[ale] *Serious* motherboards?

[Dan Lambert]

On Wed, 2007-09-12 at 23:37 -0600, JK wrote:
> Hi folks,
> 
> In my day-to-day work, I need to have a bunch of different systems
> up and running in my software build+test environment.  Two build
> machines (one XP, one Linux), at least two and sometimes three XP
> servers, an XP workstation, and at least two and probably soon
> three Linux servers.  One of the Linux boxes runs a real-time simulation,
> which is pretty CPU- and RAM-intensive.  Another Linux box interacts
> with the simulation on a once/second basis.  One of the XP machines
> also interacts with the simulation once/sec, although not as intensely.
> The other boxes have more interactive or I/O-bound loads.
> 
> I'm toying with the idea of having all this stuff sitting in a single 
> box, though
> still realized as separate virtual servers.  I think I'd need a motherboard
> supporting at least 16GB of RAM, and probably a pair of dual-core CPUs.
> Plus appropriate case, PS, cooling, ...
> 
> Every system I've built in the past has been made from bargain-basement
> parts. :-)  I am not sure where to begin researching such high-end hardware.
> Any suggestions for specific hardware I should look at,  or sites with
> reviews of such things?
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> -- JK

I have always had the best luck using Tyan server motherboards. I know
there are other very good quality high end mother boards available that
will do what you want, but the Tyan boards always seemed to have the
best balance of price, quality and feature set for the servers I've
built.

It's been a couple of years since I built one, so things may have
changed.

Dan