DDR3 24GB ram

Hello, I just started doing research into the next system im going to build and ran into a cunundrum. Just like when DDR2 came out there seems to be a shortage of large capacity ram kits (for home computing anyway). Now I am planing on buying some ECC registered server memory in 6 4GB sticks to max out my MB's ram. howeaver i cant find a single post where anyone has used registered ram in these X58 chipsets. My question is since ALL of the 4-8GB kits of DDR2 and DDR3 are non-regestered, non ecc ram IS the X58 designed to properly read registered memory. Given how registered ram has its own addressing and the NB will just see the solid sticks as opposed to individual registers that i needs to manage and refresh.

I do alot of video gaming and 3d rendering wich is why i like having the ram. also I use a ramdisk program to load my rediculasly large games and projects into for faster transfer rates and fetch times.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Core_i7#Drawbacks

Will this $200 solution work?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6820227401

or do you need the $1200 solution?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6820104127

The $1200 solution allows for 24 GB of RAM. It's expensive, but it meets the OP's requirements. However buying a server motherboard, a Xeon 5500 series CPU and 24 GB of registered ECC memory might be less expensive and more stable.

The Nehalem based Xeons support ECC. You could get a 3500 series CPU if you really want ECC.

the Intel Xeon W3550 Bloomfield is a 1366 socket as are some 5XXX series, has anyone seen any benchmarks comparing these to a standard I7?

You can compare them at Intel. The W3550 is an i7-950 with ECC memory support.

> I use a ramdisk program

Which ramdisk software are you using?

> has anyone seen any benchmarks comparing these to a standard I7?

I don't remember that specific comparison, but
Google "Nehalem +Xeon +server +review"
and I'll bet you'll find plenty of benchmarks
(45,200 "hits" as of today

I do remember reading quite a few glowing reviews
of the Nehalem Xeons, when they were first released.

MRFS

Do the math:

Nehalem EP triple-channel memory bandwidth
starts at 25,000 Megabytes per second, and
goes up from there with overclocked RAM.

The bandwidth of SSD interfaces is still 300 Megabytes per second,
soon to increase to 600 MB/second (SATA/6G / 10 bits per byte).

We have a 4-year-old ramdisk that consistently READs
3 GB/second, measured by PerformanceTest version 4.0.

We're waiting for SSDs with SATA/6G interfaces,
e.g. to wire to Intel's RS2BL080 SAS/6G RAID controller.

Even with 4 such SSDs in RAID0, however, the maximum
raw bandwidth is still only 600 x 4 = 2,400 MB/second
and that assumes no controller overhead at either
end of the data cable.


MRFS

While the X58 chipset supports the Xeon W3550, it doesn't support registered ECC memory. Getting 24 GB of unbuffered memory to run stable can be challenging and very expensive. Using a 5500 chipset based motherboard with a single Xeon 55xx CPU and 24 GB of registered RAM would not be more expensive and probably more stable.

Wouldn't it be a hell of a lot cheaper to get a 2GB GTX 285 and be done with it? That seems like a tremendous expense for a "problem" with a vastly simpler solution.