One Xeon now....another later?

[Srek]

Yes, thats no problem. Every Dual Socket mainboard i know of supports 1 or 2 CPUs.
Keep in mind though that if you don't plan to add a second CPU rather soon your calculation might misfire due to CPUs becoming more expensive when they are older and new CPUs beeing cheaper and faster on a nearly monthly basis.
If you want a bit of a future proof system i would go for a single socket system based on the Intel X38 chipset and use it with a Q6600 CPU. Once faster CPUs (maybe even with more cores) become available chances are high they will be supported by this chipset and Mainboard.
In the long run it's usualy less expensive and troublesome to simply replace the old system with a new one every few years.
Cheers
Björn

[2scale]

I agree with Bjorn. A couple of years back I did the same thing. Thinking buying a dual system with one chip would save me money....That didnt work out. The problem was intel changes the chips so frequently so after 3 months I went and tried to buy anotherchip to match the one I currently had. I couldnt get one. Yes, the timing has to be the same not like ram chips...My advise buy a fast 64bit computer,dual or quad, doesnt matter or go full dual processesor.Your gonna waste your money on the moboard for a dual pro if you only buy one cpu. This time I opted dual core dual processor Xenon and I love it...Dual core dual processor you dont really notice until render time and the multiple application factor, but man what a diff. One scene Im working on went from over 25min at 720x486 to 2min using the same clock speed computer with mental ray... 4 minutes for hi def...What a diff...Ahhh... Go Win 64 if you dont rely on older apps too much. Much faster in large data transfers.

Good luck, J

[okmijun]

to much money, better go w/ q6600 PCs than one dual socket intel
(ecc ram, mobos, PSU etc......to much expensive)

[paul.rogers]

Hmmm....good points folks. I hadn't thought of the potential issues getting another matching CPU a few months down the road.

It does make me wonder though....where are the best prices to be found on components. Anyone up to the challenge of pricing out the most cost effective Dual Quad set-up? ;)

I will continue to ponder the issue. Thanks for the thoughts and I am happy to hear any other opinions out there!

Ciao,

Paul

[Nomad]

Well I had a similar problem buying a dual core 6 month ago, now I replaced it with a quad core. During this 6 month prices of quad cores fell down so I really win on this. The only thing was to buy an expensive motherboard which supported quads even they not was on the market.

For now I`m thinking about a solution with more processors / cores because I want to build a small render farm. Seeing the crazy prices of dual core motherboards or even rack servers I see it`s cheaper to buy single PCs with single Q6600 quad cores on board. For examble a HP server with 2 quad core xeons and 4GB ram worth 3000eur and one PC with a Q6600 quad core and 4GB of ram woth 1000eur so you see the difference. Now there is only the fact that space and power consumption is not the same. But does it worth 1000eur difference and 30% power up? I think yes :)
I`m curious if anyone have a better solution.

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