd be using my new MOTU Ultralite mk3 Hybrid. this is a concern to me because I think the Mobos on these xeons are USB 1.1, but I think I can probably get a PCI USB 2.0 (or 1394A  ) card in there for that purpose.
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IronSound
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Hello... yes you can use any operating system with them... XP has multi core support... A Xeon processor is typically running at a higher bus speed than it's retail counter part... thus the higher heat considerations... and could have more on die L1 or L2 cache... I was looking at similar deals as a remote option too... there are alot of Xeon deals out there... they typically have older, slower RAM and must use parity, error checking units only... and yes they are rack mount ready, but the 1U and 2U cases are really deep, and would not transport in my current cases. The other thing I noticed when doing the CPU performance research... that the units for sale were no faster than a low end Dual or Quad core 775 processor... some of the motherboards can pack 2 or 4 CPU's together... this is a good thing to look for... Since Sonar has multi core support. Here is a web site that shows some Xeon models performance vs retail... http://www.cpubenchmark.net/multi_cpu.html The XEON brand name has been used by Intel for a long long time... so there's alot of really overpriced slow ones out there for sale... Let me know what your looking at, maybe you've found what I've been looking for too! A 3U case size would be ideal...
post edited by IronSound - 2010/09/08 14:14:43
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