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I have a quad core opteron, what an earth do i buy to make use of it?

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Hi

I have a quad core Opteron 8389, C2, 2900 MHz, Shanghai Socket F (Part No. - OS8389WHP4DGI ), actually i have 2 CPUs but im thinking i only need to use one for my new gaming rig.

So ... I am really looking for a motherboard to build a gaming rig around one of the CPU's and wondered if anyone has any good advice on where to start?

I have found some dual CPU slot server mobos, some of which have 2 PCI-E slots, so i can then get myself a couple of cool graphics cards and Crossfire them together, but i am unsure if i really need 8 cores to play Napoleon Total War!

My main concern is that im going to end up with a machine that sounds like a jet aircraft and consumes enough power to light a small village, whilst I'm constantly worrying that the water cooling i had to put in to keep it running is going to leak every where (Im not sure i would have to install water, but if I did ... I have never installed water cooling before! Eeek!).

Ideally I would like some help finding ...
- a Mobo with a single slot for this CPU;
- with 2 PCI-E slots;
- enough space to add a sound card;
- 3 or 4 gigs of memory (im on 32 bit XP so more than 3 gigs is not nec at this point, although i might build the new machine with 8 gigs of ram and windows 7, for a laugh); and
- space to hook up a couple of SATA Hard Drives.

Nothing too fancy! I will need wifi but can always add a card later on and so arent fussed about the mobo having that built in or anything.

So any advice ... or am ia sking for the impossible and so should just get a dual slot mobo and some earplugs?

and ... thanks in advance

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Motherboard Master

Sell your quad on craigslist or ebay. Socket f boards are picky about ram and very expensive. Go with a propus 630 or phenom 955 black edition for gaming. And newegg has the msi 760GM-E51 for ddr3 for around $70. Most newer boards give you the ability to lower the cpu fan rpms in the bios to reduce noise. For a quiet power supply, check some reviews for these brands: antec, corsair, pc power and coolling, seasonic, or enermax at around 650 watts.at newegg.
Motherboard Expert

I'm with O1die- sell the Opterons and get some gaming hardware rather than server hardware- you'll end up with a better gaming rig for less money that route. those server boards are just too expensive and finicky with RAM etc. you can get a solid AMD 790GX or 790FX (or even 890GX/FX) for a decent price and have some sweet performance with a Phenom II 965 or 955. It'll cost you a TON less than a socket F board.

ah thanks for the replies guys, i got two of the CPUs extremely cheap, i paid less than £180 for each and they seem to retail at nearly ten times that amount. Wondered if i could easily use them. I did some searching myself, and have indeed seen that the only boards available have specific DDR 2 memory requirements, and as i previously mentioned the boards all seem to be dual slot and have one PCI-e slot or mismatched slots if they do have 2.

I think you are right tho, i might try and persuade our Sys Admin here at work that it is best if my company buys them off me and turns them into high performance servers. Then like you say i can get myself something a little more suited for building a home pc/gaming rig :) 

Cheers for the advice you two, thought it best to ask, in case some expert on here knew of a cheap, easy to use, yet awesome socket F board. I tried but couldnt find anywhere on the t'interwebs myself :) 
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