If this is built would Haiku have any chance of running on it. Might also be a good deal, if it does, for Haiku programmers on the cheap.
http://www.techspot.com/review/1155-affordable-dual-xeon-pc/
I think, for Haiku even with one CPU PC will be a monster.
Actually almost every current PC for Haiku is a monster.
And this one of many things what people likes in Haiku.
I have a quad-core i5 Haiku box. I have never, ever seen all four cores max out. You get to a point where you spending money for power that will never be used, and an 8-core Xeon probably is it. But if you do build it, send videos!
Ah, but will Haiku run on those chipsets and on those CPUs is really the question. One reason for this much harware is usually more than just Haiku is being used, and those operating systems can use more speed. Of course some of the best speed increases will come from faster drives.
I run a quadcore too (Intel® Core™2 Quad CPU Q6600 @ 2.40GHz × 4), that about as fast as the fastest i7s. No problem with Haiku, but I am getting some maxing out when running Ubuntu 16.04. Also Firefox is running more out of memory then it use too, and that plus the way I use my computer memory is becoming a problem. Then the components are getting close to a decade old, so thinking maybe an upgrade might be wise, especially this cheap for that much power. But would want to make sure Haiku would run on those chips first. I had to dump BeOS after years of use, because it could not handle the newer hardware I installed.
Be sure to check the power bill as well. These Xeon machines lack some of the powersaving and also generate a lot more heat than desktop ones. In the long term, it may not be a wise choice if your goal is to save money.
Its only a thought at this time to do this, but was thinking if Haiku could shut off processors and threads, then maybe it wouldn’t be too bad compared to running wide open all the time. Just running off half the board also looks possible, but I may be wrong. Very tempting, but just thinking about it. In winter it could help keep me warm.
There is another possible show stopper and that is recent advancements in nano tech, such as graphene, which could totally obsolete such a machine and probably be cheaper. Thanks on mentioning the heat angle a watt is a watt.
Yes, you can enable/disable CPU cores, even manually in ProcessController or Pulse. Unlike in BeOS, you need to keep at least 1 core running, however.
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I have a I7 computer, when using Haiku have seen all 8 CPUs (4 real, 4 virtual) in use when I use certain programs but the programs run so fast that if I switch to just one real CPU (BIOS setting) I see little or no slowdown in the operation of any programs.
With only one CPU if I am running a number of programs in Haiku I can see a slowdown, but if I switch to just two CPUs the slowdown vanishes.
The only time I find myself using the entire CPU power available is when I run my own program which has 256 threads, other than that I have never seen all the CPU monitors spike.
Well, the software programs for Haiku may become larger and more complex, with time, and able to use more power.
And most will not use just Haiku if they have newer hardware, and Linux for example might be a tad faster with the advanced hardware of the twin Xeon server processors. And I know I am seeing max outs in Linux at times, of 1 or 2 of my 4 processors. The increased massive memory of that board and those Xenons should help, at least with the other operating systems speeds.
Just a thought
Lol, I have 8’’ tablet with quad-core Intel Atom Z-series (yep, it’s actually quad, without HT) 1.8GHz and only with 1GB RAM (and 16GB SSD).
It purchased with aim to install Haiku in the future, but it requires x86 OS with x64 UEFI bootloader — that’s a main problem. Another trouble is drivers for touch and WiFi — their lack, of course.
Are you sure it MUST use x64 UEFI, if looking a various laptop that have secure boot as their default I have usually found there is a way to by-pass that mode. But I also found I need to bug the tech supoort people repeatly to get they to admit and then find how to access the standard boot mode.
In one case I ended up talking to five(5) different people over eight(8) different visits before I found the information to get one laptop booting. In another case Haiku would not boot until we changed the BIOS settings for supporting VM software.
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