Thread: Dual CPU Motherboard?

I was curious if anyone had looked into dual-cpu motherboards. Googling doesn't show anything promising. The ASUS Z9PE-D8 WS Dual LGA 2011 was the most interesting I had found.

I've been looking for a board that can supply a massive amount of CPU power (it doesn't necessarily have to be coordinated for the same program). I often play games that tax my Intel 3770K, so when I try to stream, the most I can compress the stream to without dropping frames (while keeping > 25FPS) is around 2MB/s upload. That said, I've looked at capture cards as well, but then I'd have to build a second PC with yet still a beastly CPU so it can compress and upload the video in real-time.

Anyone have some insight or some sites I could visit for benchmarks, other info, etc?

I believe specialized software needs to be written to use dual CPUs. Dual CPU motherboards have a unique form factor and so are difficult to acquire outside of specialized business use, and wouldn't fit in your average case. Basically, you'd have two CPUs, but all your games and programs would run off of just one because they don't know how to utilize two.

At least, that's my understanding of it. If someone more knowledgeable can prove me wrong, I'd be happy to be proven wrong.

You might be better served going the route of an external capture device like the reviewers are all using for frame rating. HDMI capture card with pass-through.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 4

I think they're mainly used for servers and computing machines.

From what I've read, W7 can support up to 256 cores, so you might be able to use one.

The operating system will handle the dual CPUs so that isn't something to worry about.

I'd be curious though in why you think you need a better CPU though for streaming? What games are you trying to stream and and what specs? What streaming software? For the most part I find I always drop frames when I first start to stream, but then it stops dropping right away.

capture cards worth their salt are all hardware based compression. So you wouldn't need a beast cpu to do that. The compression (x264) happens on the card in real-time. Old cards were hit and miss like the old All In Wonder cards from ATI. Those were software based compression so the cpu was quite a big part of it.

Originally Posted by Kanati8869

capture cards worth their salt are all hardware based compression. So you wouldn't need a beast cpu to do that. The compression (x264) happens on the card in real-time. Old cards were hit and miss like the old All In Wonder cards from ATI. Those were software based compression so the cpu was quite a big part of it.

Ok, cool. I was under the impression it was just passing an uncompressed image from point A to point B. That makes things a whole lot easier and makes the whole Dual CPU thing a bit moot (although my poor 3770K bottlenecks my GPUs sometimes, even with my triple monitor setup).

Originally Posted by gehn

The operating system will handle the dual CPUs so that isn't something to worry about.

I'd be curious though in why you think you need a better CPU though for streaming? What games are you trying to stream and and what specs? What streaming software? For the most part I find I always drop frames when I first start to stream, but then it stops dropping right away.

Yea, the OS would make the CPUs appear as just X-Cores for an application to use (although there's OS-specific API you can query to figure out the exact details).

I'm using a combination of DXtory and XSplit. DXtory to capture and crop the image, with XSplit performing the compression and uploading. I can't compress it past a certain point (and keep a good quality stream and > 25 FPS in game) with just my Intel 3770K.

Originally Posted by WileECyte

You might be better served going the route of an external capture device like the reviewers are all using for frame rating. HDMI capture card with pass-through.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 4

This, since now I know they perform their own compression.


Thanks everyone for their feedback. On a second note, if anyone has actually ever experienced a dual CPU setup or has benchmarks of their performance, I'd still be interested, if only from a "Curious George" stand-point.

Make sure you verify that the capture device you purchase has on board hardware compression. It'll say on the box/ad.

I used to have a dual Opteron server but thats all. Why are you using two different items? It looks like they both do the same type of thing, except one doesn't stream the data. What specifically are you trying to stream? I had a Core i7 920 and I could stream and play anything but Planetside 2 on that thing at 1080p. Your CPU should be more than powerful for anything you are trying to stream, especially if your upload is only good enough for 2000 kbps, which means you shouldn't be streaming anything higher than 720p.

You also may want to try Open Broadcaster System, I heard it has lower CPU requirements and has a 64-bit exe.

I've tried both and they each have their own advantages and disadvantages. Xsplits capturing seems to be better, especially for older games. It also has that nice Scene system. But it doesn't support basic features like PTT keys for any key, including mouse keys. And it costs money.

OBS is free, supports PTT for any button. Uses less CPU.

Originally Posted by gehn

I used to have a dual Opteron server but thats all. Why are you using two different items? It looks like they both do the same type of thing, except one doesn't stream the data. What specifically are you trying to stream? I had a Core i7 920 and I could stream and play anything but Planetside 2 on that thing at 1080p. Your CPU should be more than powerful for anything you are trying to stream, especially if your upload is only good enough for 2000 kbps, which means you shouldn't be streaming anything higher than 720p.

You also may want to try Open Broadcaster System, I heard it has lower CPU requirements and has a 64-bit exe.

I've tried both and they each have their own advantages and disadvantages. Xsplits capturing seems to be better, especially for older games. It also has that nice Scene system. But it doesn't support basic features like PTT keys for any key, including mouse keys. And it costs money.

OBS is free, supports PTT for any button. Uses less CPU.

I play in 6050x1080p. XSplit doesn't support (nicely...) cropping the image down to a manageable size before attempting to compress and upload. I can crop the image and resize it before sending it to XSplit with DXtory. Plus, in my experience, XSplit's capturing techniques aren't as good / use more resources than DXtory.

I tried OBS. Didn't work out.