So, a few days back i mentioned that my Mac Pro died… this meant that i could start the process of planning and building the Workstation V.Next, as i like to call it.

So, what do i currently have planned:

  • The Board: Intel Shady Cove S5520S. It has
    • 12 DIMM sockets, each supporting up to 4Gb, giving a total of 48Gb RAM
    • 2 1366 Sockets, allowing 2 Xeon 5500 Series processors
    • 6 SATA ports
    • 8 USB Ports (including the extra headers)
    • 2 Firewire ports
    • 2 PCI Express x16 V2 slots
    • 4X, 8X PCI Express and a PCI slot
    • Non SLI Compatible, but Crossfire is good to go…
    • and twin GigE Network ports
    • chipset
  • CPU: Intel Xeon E5520 X2
    • Intel-VT
    • x64
    • 2.26Gz
    • 8mb cache
    • Hyper-Threading
    • Quad Core
    • 731 Million Transistors!
    • Xeon inside
  • Case: SilverStone TJ07
  • Cooling: Water

At the moment, i am not 100% sure what to get when it comes to water cooling gear. all i know is that i could potentially fit a 4x120mm rad in the bottom of the case and stick a pump and reservoir in one or 2 of the 5.25