Any experiences with the Iwill Zmaxdp?

[sircharles32]

My everyday computer is a Biostar iDeq 210V, running with an Athlon XP 2500+, 2 x 512MB Kingmax DDR400 @ DDR333, and a Sapphire Radeon 9800 Pro.

The system is starting to feel it's age while multitasking, or just doing even simple video editing.

After building an Opteron 150 workstation, almost 1 year ago, I've become hooked on the stability that it brings (at least with my experiences) over desktop components and RAM issues. However, it is quite a bit louder than I'd like for everyday use.

In comes the Iwill Zmaxdp, that supports dual Opterons (according to Iwill, up to 2.6 GHz 252s) and even dual core Opterons (with a warning about the thermal environment, ie, probably not the 280s). My question is, what are your experiences with this SFF, good or bad?

I know there will be those of you out there that will immediatly dismiss the Zmaxdp and just tell me to forget it and get an Athlon X2 and some other SFF that supports it. Please resist the urge to post those comments. I'm only interested in hearing about peoples experiences with the Iwill Zmaxdp.

Thank you for your time.

[SpotTheCat]

one question: are you thinking of getting single core opterons or dual core opterons?

remember, that is an aging AGP platform.

[sircharles32]

I was thinking, most likely, to get dual 248s. I simply can't afford anything more advanced.

[sircharles32]

The AGP slot is actually one of the key features that interested me. I wouldn't have to replace my Sapphire Radeon 9800 Pro. Besides, gaming isn't one of my main pursuits.

[SpotTheCat]

for less money you could get a
Shuttle SN95G5V3 (NF3 250gb, basically NF4 ultra with AGP)
opteron 180 (faster than two 248s... still the same opteron platform, accepts registered or unbuffered DIMMs)

I just don't see two single core opterons as a good choice these days. I really like that iwill system, but it would only make sense if you had two dual-core opterons and a need for all of that power.

[sircharles32]

Are you entirely SURE that I could use Registered memory? I was under the impression that the socket 939 Opterons were only able to utilize unbuffered (non-registered) RAM.

[SpotTheCat]

I'm at a loss. I was under the impression that the new opeterons accepted both registered and unbuffered.

We need a 3rd leg.

[sircharles32]

Here's a link from AMD's site.

http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/Pro ... 57,00.html

It seems to indicate that all socket 939 Opterons are indeed unbuffered (not registered) memory users. It seems that only socket 940 Opterons support registered memory, however, they all support ECC.

That kind of sucks, because I feel that the registered memory is what eased my computer woes from before.

viewtopic.php?t=31059&highlight=

I'm leary to spend a large chunk of cash ($1K) on an unbuffered memory system after that 3-4 months of hell.

[SpotTheCat]

ahhh, it is ECC that I was thinking of. ECC is a good system of memory checking. What were you doing that 1 in a trillion errors became a problem?

[sircharles32]

I ran into a bad combination of motherboards/memory/and CPUs, or to put it bluntly, I went through (in a 3 month period of trouble shooting):

(4) Asus A7V880 motherboards (VIA KT880)
(1) DFI NFII U400SG-AGF (nVidia NForce 2 400 Ultra Gb)
(2) AMD Athlon XP 2500+ CPUs
(1) Antec True 430 ATX power supply
(1) CoolerMaster Real Power 450 Watt ATX power supply
(2) 256 MB DDR400 PQI Turbo
(2) 256 MB DDR400 Kingston HyperX
(2) 512 MB DDR400 Kingmax Value
(1) 256 MB DDR333 Kingston Value

So, as you can see I went completely insane trying to trouble-shoot the socket A system, and that's when I snapped, took the plunge and built my Opteron 150 workstation, which unlike the socket A system, works. That is why I'm partial to Opteron chips and Registered memory, because my system build problems went away.

[just brew it!]

Well... registered DIMMs definitely have a higher probability of being stable, provided your mobo can use them. They have higher latency and cost more though, which is why they've never really caught on for ordinary desktop systems.

[flip-mode]

(4) Asus A7V880 motherboards (VIA KT880)
(1) DFI NFII U400SG-AGF (nVidia NForce 2 400 Ultra Gb)
(2) AMD Athlon XP 2500+ CPUs
(1) Antec True 430 ATX power supply
(1) CoolerMaster Real Power 450 Watt ATX power supply
(2) 256 MB DDR400 PQI Turbo
(2) 256 MB DDR400 Kingston HyperX
(2) 512 MB DDR400 Kingmax Value
(1) 256 MB DDR333 Kingston Value

I bet it was the case!

[sircharles32]

That's a good one.

I can laugh about it, now.

[dragmor]

Get the SN95G5v3 and an X2, Pick up some value ram and you will be fine.

Just make sure
a) You get greater than BOM 36 (I'm pretty sure that everything after week 36 support dual core)
b) Update the bios pretty much straight away.

[flip-mode]

That's a good one.

I can laugh about it, now.

Yeah, I was joking but it is possible. Somewhere there's a thread where I spoke about this one case that was the slightest bit out of spec so that a PCI card didn't sit all of the way into the slot and so the computer was continually blue screening. I switched the case and presto! I've honestly never heard of going through that many components without being able to solve the problem so that's quite strange.

[flip-mode]

You could get the ZmaxDP and just put one dual core Opteron in there and still have your Registered memory, or just get a darn ATX tower case.

[sircharles32]

Well, it wasn't the case. I installed a test system in that case for a few months (dual Pentium II 400) and it had no problems what so ever. Granted, I'm not using that case now, but it wasn't the case.

It was one of those cases where all those components worked perfectly in seperate systems, but just wouldn't play well together. For instance:

The CoolerMaster Real Power 450 Watt currently resides in my Opteron Workstation. The Antec True 430 resides in my personal server. One Athlon XP 2500+ resides in my "every day" computer, an iDeq 210V. The other resides in a slightly defunked Shuttle SN45G. The Kingston HyperX memory resides in the SN45G. The Kingmax memory resides in the iDeq 210V.

So, I found a home for most of the parts, but it was an experience I'd like not to repeat.

[sircharles32]

This whole thread started by me asking about the experiences "other" people have had with the Iwill Zmaxdp. I'd like to hear the good and the bad.

[flip-mode]

I've never heard anyone on these forums speak of owning or working with one. I'd be interested too if anyone has.

[Flying Fox]

There was one thread, but I haven't seen Ma10n3! in months.

[Wajo]

can you even buy that ssf ?¿ it was a paper launch for the most part if I remember correctly..

[sircharles32]

Here's two places I've found:

http://www.geeks.com/products.asp?cat=BBK

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6856101809

There's almost a $200 price delta between the two. Needless to say, I'd probably get it from geeks.com over newegg.com.