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Thinking Dual-AMD for next slack box...



 
 
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  #1  
Old May 14th 04, 12:52 PM
thrugoodmarshall
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Default Thinking Dual-AMD for next slack box...

I've been running slackware for a few years now on a dual PIII 600.
It was a screamer when I bought it, but it's getting kinda slow on
builds.

Built firefox last night--started the build watched "Forbidden Planet"
with my wife, and the damned thing was still building when we went to
bed!

Sometime in the next year, we're looking at dropping some bucks on a
mobo, processors, ram, and power supply. The rest, we'll keep. Intel
dual P4 (those $900.00 processors!) on a Tyan motherboard and 2G of
ECC RAM suggests a total budget of about $5,000. Some other stuff,
contributes to that number also, but that's the gist of the plan.

I suspect I can do better on price if I go with AMD. But I know
nothing of AMD.

Does anybody have any experience they'd like to share
Compatability--linux drivers or hw that work well / don't seem to work
w/ AMD?
(This is the one I'm really nervous about)
Speed--Which AMD processors for builds / video / photo editing?
Motherboards--Which (dual cpu) AMD motherboard for stability,
expandability, speed?
Any gotchas or bonuses to be aware of dual AMD system vs dual P4
system?


Thanks for your kind assistance!
  #2  
Old May 14th 04, 05:02 PM
James
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the 64 bit AMD CPU's are way cheaper then the current Intel ones, and they
are backwards compatible with 32bit programs. Obviously thats the way to
go, as even intel is now working on a "clone AMD x86-64" CPU

"thrugoodmarshall" wrote in message
om...
I've been running slackware for a few years now on a dual PIII 600.
It was a screamer when I bought it, but it's getting kinda slow on
builds.

Built firefox last night--started the build watched "Forbidden Planet"
with my wife, and the damned thing was still building when we went to
bed!

Sometime in the next year, we're looking at dropping some bucks on a
mobo, processors, ram, and power supply. The rest, we'll keep. Intel
dual P4 (those $900.00 processors!) on a Tyan motherboard and 2G of
ECC RAM suggests a total budget of about $5,000. Some other stuff,
contributes to that number also, but that's the gist of the plan.

I suspect I can do better on price if I go with AMD. But I know
nothing of AMD.

Does anybody have any experience they'd like to share
Compatability--linux drivers or hw that work well / don't seem to work
w/ AMD?
(This is the one I'm really nervous about)
Speed--Which AMD processors for builds / video / photo editing?
Motherboards--Which (dual cpu) AMD motherboard for stability,
expandability, speed?
Any gotchas or bonuses to be aware of dual AMD system vs dual P4
system?


Thanks for your kind assistance!



  #3  
Old May 14th 04, 05:15 PM
the gnome
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Default

There is a Dual Opteron Mobo by Microstar International (MSI) the K8T
MASTER2-FAR, that plus 2 opterons should go some, and if AMD bring out the 2
opterons on 1 chip with the same pinouts then you could have 4 opterons per
mobo, but you better check that out on the AMD site.

the_gnome







"James" wrote in message
news:I46pc.9282$RM.3771@edtnps89...
the 64 bit AMD CPU's are way cheaper then the current Intel ones, and they
are backwards compatible with 32bit programs. Obviously thats the way to
go, as even intel is now working on a "clone AMD x86-64" CPU

"thrugoodmarshall" wrote in message
om...
I've been running slackware for a few years now on a dual PIII 600.
It was a screamer when I bought it, but it's getting kinda slow on
builds.

Built firefox last night--started the build watched "Forbidden Planet"
with my wife, and the damned thing was still building when we went to
bed!

Sometime in the next year, we're looking at dropping some bucks on a
mobo, processors, ram, and power supply. The rest, we'll keep. Intel
dual P4 (those $900.00 processors!) on a Tyan motherboard and 2G of
ECC RAM suggests a total budget of about $5,000. Some other stuff,
contributes to that number also, but that's the gist of the plan.

I suspect I can do better on price if I go with AMD. But I know
nothing of AMD.

Does anybody have any experience they'd like to share
Compatability--linux drivers or hw that work well / don't seem to work
w/ AMD?
(This is the one I'm really nervous about)
Speed--Which AMD processors for builds / video / photo editing?
Motherboards--Which (dual cpu) AMD motherboard for stability,
expandability, speed?
Any gotchas or bonuses to be aware of dual AMD system vs dual P4
system?


Thanks for your kind assistance!





