14 DAY TRIAL // The Skulltrail platform has had its share of attention during the last year, mostly because it's supposed to be the most powerful dual-processor system aimed at enthusiasts, rather than at the server business. Although the average user will not be tempted to pump that much money into a system, it's good to know that you can purchase it anytime: the Skulltrail platform is here!
The dual-processor platform is currently the top hardware configuration money can buy, except for supercomputing clusters. The platform is based on Intel's dual-socket eATX motherboard aimed at the consumer market - D5400XS. The board is almost identical to the company's technology that has been successfully used for the Xeon server architecture.
The D5400XS board is built on the 5400 chipset, which allows it to support an 1600 MHz front side bus (FSB), up to 8 GB of FB-DIMM DDR2 memory. Despite its computing power, DDR3 memory modules are not supported and you'll have to do with the FB-DIMM RAM, that is more expensive and performs lower. The two LGA 771 sockets support the latest 45-nanometer Core 2 Extreme processors, as well as two 45-nanometer or 65-nanometer Xeon chips. The chipset also comes with ten USB 2.0 ports, six SATA II ports, as well as two Firewire interfaces.
The Skulltrail is mostly targeted at professional gamers, and that's the reason Intel advises the customers to use two quad-core Core 2 Extreme QX9775 processors. They allow for individual frequencies of 3.2 GHz, and come with 12 MB of L2 cache. Needless to say that these chips are literally hot, given the fact that they dissipate 150 watts of power each.
The system's performance is proportional with its price. The D5400XS motherboard alone costs about $650, while the processors will cost you some extra $1500 for each unit. Of course, pre-built Skulltrail systems have started to emerge on the market, but they come with dazzling price tags. For instance, a Skulltrail-based system offered by Falcon Northwest costs no less than $10,034.57. It features a 1000 watt power supply, 4 GB of memory, two GeForce 8800 Ultra graphics cards, two 1 TB hard drives, a DVD burner and Windows Vista Ultimate (64-bit).