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windows 7 or 8 does not support quad socket mother boards. by quad socket i mean that there are 4 processors. each can have a bunch of cores. so if it's 16-core amd processor, it would be 4*16 = 64 cores.

windows server however supports quad socket motherboards.

and a lot of people start with windows server, add some software/libs and are capable of playing games.

so by installing win server on quad socket then adding needed software, is it possible to play games? like battle field or gta or need for speed?

if yes, can you say a bit how would you go about what software to put on it.

will there be any limitation to running software?

Update (1)

these posts are similar:

Is it possible to use a server to play games?

How many physical processors does Windows 8 Support?

but the question still remains because i'm not sure if the libraries and os are compatible with games.

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kirill_igum
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  • **Why on bloody Earth are you trying to do this?** Pro editions of desktop Windows are limited to two sockets, you'll need Windows Server. Single-threaded workloads will perform poorly as clock frequencies will be low; many enterprise workloads, like [OLTP](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_transaction_processing), are massively parallel which is why these sorts of servers exist. Besides, these sorts of systems are meant to be left unattended in a datacenter and hence are typically designed without regard for noise output. Expect to get hearing damage after a few days with the system. – bwDraco Jan 08 '17 at 23:41
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    I also doubt you have the electrical power to run one of these machines. Here in the US, these kinds of servers are typically designed for 20A sockets and assume a UPS and other fancy power equipment. In some cases, you may need a specialty outlet such as NEMA L5-30R, which is almost never found in residential environments. – bwDraco Jan 08 '17 at 23:48

2 Answers2

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None of the games that you mention are CPU bound (very few are). You're going to hit GPU/Disk/RAM limitations far before you can take advantage of a quad socket box. There's not really a point to cramming 4 CPUs into a gaming box right now when a single high-end i7 can pretty much handle anything out right now at a fraction of the price.

Also, are you really going to spend $10,000 USD or more on Xeons that are capable of a quad socket configuration? You can't just cram 4 i7s in a motherboard and call it a day.

To top it all off, if you want more than 32GB RAM (I mean, you have 4 CPUs - are you really only going to have 32GB RAM?), you'll need to spring for Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise edition, which has a nice $3,000 USD price tag on it.

That said, Windows Server 2008 R2 has the same kernel as Windows 7. As long as the application itself isn't checking OS version, it should run fine.

MDMarra
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    it does make sense if you want to play games on a workstation that you use for work. – kirill_igum Dec 26 '12 at 21:20
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    If, it makes more sense that you should be **working** on a workstation that you use for work and gaming on your home computer. With hardware that expensive you are likely to get in to a lot of trouble if you get caught. – Scott Chamberlain Dec 26 '12 at 21:50
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    @kirill_igum While this is true, the fact that you're asking this question leads me to believe that you don't actually have this workstation already. If that's the case, you probably haven't checked to see if your work applications are supported on Windows Server either, have you? If games aren't officially supported, but they work - then that's one thing, but not running business applications on a supported platform is bad. I'd check this before you make any purchases, it might be a non-starter. – MDMarra Dec 26 '12 at 23:06
  • That said, enabling Desktop Experience and setting the OS to prioritize foreground tasks instead of background tasks will make Windows Server behave very much like a client OS. It's the same kernel, so all of the drivers should work without issue. – MDMarra Dec 26 '12 at 23:07
  • @MDMarra i work in linux. all i need is g++, mpi and vim. your comment for the kernel makes sense. thank you – kirill_igum Dec 26 '12 at 23:36
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Your other consideration is that the software has to be written to make use of the additional CPUs. Just because they are there, doesn't mean they will be utilized.

In order for a system to be optimized, you must have the following working together: 1. BIOS has to be able support multiple CPUs 2. The OS must be able to support multiple CPUs 3. The application has to be able to support multiple CPUs.

If any of these are not enabled or present, you will be only using 1 CPU.

SChetools
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  • can you think of a library or application that would do well with 2 but not 4? I would think that applications would be set to use maximum number of threads. all the multi-thread libraries that I use scale automatically to number of course. i can't think of a scenario when one would limit to 2 cpus. – kirill_igum Dec 26 '12 at 23:01
  • but it's a good point that some programs will utilize one cpu. that kind of makes sense. – kirill_igum Dec 26 '12 at 23:01