Asus PC-DL 875P for dual Xeon?

[ubu]

I'm going to put together a dual xeon system for home use. Yes, I've read plenty of comments (quite reasonable) that a P4 with 800FSB is faster, but I actually have legit reasons to go xeon - I work for a software company and our main app uses Oracle 9i to make some pretty honkin big (and busy) databases - I run simulations sometimes that run much faster on a dual xeon than single P4. On the other hand, this is my home system, so it will also be used for games, etc. (although I'm not a real big gamer).

Anwyay, I'm planning on 2x3.06Ghz xeon socket 603, 2 or 3GB PC2700 (maybe ECC - doesn't look like price is much different), probably not serial ATA or RAID (if I want RAID I'll use SCSI).

What I'm wondering is - does anyone have any experience with this board, with good or bad comments? I've read the review here on Tom's and it seems pretty positive, and honestly up until then I was planning to get an i7505 board, but the 875P seems like a good fit. The cost difference really isn't a big deal (if you're dropping $3000-3200 total, $200 either way doesn't matter), I'm just looking for a board that's a good dual purpose performer. Plus, I've built lots of systems with Asus and had good luck (although it's been quite a while).

Anyway, I haven't built my own system in a few years, so I'm out of touch with mobos and chipsets (it's all Dell and Sun at work) and I'm hoping someone might give me the thumbs up or help steer me clear of a big hassle.

Thanks in advance,

Barry

 

[sjonnie]

You might want to read <A HREF="http://forums.2cpu.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=40755" target="_new">this</A> thread over at <A HREF="http://www.2cpu.com" target="_new">http://www.2cpu.com</A> or read <A HREF="http://www.gamepc.com/labs/view_content.asp?id=xeoncw&page=1" target="_new">this</A> review over at <A HREF="http://www.gamepc.com" target="_new">http://www.gamepc.com</A>

<A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/myanandtech.html?member=114979" target="_new">My PCs</A>

 

[Crashman]

I've looked at it a lot. The main disadvantage of Xeons right now is their lower bus speed, and this board supposedly allows you to drop the multiplier on Xeons. That would be ideal of you could turn 2 3.06 xeons into 2 3.0C speed Xeons...but this board doesn't allow high bus speeds like the 875 was actually designed for. I don't know why either.

So that kills one of the reasons I would have PREFERED that particular board. What's left? The 875 should have a slight performance lead over the 7505. But REAL server chipsets support such things as 64-bit PCI slots. So you should ask yourself...will you ever be using a super fast SCSI card in it?

Anyway, that's my take, it looks like a good board, not what it could be but still better than others, with the exception of the lack of high speed card slots present on most Xeon boards.

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