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Splotto · Thu Dec 27, 2001 11:08 pm

How many dullies are roaming this forum?

Forge · Thu Dec 27, 2001 11:16 pm

SMP whenever possible, but most of my boxen are loners.

At least they're all assimilated. I think my laptop was dying in boredom before I got it a NIC of it's own.

Coldfirex · Thu Dec 27, 2001 11:23 pm

dually here in all its goodness
Abit BP6 an 2x celery 550s

Forge · Thu Dec 27, 2001 11:25 pm

SMP is it!

Time for a run to the front page for more posters. :smile:

We need to see if phpBB does in-thread polls like bord does.

Thu Dec 27, 2001 11:42 pm

Dual in two machines. Have to use a single at work, and it sucks. Main machine is in my sig, here's the specs for the other one:

Dual PII/300, Intel DK440LX w/onboard UW SCSI & LAN, 512MB PC66, STB Velocity 128, Quantum Atlas IV 9GB, 3X IBM Ultrastar 9ES 4GB, Quantum Viking 2GB, Plextor 12Plex, PlexWriter 4X12, Sony SDT9000. Oh, and it's got a floppy drive, too.

_________________
Dual PII Xeon 400/1Meg cache, SuperMicro S2DGE (IDE disabled), 512MB PC100 ECC CAS2, Asus V7700 Deluxe, SB Live Value, Adaptec 2940U2W, Cheetah 4LP, Cheetah 9LP, Cheetah 18LP, Cheetah X15, Pioneer 6X SCSI DVD, internal SCSI Zip, Seagate(Connor) SCSI TR4 tape drive

[ This Message was edited by: Steel on 2001-12-27 22:45 ]

Tantric · Fri Dec 28, 2001 12:22 am

You guys make me feel so inadequate. I am waiting on the 760MPX to go duel. Any thoughts on one you would pick(except the Abit)? <Sarcasm>It is either a duel AMP or a single P4 1.3 so you can see I am torn<Sarcasm>

Edit: That was weird the forum disabled my sarcasm tags.

[ This Message was edited by: Tantric on 2001-12-27 23:23 ]

[ This Message was edited by: Tantric on 2001-12-27 23:28 ]

Forge · Fri Dec 28, 2001 12:36 am

Lots of folks are drooling over the Asus A7M266-D, and quite a few are eagerly awaiting the MSI board. I perosnally like the Asus first, the Abit second, and the Gigabyte third.

I've had good luck with Abit boards.

Fri Dec 28, 2001 12:38 am

I've got my eye on the Tyan Tiger MPX w/onboard NIC. They have, after all, the most experience with dual AMDs.

Forge · Fri Dec 28, 2001 1:07 am

Most experience crippling them, too. I'm looking forward to a board that moves, as Tyan makes covering their arses Job #1, to the point of severely slowing the board in several areas.

Forge · Fri Dec 28, 2001 1:09 am

For example:

All ram on the Thunder K7 is forced down to CAS3. Little known, but confirmed.

I believe the Tiger MP does the same thing.

It's a small thing, yes, but I'd imagine that it's unneccesary in 80-90% of the cases, and it's a slowdown I don't want.

Forge · Fri Dec 28, 2001 1:11 am

Then again (again), I suppose that is acceptable behaivor in their target enviroment, as that 10-20% would get increased stability.

Then again (again again), how many corporates buy cheap crap ram?

highlandr · Fri Dec 28, 2001 2:56 am

Then again, how many are worried about the performance hit when going from CAS2-3?

How many would even know the difference?

Dissonance · Fri Dec 28, 2001 4:31 am

Sadly, I'm still running dual 700s at 933 on an Abit VP6. Sure beats the hell out of the single 1.2 AMD chip I'm running on the box I took home for xmas though.

I have to admit I drool over SMP AMD though.

Bruce · Fri Dec 28, 2001 7:17 am

Hi,

I'm keen on SMP, having built a few Abit BP6-, Gigabyte 6BXD- and Gigabyte 6VXD7-based machines.

And I'd reaally like to have a go with one of the new 760MPX based AMD boards that will be coming soon.

But I must admit I'm seriously looking at building a single P4-based system using this board. Why? Because I value stability and multi-OS support above everything else. I won't touch a Via chipset at the moment due to their crap IDE implementations (although the jury is still out on the new VT8233(A) southbridge). I haven't found a good AMD 760-based board that doesn't use a Via southbridge - the Gigabyte 7DXR+ looks nice until you read the fine print.

Anyone remember the 440BX chipset? Intel don't - they made a fantastic product (ECC support, SMP support, Ultra DMA, USB etc...) and then released a whole load of crap with the 800 series - if you want ECC you need to go with RDRAM, silly decisions like that. I'm hoping the 845 is a step back in the right direction - we'll see.

Maybe I should just buy a Serverworks chipset board and stick a couple of Tualatin CPU's in it. Oh that's right, no DDR support. :mad:

Bruce

[ This Message was edited by: Bruce on 2001-12-28 06:17 ]

[ This Message was edited by: Bruce on 2001-12-28 06:18 ]

Splotto · Fri Dec 28, 2001 8:06 am

Well, as Forge can attest after my thread on 2cpu.com, I am about ready to give up on non-Intel SMP boards. My Tiger 133 and Tiger MP have given me too many troubles for my liking.

It will probably be dual Xeon's if my RMA'd TigerMP doesn't behave better.

