Dual Quad Core + Windows XP 64

[biglolly]

Hi all,

We are soon getting new workstations in the office. They'll have 4gb of ram, dual xeon quad cores e.t.c.

I thought it would make sense to have xp 64 installed on the workstations to take advantage of the larger memory addressing - my only concern though is that all our render nodes are 32bit and only have 2gb of ram. Would it be pointless and/or problematic to have 64bit workstations and render on 32bit nodes?

Changing all the nodes to 64bit would be quite a lot of work as well as installing more RAM in each, costly. I've read on this forum about some issues people have been having, and it doesn't seem like switching to 64bit is something you should do incrementally across all your nodes.

But I don't really know if this is true! If anyone can shed a little light on this that'd be great.

[Da_elf]

i think one of the major 64bit problems is the drivers, but render nodes shouldnt have a problem with it since they should be bare bones machines with hardly any parts in them. i havent gone full 64bit. im still using max8 on my 64bit boxx but atleast i can use 4 gigs and get things rendered

[jacksc02]

biglolly, i have been using xp64 for almost 2 years now and have had no issues with drivers. Most printers/cameras/scanners come with xp64bit drivers so that should be an issue.
You might face some issues with the 32bit farm, but you will find that you will do all your rendering on the dual quads because they so fast!

[Mediastation]

We have some dual quad Xeon's too, and went for a dual boot option of XP64 or Windows XP Pro with the 3GB switch option at start up. In XP Pro mode, they'll happily render along with our other nodes but as jacksc02 say's, most of the time they render so fast in 64-bit mode we don't bother using the rest of the renderfarm!

[Sawyer]

What mobo are you guys choosing for the dual xeon quads?

Thanks

[jacksc02]

Sawyer- I got a asus DSGC-DW for my dual quads but I should have researched a bit more to get something that could be overclocked.

[Mediastation]

Intel S5000vx in ours

[jacksc02]

are they just render nodes or workstations?

[Mediastation]

They're just render nodes and I'm astonished how we survived without them in the past. One on it's own can render faster than our old renderfarm of 12 P4 3.2ghz machines!

[Clifton Santiago]

hey jacksc02: have you successfully ran Max on a significantly overclocked system? Back around 2000 or so, I was experimenting with overclocking the dualie system I had just built (dual 1ghz intels as I recall). I was able to overclock by about 25% before windows became unstable. However, Max was not stable. I could only get Max stable at about 5% overclocking, which just wasn't worth it.

sorry about hijack...

[jacksc02]

clifton- i cant overclock my dual xeon as I have a motherboard that doesnt allow it!

[DaForce]

Clifton, my C2D E6420 is overclocked to 3.2ghz which is a 50% overclock above stock (2.13ghz) and its run 24/7 day in day out. Used for 3d and pretty intensive games (supreme commander)

And has yet to have any problems at all. Good cooling and good motherboard selection is key.
Even at such a high overclock my idle temps are between 30-34c and load temps around 10c higher.

So its certainly possible. But not all cpus overclock so well. AMD's are not as good as the current line of core 2 duos thats for sure. And overclocking the quads you definitly need to consider some aftermarket cooling as those puppies get HOT

[davexl]

hey jacksc02: have you successfully ran Max on a significantly overclocked system? Back around 2000 or so, I was experimenting with overclocking the dualie system I had just built (dual 1ghz intels as I recall). I was able to overclock by about 25% before windows became unstable. However, Max was not stable. I could only get Max stable at about 5% overclocking, which just wasn't worth it.

sorry about hijack...

Like the others said, overclocking is highly dependent on the CPU - each family is different. Current Core 2 Duo and Quads have a huge amount of headroom, can be easily overclocked safely by 40-50% - with adequate cooling. Athlons are tough to get beyond 30%.