  #4  
Old May 14th 04, 07:19 PM
General Schvantzkoph
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On Fri, 14 May 2004 17:15:12 +0100, the gnome wrote:

There is a Dual Opteron Mobo by Microstar International (MSI) the K8T
MASTER2-FAR, that plus 2 opterons should go some, and if AMD bring out the 2
opterons on 1 chip with the same pinouts then you could have 4 opterons per
mobo, but you better check that out on the AMD site.

the_gnome


The MSI board is a lousy choice, only one of the two processor's has DIMMs
attached the other has to access the RAM through the Hypertransport.

A much better choice would be a Tyan K8W (S2885). It has 8 DIMM sockets, 4
per processor.

  #5  
Old May 15th 04, 12:01 AM
Post Replies Here Please
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"General" == General Schvantzkoph writes:

General On Fri, 14 May 2004 17:15:12 +0100, the gnome wrote:
There is a Dual Opteron Mobo by Microstar International (MSI) the
K8T MASTER2-FAR, that plus 2 opterons should go some, and if AMD
bring out the 2 opterons on 1 chip with the same pinouts then you
could have 4 opterons per mobo, but you better check that out on
the AMD site.

the_gnome


General The MSI board is a lousy choice, only one of the two
General processor's has DIMMs attached the other has to access the
General RAM through the Hypertransport.

Actually this design still performs very well with most applications,
and probably won't have a major impact unless this is a dedicated
server that is really stressed.

General A much better choice would be a Tyan K8W (S2885). It has 8
General DIMM sockets, 4 per processor.

A more expensive choice, but the optimal choice. Anyway depending on
the actual application most folks really don't get much benefit with
SMP unless your application is tuned for SMP usage. Of course your
mileage will vary a lot. I know that hp allows users to log on to a
variety of their servers to do some testing with your applications.

Good luck.



  #6  
Old May 15th 04, 04:14 AM
General Schvantzkoph
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On Fri, 14 May 2004 18:01:28 -0500, Post Replies Here Please wrote:

"General" == General Schvantzkoph writes:


General On Fri, 14 May 2004 17:15:12 +0100, the gnome wrote:
There is a Dual Opteron Mobo by Microstar International (MSI) the
K8T MASTER2-FAR, that plus 2 opterons should go some, and if AMD
bring out the 2 opterons on 1 chip with the same pinouts then you
could have 4 opterons per mobo, but you better check that out on
the AMD site.

the_gnome


General The MSI board is a lousy choice, only one of the two
General processor's has DIMMs attached the other has to access the
General RAM through the Hypertransport.

Actually this design still performs very well with most applications,
and probably won't have a major impact unless this is a dedicated
server that is really stressed.

General A much better choice would be a Tyan K8W (S2885). It has 8
General DIMM sockets, 4 per processor.

A more expensive choice, but the optimal choice. Anyway depending on
the actual application most folks really don't get much benefit with
SMP unless your application is tuned for SMP usage. Of course your
mileage will vary a lot. I know that hp allows users to log on to a
variety of their servers to do some testing with your applications.

Good luck.


There are a number of good single Opteron boards available. The Opteron
1xx processors are cheaper than the 2xx processors so if you are looking
for a cheaper solution then choose a board like the ASUS SK8V with a one
faster 1xx vs the MSI board with two slower 2xx processors where one
processor is crippled. If you are going to pay for the 2xx processors then
spend the extra couple of hundred dollars on a board that can fully
utilize them.

  #7  
Old May 15th 04, 03:08 PM
Steve
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Default

On Fri, 14 May 2004 14:19:10 -0400, General Schvantzkoph
wrote:

On Fri, 14 May 2004 17:15:12 +0100, the gnome wrote:

There is a Dual Opteron Mobo by Microstar International (MSI) the K8T
MASTER2-FAR, that plus 2 opterons should go some, and if AMD bring out the 2
opterons on 1 chip with the same pinouts then you could have 4 opterons per
mobo, but you better check that out on the AMD site.

the_gnome


The MSI board is a lousy choice, only one of the two processor's has DIMMs
attached the other has to access the RAM through the Hypertransport.


Gee, The General says I should be disappointed that my "lousy choice
MSI board" performs so well. The General says that the 6.4gb/s
hypertransport bus isn't fast enough for the 2.7gb/s memory I have on
CPU #0. The General says that separate memory on each CPU is the best
even if Windows 2000 has no NUMA support and that each CPU would have
to go through the hypertransport bus to get to half of the memory on
the motherboards he recommends. The General says to buy double the
number of memory sticks as you will need a minimum of four instead of
the two needed on the "lousy choice MSI board". The General hasn't
posted review links to justify his misguided belief that the MSI board
"lousy choice "

http://www.tech-report.com/reviews/2...s/index.x?pg=9

I guess that I should be ashamed that I own the "lousy choice MSI
board", because the General say's so.

