I was doing an "If wishes were horses" list today. You know, the kind of system you'd kill to have. Well, I found a few very nice Quad Opteron (Socket F) boards. The SuperMicro H8QM3-2 That requires a custom SuperMicro case (Which, AFAICT, already comes fully populated with a Quad Xeon board?!?) Or the Tyan Thunder n4250QE (S4985), which requires a case that supports "SSI MEB" size (13"x16"). I've found out that 13"x16" is the same size as the SWTX form factor, but I've not managed to find any (non-rackmount) cases in either format, and only one rackmount case, which doesn't have a price listed (And is a custom variant anyways). So, does anyone know of a box I could throw this sucker into, and what is the point of making a motherboard if there's no case out there that it'll fit into?
pretty much any case that is going to hold a motherboard like that is going to be a rackmount. usually these boards will be in a barebones server, but rackmountpro has quite a few cases that will accomodate here's the tyan board (with the additional 4-way daughterboard) http://www.rackmountpro.com/productpage.php?prodid=3426 in a case
Tyan Thunder n4250QE + Cooler Master Stacker 810 = win. Getting the additional daughterboard in is a bit tricky (you basically need to build a tray and supports for it yourself), but the motherboard drops right in.
These are particularly useful for high-performance servers, graphics workstations, and audio workstations (hence the legacy PCI slot).
I think that form factor is an AMD thing, Intel uses something different for their quad CPU configs, but I don't know the name off head. I have seen a lot of Sun systems that look like they take that form factor, but they are all rack mount. The keyword I think you are looking for in your searches is pedestal though that still turns up very little in the way of cases. Here is one that is just the case, and another that is a complete system. The cases exsist, but you typically need to know where the OEMs get their stuff from. The only comany I can think of off the top of my head is Foxconn. I'll have to dig to see is Supermicro is making their own, or who they are contracting with.
Keep in mind both of those are rackmount cases, but ones which also come with feet. I've got somthing similar for my eATX Tyan K8WE board. Whats scary is that at this year's linuxfest someone was displaying an 8-way Opty server in a 2 or 3 u rackmount case! I had to wonder how they keep it from spontaniously combusting.