Question 1

I have a i7-3930K, could I purchase a second one and use them on this motherboard?

Accepted Answer

No, the i7 desktop series cannot be used to fully populate any C602 platform. Even pin-compatible desktop chips that will run singly on the platform will not function with two installed. The QPI interface that would link between the two sockets is permanently disabled in the desktop SKUs.

If you pull up the Asus Support page for the Z9PE-D8 WS there is a section for CPU Compatibility which lists all of the E5-26xx (v1 and v2) processors supported for populating both sockets.

Question 2

what operating system will this board support?

Accepted Answer

I currently have 2 different systems using this board.
One is running WIN 7 Ultimate 64bit and the other is running WIN 8 Pro 64bit.

Question 3

Does this come with the CPU's...... I am guessing not but I do not see "no CPU" anywhere?

Accepted Answer

No - and I am guessing you may want to consider more of an entry level board if this is your first build.  As you will see from the reviews here there are some quirks to using a dual cpu server board that are not for the faint of heart.  That being said this thing is a beast if you run both intensive cpu and gpu tasks.

Question 4

Is this a normal ATX or E-ATX or what?

Accepted Answer

It is EEB form factor. 5 mounts line up with E-ATX 5 do not. Is possible to mount in an E-ATX case but only after modification of the case by tappng out 5 more mount holes. Also assuming case has overall physical size for board. It is kind of a big board.

Question 5

Hey everyone is this a good board for gaming or is this not worth it for gaming?

Accepted Answer

For gaming probably can go with a beefy i7 system. I did my most recent build off this board because in a addition to playing games, I also design them, and I do 3D work as well.  So having a pile of CPUs, which is possible with this board, is a benefit that is specific to my use.  For gaming and graphics I added an ASUS GTX 780 Ti, which is fun.  Could have two I guess.  I have dual Xeon E5-2650 v2's, which gives me 16 cores with hyperthreading.  Crazy to see 32 vCPUs in the task manager, although mostly I just get 16.  Everything is great but there is some difficulty with UEFI (don't do UEFI with this board unless you know exactly what you're doing).  I'm going to be diagnosing an issue with ASUS hopefully but it is possible to get a stable Win7 x64 booting UEFI off the Intel RSTe RAID.  I have a sweet system based on this board.

Question 6

I'm constructing a 12-core system and need to know the right choice of RAM for 32GB.  It says RDIMM on the back and I'm not sure where on NEW EGG that is.  What specific RAM is correct?

Accepted Answer

It will handle any of these types of memory I got the 32 GB also and this is what I purchased 
Item#: N82E16820231524 (Newegg)
I purchased quad channel mem, the RDIMM is not sold by Newegg it’s more of a specialty memory for servers and performance base, I doubt that it will make a noticeable difference, I do not game but I uses 3d rendering software like 3ds max and other Autodesk products it screams, I also purchased 2 6 core Xeons with 2 gtx 770 4GB each! They are awesome to say the least. Here some links you might find useful, why do you want the RDIMMS if I may ask? let me know if u have any questions maybe I can answer them for you good luck.

Here is the manufactures sanctioned RDIMM chips:

dlcdnet.asus (dot) com/pub/ASUS/server/ESC2000_G2/Manual&QVL/ESC2000G2_Z9PE-D8_WS_AVL_RDIMM_130926.pdf

Also here is the website to see what the compatible items are for this board or at lease tested:

asus (dot) com/Motherboards/Z9PED8_WS/#support

Question 7

Would this board support 7 Nvidia graphics cards for CUDA GPU computing? The information on the page is unclear on this subject.

Accepted Answer

The board will fit 7 x single width cards, my graphics card takes slots 1 & 2 for example. It's a complicated board, slots 1 3 5 7 are all PCIe3 x16 the others will be x8 if fully populated. The blue slots are the x16.

Beware - my MoBo just failed during building and is now RMA, memory slot E1 isn't working.

Question 8

Will Windows 7 and 8 work with this board? and will the OS see both CPUs separate from each other? Will 4TB and 6TB drive work with this system?

Accepted Answer

Greg,

Windows 7 & 8 will work with this board as well as 4 & 6 TB drives.

As for reading the CPU's separately; I am not sure what you are referring too.

I would also research the newer and improved ASUS Z10PE-D8 WS.

I've had the ASUS Z9PE-D8 WS board for over a year without any issues with dueal Xeon E5-2670's rendering large scale animations for multiple days.

This is a great board!

Question 9

Does this motherboard support SLI or crossfireX? I want multiple video cards along with multiple CPUs. Gonna have fun with this build. =]

Accepted Answer

The motherboard says it is 4 way sli or crossfire. It also came with the linkage for 3 or 4 way sli. I have not tested it though, because my build is for 3d rendering (multicore CPU). Currently, I currently run only one card (gtx 780 ti) therefor I have 3 empty PCIe slots.

The one gtx 780 ti has yet to disappoint. 
Crysis 3, metro last light run almost flawlessly on the highest settings. Make sure you have physx and latest drivers and game patches.

For gaming, it would be a waist to have this many CPU cores (Xeon). You will definently get better results sticking with one highly over clocked processor. The unlocked i7 extreme of course. The i7 can clock much higher per core than the Xeon and also it has all the cores a game would ever need. Pair this on an asus rog motherboard with 4 way sli or crossfire. It doesn't get better that this for gaming.

Question 10

Hi Please can you say which bios version is pre-installed on motherboard?
Many thanks

Accepted Answer

Good question. I took a risk but it came with a recent enough version to support the 2697 v2 which was not always the case from what I have read.

Questions & Answers