Buying a Socket F Opteron
The server that this blog is running on has served me well. It is running e-mail with SPAM and anti-virus filtering, officially mirroring several OSS projects and it is also serving several web pages. It is doing its job well, but it has been pushed too hard and it is time for a replacement. When putting it together (actually upgrading it from a Slot A Athlon) I had bought an ASUS P4S533-X motherboard which allowed my to go with a cheap Celeron running at 2.4GHz and reuse two of several PC133 512MB DIMMs (buying DDR would have been too much for me at that time). And it has run like that for quite a while.
When I decided to upgrade the machine, I decided that I'll buy something that is going to run for a while. So I decided to go with a couple of the new dual core Opteron processors (the HE type) a reasonable TYAN motherboard and four pieces of 512MB DDR2 DIMMs (registered memory is still too expensive). So, it was hard enough to find a retailer carrying all these items in Japan... it seems that if you want to buy the latest and greatest gaming hardware you can step in any shop, but for server hardware you have to look high and low. Fortunately I did find a shop. MYSPEC.com obviously specialize in server hardware and have everything that I need. There is also PC-IDEA who do have plenty of stuff, but the prices of what I was looking for are a tad higher and the choice of CPUs non-existent. They do have plenty of Socket F motherboards, but the guys at MYSPEC.com did have what I need.
Anyway, the real problem appears to come when buying a cooler for the CPUs. Apparently such a thing as Socket F coolers does not exist. Well, not for us, ordinary people it doesn't. Part of the fault seems to go to AMD, who apparently released two different specifications for the Socket F. It also seems that most of the currently released boards are compatible with the older Socket 940 coolers. I also read that TYAN are specifically including clips that would allow Socket 940 to be used with their Socket F motherboards. I cannot find the links now, but I guess I'll get a couple of Socket F coolers and hope for the best. It's frustrating... buying a 250,000 yen computer and being unable to find a cooler or at least some information as to what cooler to buy. It's probably best to simply ask the guys that I'm buying from.
When I decided to upgrade the machine, I decided that I'll buy something that is going to run for a while. So I decided to go with a couple of the new dual core Opteron processors (the HE type) a reasonable TYAN motherboard and four pieces of 512MB DDR2 DIMMs (registered memory is still too expensive). So, it was hard enough to find a retailer carrying all these items in Japan... it seems that if you want to buy the latest and greatest gaming hardware you can step in any shop, but for server hardware you have to look high and low. Fortunately I did find a shop. MYSPEC.com obviously specialize in server hardware and have everything that I need. There is also PC-IDEA who do have plenty of stuff, but the prices of what I was looking for are a tad higher and the choice of CPUs non-existent. They do have plenty of Socket F motherboards, but the guys at MYSPEC.com did have what I need.
Anyway, the real problem appears to come when buying a cooler for the CPUs. Apparently such a thing as Socket F coolers does not exist. Well, not for us, ordinary people it doesn't. Part of the fault seems to go to AMD, who apparently released two different specifications for the Socket F. It also seems that most of the currently released boards are compatible with the older Socket 940 coolers. I also read that TYAN are specifically including clips that would allow Socket 940 to be used with their Socket F motherboards. I cannot find the links now, but I guess I'll get a couple of Socket F coolers and hope for the best. It's frustrating... buying a 250,000 yen computer and being unable to find a cooler or at least some information as to what cooler to buy. It's probably best to simply ask the guys that I'm buying from.
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