No, actually the General should be down graded to Private.

Steve
  #8  
Old May 15th 04, 09:18 PM
Post Replies Here Please
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"Steve" == Steve Somewhere@overtherainbow writes:

Steve http://www.tech-report.com/reviews/2...s/index.x?pg=9

Steve I guess that I should be ashamed that I own the "lousy choice
Steve MSI board", because the General say's so.

Steve No, actually the General should be down graded to Private.

Actually there are other review sites say the exact same thing. In
some applications the "lousy" MSI board is better than the tyan board.
The MSI board is an excellent choice because the cpu's are talking
through hypertransport which is really fast. Therefore memory access
times for the second cpu are almost as fast as the tyan. Anyway I
would concur the general needs a demotion but maybe not as low as
private ;-)).

I would recommend doing a google on the msi board + the word "review".
You should find some very nice reviews.

Whatever - hopefully the FUD can be controlled on usenet better than
the TV. ;-)).

Later,

Alan

  #9  
Old May 16th 04, 04:01 PM
General Schvantzkoph
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On Sat, 15 May 2004 09:08:06 -0500, Steve wrote:

On Fri, 14 May 2004 14:19:10 -0400, General Schvantzkoph
wrote:

On Fri, 14 May 2004 17:15:12 +0100, the gnome wrote:

There is a Dual Opteron Mobo by Microstar International (MSI) the K8T
MASTER2-FAR, that plus 2 opterons should go some, and if AMD bring out the 2
opterons on 1 chip with the same pinouts then you could have 4 opterons per
mobo, but you better check that out on the AMD site.

the_gnome


The MSI board is a lousy choice, only one of the two processor's has DIMMs
attached the other has to access the RAM through the Hypertransport.


Gee, The General says I should be disappointed that my "lousy choice
MSI board" performs so well. The General says that the 6.4gb/s
hypertransport bus isn't fast enough for the 2.7gb/s memory I have on
CPU #0. The General says that separate memory on each CPU is the best
even if Windows 2000 has no NUMA support and that each CPU would have
to go through the hypertransport bus to get to half of the memory on
the motherboards he recommends. The General says to buy double the
number of memory sticks as you will need a minimum of four instead of
the two needed on the "lousy choice MSI board". The General hasn't
posted review links to justify his misguided belief that the MSI board
"lousy choice "


The bandwidth of the memory controller on the Opteron is
6.4GBytes/sec (400MHz * 2 * 8). Even if you used 266MHz Ram you would have
4.25GB/sec, I don't know where you got the 2.7G number unless you are
using a single DIMM (I you are you should buy a second DIMM, you'll see a
big performance gain especially since you are sharing the bandwidth
between two processors). The hypertranport bus does 3.2GB/second in each
direction. Although the full duplex bandwidth might be 6.4GB/sec that's
irrelevant for memory accesses, you are unlikely to be making simultaneous
read and write accesses so 3.2GB/sec is the figure you should use for
comparison. Also the hypertransport bus is going to add significant
latency to the accesses from the second processor. There is no way that a
system with a shared memory system is going to perform as well as one that
has dedicated memory on each processor.


  #10  
Old May 16th 04, 06:38 PM
Post Replies Here Please
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"General" == General Schvantzkoph writes:

General The bandwidth of the memory controller on the Opteron is
General 6.4GBytes/sec (400MHz * 2 * 8). Even if you used 266MHz Ram
General you would have 4.25GB/sec, I don't know where you got the
General 2.7G number unless you are using a single DIMM (I you are
General you should buy a second DIMM, you'll see a big performance
General gain especially since you are sharing the bandwidth between
General two processors). The hypertranport bus does 3.2GB/second in
General each direction. Although the full duplex bandwidth might be
General 6.4GB/sec that's irrelevant for memory accesses, you are
General unlikely to be making simultaneous read and write accesses
General so 3.2GB/sec is the figure you should use for comparison.
General Also the hypertransport bus is going to add significant
General latency to the accesses from the second processor. There is
General no way that a system with a shared memory system is going to
General perform as well as one that has dedicated memory on each
General processor.


http://www.gamepc.com/labs/view_cont...alduel&page=12
http://www.techreport.com/reviews/20.../index.x?pg=14

Can you give one review that clearly shows a significant performance
difference between the MSI board and the Tyan board? Anyway many folks
make a big deal about the memory layout design, but all the numbers
you quote are only theoretical. Please give an link to a review that
proves your point. Losing rank quickly general. Whatever.

Really the original poster can just search the net and read the many
reviews on this issue himself.

Thanks,

Alan

 




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