Baasha

have the new generation Xeons been released? I heard the "best" Xeon to get now for the SR-2 are the 5690s.

This board will be great for doing productivity work or some heavy duty application. I think that for gaming, it won't be as good as a rock-solid 2600k or 990X that can OC really high. I haven't seen the Xeons OC much more than 4.4GHz with water cooling on the SR-2.

Anyone hit 5GHz with the dual Xeons and quad-SLI gtx-580 yet?

 
Honestly think CPU speed is no longer an issue with gaming..
 
New Xeons got pushed back to Q1 2012...

Hopefully Asus' and/or EVGA's products have intel NICs. I'm sure both will have SAS and it is very unlikely that this portion of the storage will be run from a 3rd party controller. I'm sure both will have more than a few USB 3 ports. The X79 Classy has a crapload, so maybe that's an indicator.

Hi Cateno, not sure I could agree with you that the SR2/3 is a solution for high end gaming. I'm not aware of any games that would stretch a 6/12 core sandy bridge-e single CPU let alone having RAM in the 32GB realm.
 
I have an LSI raid card already, the 9265-8i which is a second gen 6Gb/s SAS/SATA card which peaks at over 2500MB/s reads including in raid 6.
 
I run my boot SSD off of the Marvell 6 Gb/s controller on my SR2 and I've never been happy with the performance of the controller.
 
Is the Intel X79 D chipset with sas/sata 6Gb/s or 3 Gb/s?

sas sata 6GB includes in X79D, the link is good for read the versions of the X79 chip , the version D and T is the full version
http://www.guru3d.com/new...duced-functionalities/

X79 Classified Dual 2011 When?......

a_jochec

X79 Classified Dual 2011 When?......

 
Next year when the CPUs come out.

Not quite, since you can also add 6 core westmere's to your current SR-2 and can overclock them to beyond 4 Ghz and still get close to 22 points on cinebench...I have X5650's running at 4 Ghz solid and do exactly that...
 
As for the 8 core Xeon versions coming out in a few months, keep in mind that they're going to be expensive(DUH), and that going from 12 cores/24 threads(maximum on the SR2) to 16 cores/32 threads is not a 50% increase in CPU power...It's a bit just over 30% more.
 
Then there's the other sticky issue.....Those xeons are still made at 32 nm, and the fastest version, running at 3.1 Ghz with 8 cores enabled, already hits 150 watts TDP accorsing to intel, so if you're dreaming of 4.5 Ghz overclocks, it needs at the very least a heavy duty water cooling setup since 2 of these are going to be putting out some tremendous amount of heat....Way more than the current 6 core Xeons with 6 cores and using the same process.
 
Hence why i'd only be interested in 8 cores when intel introduces them using the 22nm process and finfets, wich intel has gone on the record as saying that the latter have a 30% better power efficiency over the 32 nm process, something that will be handy when attmepting high overclocks, since less power going in, means less heat coming out...
 
 
 

As for me, i'll be looking to replace the X5650's i currently own with X5680's or even X5690's, since once those new xeons are released in february, the prices come down big time on the previous generation(or at least i'm hope so)....I know the performance increase won't be huge since i might get another 500 Mhz overclock, but it's about maxing the full potential of the SR-2 i own.
 
Beyond that, it'll also get 3 new video cards of the 28nm generation to replace the GTX580's i now currently use, since the performance increase with the change in fab process is usually pretty huge(close to double i'm hoping), so between the CPU swap and the new video cards, this old SR-2 will still have plenty of bite for a long time to come indeed...

massdestructor

I've considered all that you say, my sr2 gets 18 points but I've not used this score, I've used the 23 points scored by the fastest SR2, also I did the calculations with the 6 to 8 core increase. Of course this calculations are valid if the new Xeons can be pushed up to 4.6 GHz.

In order to clarify:

13.3 points with i7-3960X at 4.6GHz

13.3x2 = 26.6 points in dual cpu configuration

(26.6*8)/6 = 35.47 points if we have 2 cores more per CPU

Fastest SR2 score 6-core dual xeon at 4.5 GHz: 23 points

35.47/23 = 1.54 -> 54% performance increase

 
 
I got nearly 22 points with my X5650's at 4 Ghz btw, and that's the kicker really since you're assuming that the same overclock can be achieved with all 8 cores enabled, compared to the results we've seen with the 6 core version, when it's a given that at the very least, the cooling requirements will be higher still even if the chips makes it, wich is still unknown at this point....Ive learned a long time ago to never count my chickens before they hatch...
 
X5680's clocking to 4.5 Ghz are fairly common on water cooling on the SR-2( good water cooling, not the all in one built in kits), so for this next generation, i'll take a show me first aproach, but from what i've seen of intel's 22nm process and the use of finfets(vertically stacked transistors, rather than horizontal), the odds are better of achieving higher clocks with all 8 cores enabled, using a smaller die with less power consumption and therefore, easier to cool down for a given clock.....In short, too many advantages to ignore, but the downside is having to wait until they're out, wich might be quite a while.

20.08 points with 2xX5680 at 4GHz:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_aootHB_wR8
 
22.46 points with 2xX5680 at 4.5GHz:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHOba5oKU0Y
 
I can't figure how you get 22 points at 4.0GHz.

Another result, this time with more agressive bios tweaks, but the CPU's still at 3.8 Ghz
 

I Would love to see an ECP with it.

At which speed is your memory running? and with what timmings?

Your system is the best fine tuned that I've ever seen.
 
The con is the low memory amount.

hello,
from my pov in priority the r3/rx must include every thing we already find  in the r2
+ update to be compliant 2011 cpu with 4 pcie gen 3 16X if we are be able to connect gen 2 cards in gen 3 ports without compromise of speed.
+thunderbold /lightpeak directly on mother board.
+ SAS connector
+more ram connector if it doesn't eat on the16X PCI
- I prefer that evga spend money in order to make good quality than a flashy look so if the cards looks like to the previous one is not a problem for me because my mobo will finish in a 19" inch enclosure ... and personaly i hate mobo who look like to a "chrismas tree" !
So i hope R3 will not be a revollution but an evolution in the continuity of the R2 product. 
bye ...