Bob

_________________
Tyan Tiger 100, 2 x PIII 850 (100 MHz), 512 Megs SDRAM, Adaptec 2940 UW, 2xIBM 9LZX 9.1 Gig U2W, Seagate Cheetah 9.1 Gig U2W, Seagate Cheetah 4.3 Gig UW, UltraPlex 40x Wide SCSI, PlexWriter 8/20 SCSI, Pioneer 6x DVD SCSI, SBLive, ATi Radeon 8500DV, Iiyama

[ This Message was edited by: Splotto on 2001-12-28 07:14 ]

[ This Message was edited by: Splotto on 2001-12-28 07:15 ]

keifront · Fri Dec 28, 2001 8:13 am

SMP rocks.

[ This Message was edited by: keifront on 2001-12-28 07:19 ]

cRock · Fri Dec 28, 2001 1:14 pm

I've got a BP6 running Win2k/Linux and a Tiger MP running FreeBSD. My only sinlge CPU machine is a 60Mhz PPC running MkLinux. SMP rawks!!!

ANApex · Fri Dec 28, 2001 1:31 pm

Ok I'm curious, everything I've seen and heard about SMP is that 90% of home applications won't benefit from it. So what kind of advantages are you seeing for SMP besides bragging rights?(or video editing or whatever that might actually use both processors).

Splotto · Fri Dec 28, 2001 1:33 pm

Your OS will use it.

Deimos · Fri Dec 28, 2001 1:54 pm

...if it is an MP aware OS: W2k, XP Pro, Linux, etc.

Even if your apps don't use the 2nd processor, the OS will run processes on the 2nd proc when the first is busy. The overall "feel" of the system will be smoother (less pauses, hiccups, etc.) in comparison to a SP system.

Another benefit, esp. for developers, is the ability to run 2 CPU intensive tasks simultaneously: CPU-hog app on proc. 1, debugger on proc. 2; run-away process and task manager to kill said run-away process; big compile and Q3A. You know, important stuff. :smile:

lazytom · Fri Dec 28, 2001 4:17 pm

About that Asus A7M266-D: Looking at a picture (e.g. here http://www.asus.com.tw/mb/socketa/a7m266-d/overview.htm ) I'd say that you can't use the 64bit/66MHz slots for regular 32bit PCI cards. The slots seem to be "the other way round". Is that correct? If yes, is the Asus boards really a viable solution for a personal machine, if you've got only 3 "usable" PCI slots?

[ This Message was edited by: lazytom on 2001-12-28 15:17 ]

Fri Dec 28, 2001 5:11 pm

The "backward" slots are keyed for 3.3v cards. There are some 32 bit cards with two notches in them that can be used in both 5v and 3.3v slots. Keep in mind if you put a 33MHz card in a 66MHz slot it will knock the speed of the bus down to 33MHz. Since the north and south bridge are connected via the same 66MHz PCI bus, that speed will be cut in half also. Oh, and there are some cards (can't remember which right now) that are keyed incorrectly, so watch out.

HowardDrake · Fri Dec 28, 2001 7:24 pm

I've got a classic duallie:

2 Celery 366 @ 550
BP6
512M Crucial CL2
2x30G Maxtor 7200 RPM Running on software RAID
1x20G Maxtor for the boot disk
ASUS GeForce2 Video Card
Cordless Mouse & Keyboard

They're sweet systems for game playing.

-Howard

IntelMole · Sun Dec 30, 2001 6:54 pm

How many programs are out today (roughly) that take advantage of SMP compared to ten years ago?

IMO, there's no real need for SMP unless time is money - every ten seconds will cost u ten dollars and all that. In that situation, I can see a real need for SMP, or in majorly busy servers like TR :razz:

But for the majority of people, including me, it's an expense they might never see a return on.

DMG · Mon Dec 31, 2001 3:51 am

Another Abit VP6 user; 2x 700@1000. For me it feels a lot better than my bro's Epox 8KHA w/TBird 1.33. Haven't you heard? Once you go dual, you never go back. :smile:

arklab · Wed Jan 02, 2002 9:19 am

Soon; VERY soon, I hope.

Awaiting the new boards, esp. IWill and Soyo.
I'm gonna NEED one if I want to do anything else while saving streaming video from my new ATI Radeon 8500DV All-In-Wonder!

Double DRAGON, anyone?
:wink:

[ This Message was edited by: arklab on 2002-01-02 08:21 ]

Xylker · Wed Jan 02, 2002 10:16 am

Hmm, still running a very fast single CPU box. The 1800+ is one that I won from AMD on their XP giveaway spree, and it is plugged into an Asus A7M.
Now that I am living in very cheap housing I think I can add a little dually love to the home 'puter, but this is still a while away.

DrDillyBar · Wed Jan 02, 2002 10:59 am

Sorta 50/50
Got a BP6 w/ 2 C400's.
But my main box is loner PIII-800EB

:smile:

Fri Jan 04, 2002 12:53 pm

My main system is a VP6 with dual 1 GIG PIIIs, and 1 GIG of SDRAM. I was gonna go with a DUAL AMD MPs, but havent heard enough good things about them. I think my next system will be either a Dual Tulitan (spelling) on the new intel chipset or serverworks chipset, or a single P4 3 GIG Northwood / DDR ram. I may even wait with the Serial ATA / USB 2.0 thing are built in.

iLaunch · Sat Jan 12, 2002 4:05 am

Concurring with prior posts, MP provides much smoother responsiveness for Windows 2000 and Windows XP than SP.

While the P4 system still hesitates from time to time as one would expect in Windows, the MP systems hesitate only 20% as often.

For any type of graphics-intensive work, we deinately do with MP systems, even with their added cost. When constructed from components as opposed to being purchased from Compaq, Dell, or HP, an MP system can be constructed at a cost lower than the bleeding-edge SP systems that it outperforms.

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