Intel Skulltrail Part 1: The Power of 8 Cores

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1000 Watt Power Supply

Since the D5400XS was developed to satisfy the highest demands, it requires a brawny power supply with good and plentiful cables. Intel recommends using a PSU with at least 1000 Watts. Yes, you read correctly - 1 kilowatt.

Intel's PSU Recommendations
Power Rating1000 W1400 W
Memory4 GB8 GB
Processors24
GPUs24

Eight-pin power connectors

The two 150-Watt processors can only be supplied with sufficient power through eight-pin connectors. Overclockers should use both of these eight-pin connectors while a single one should suffice for normal operation at default clock speeds.

Eight-pin power cables

Only very few commercially available power supplies come with two 8-pin power cables and connectors. For the tests, we used the Enermax Galaxy EGA1000EWL, which is rated at 1000 Watts. This PSU features two 8-pin power connectors as well as two six-pin PCI-Express connectors

Enermax Galaxy EGA 1000EWL PSU

Enermax Galaxy EGA 1000EWL label

Bert Toepelt
3 Comments Comment from the forums
  • white1widow
    I agree that the Skulltrail rig with two QX9775's is hands down the most incredible thing as of late. with a dual 9800gx2 SLI option its the gamers dream and could devour any game. As far as 8 core dual proc setups its the most powerful and obviously the most expensive. Being the most powerful means that everyone wants it and being the most expensive means that only the few, dedicated and rich enthusiast will have it... The rest of people who realize the power of a dual quad system will go Quad FX - the drasticaly cheaper route. I paid $600 for two FX72 at 2.8ghz and the quadfather motherboard. And I get incredible performance not far behind what skulltrail benchmarks indicate. I can multitask and an astounding level using XP64bit and a 5 drive raid + 4gb DDR2. So basically my point is this: Intel has created the most incredible rig (skulltrail), but nobody can afford it. thats not bringing power to the masses, its ripping folks off. That is why whenever Intel comes out with something awesome, I will always go and purchase the immensesly comparable AMD alternative at 1/4 the price. Dual FX72's is more than any nerd will ever need, if need be, I will simply upgrade to dual quad opterons and ECC memory.
    Reply
  • xcorat
    Hi
    So does anybody have a recommendation on a northbridge fan I can use?
    preferably easy to install?( I really hate to take the motherboard out on that monster.)
    Reply
  • IBMSYSADMIN
    I agree W1W, Performance and Value have to balance for most of us these days....
    Reply