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#1
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Dual processor advice
Hi;
I am building / upgrading a 2-proc. box, and I need some advice. I like the asus line, and want to use it, but am not clear on which mobo I would be best off with. I need two processors, and it should be reasonably fast, but that's the only major criteria. I will use a seperate scsi card, so don't want the onboard scsi (or onboard anything extra, really). The system will be used for 3D animation and graphics dev. There seem to beseveral choices: (PCH-DL, PCH-DLW, PU-DL, maybe others?) http://usa.asus.com/prog/spec.asp?m=PCH-DL&langs=09 http://usa.asus.com/prog/spec.asp?m=PU-DL&langs=09 http://usa.asus.com/prog/spec.asp?m=PP-DLW&langs=09 I am wading through the specs, but if anyone has advice or suggestions, they would be welcome. Thx! |
#2
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In article s.com, "Tony
Gilchrist" wrote: Hi; I am building / upgrading a 2-proc. box, and I need some advice. I like the asus line, and want to use it, but am not clear on which mobo I would be best off with. I need two processors, and it should be reasonably fast, but that's the only major criteria. I will use a seperate scsi card, so don't want the onboard scsi (or onboard anything extra, really). The system will be used for 3D animation and graphics dev. There seem to beseveral choices: (PCH-DL, PCH-DLW, PU-DL, maybe others?) http://usa.asus.com/prog/spec.asp?m=PCH-DL&langs=09 http://usa.asus.com/prog/spec.asp?m=PU-DL&langs=09 http://usa.asus.com/prog/spec.asp?m=PP-DLW&langs=09 I am wading through the specs, but if anyone has advice or suggestions, they would be welcome. Thx! Take a look on forums.2cpu.com . There is mention of Xeon processors with FSB800. These could possibly give more memory bandwidth. The two boards mentioned are very recent (bleeding edge :-) so buying these would make you an early adopter. (The PC-DL Leythos suggested, is a mature product, so less likely to create problems for you. Whether you would be interested in these, depends on how soon you need it to work.) http://forums.2cpu.com/showthread.php?threadid=54871 http://www.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/Sock...36_ncch-dl.pdf http://www.asus.com.tw/pub/ASUS/mb/S...1737_nct-d.pdf A quick glance at the manual, shows NCCH-DL is ATX form factor, uses the same 875 Northbridge used by P4C800 boards, and uses ordinary unbuffered PC3200 (with ECC or without ECC, your choice). In a sense, it is like a P4C800 with two processors instead of one. The Southbridge is different, and I don't know anything about its track record. The NCCH-DL looks to be the successor to the PC-DL that Leythos mentioned, only supports FSB800, whereas PC-DL does FSB400 and FSB533 processors (officially). Note that although you stuff 4x1GB modules in it, you get to use only 3.2 to 3.5GB of the memory, due to the PCI/AGP needing some address space. And it takes an AGP 8X graphics card, so you can use the board for visualization as well as computing. (Play Doom3 on one processor, while the other one is grinding out some work. :-) The NCT-D appears to be ATX form factor too. It is 12 x 9.8 inches. It can have up to 8 GB of registered ECC DDR2 memory (I wonder where you buy that ?). I expect the NCCH-DL might have the better memory bandwidth of the two, but you may have to wait for a review site to bench it to be sure. The NCT-D has a slot for PCI Express x16, for the successor to AGP video cards. If you look at Asus web sites, you might notice that the motherboard models listed, differ from site to site. Not all boards are sold in all markets (like model numbers for microATX boards for example, sometimes differ from one part of the world to another). This makes it difficult to see stuff like the two boards mentioned above. http://usa.asus.com/products/mb/mbindex.htm (6 boards listed) http://www.asus.com.tw/products/mb/mbindex.htm (26 boards listed) On the forums.2cpu.com, you may see some mention of Tyan boards as well. Tyan has some dual and quad Opteron boards, which are fun to look at, just for the sheer amount of stuff on the board. Note that some boards take video cards, while other boards are true server boards with ATI Rage XL build-in graphics only, which wouldn't be very practical for visualization. (Useful benchmarks comparing Xeon desktops to Opteron desktops are hard to find, so I have no idea which is a better fit for you.) http://www.tyan.com/l_chinese/products/html/matrix.html (A Quad to drool over...) http://www.tyan.com/l_chinese/produc...erk8qspro.html Things to watch out for - finding a chassis to house your purchase, finding the right power supply, with the connectors needed and power rating, and the all important cooling solution for the processor. I don't know if the FSB800 Xeons will need something special for cooling or not (as they are 90nm, expect a bit of extra heat). Failure to cool these properly, means they'll run in thermal throttle mode all the time, and they won't benchmark well as a result. Perhaps forums.2cpu.som will have some suggestions. The bottom of this page, lists the Xeons available for sale: http://www.intel.com/intel/finance/pricelist/ Have fun, Paul |
#3
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Hi,
2CPU has a link to this review covering the new nocona 800MHz offering. http://www.hexus.net/content/reviews...dXJsX3BhZ2U9MQ - Tim "Paul" wrote in message ... In article s.com, "Tony Gilchrist" wrote: Hi; I am building / upgrading a 2-proc. box, and I need some advice. I like the asus line, and want to use it, but am not clear on which mobo I would be best off with. I need two processors, and it should be reasonably fast, but that's the only major criteria. I will use a seperate scsi card, so don't want the onboard scsi (or onboard anything extra, really). The system will be used for 3D animation and graphics dev. There seem to beseveral choices: (PCH-DL, PCH-DLW, PU-DL, maybe others?) http://usa.asus.com/prog/spec.asp?m=PCH-DL&langs=09 http://usa.asus.com/prog/spec.asp?m=PU-DL&langs=09 http://usa.asus.com/prog/spec.asp?m=PP-DLW&langs=09 I am wading through the specs, but if anyone has advice or suggestions, they would be welcome. Thx! Take a look on forums.2cpu.com . There is mention of Xeon processors with FSB800. These could possibly give more memory bandwidth. The two boards mentioned are very recent (bleeding edge :-) so buying these would make you an early adopter. (The PC-DL Leythos suggested, is a mature product, so less likely to create problems for you. Whether you would be interested in these, depends on how soon you need it to work.) http://forums.2cpu.com/showthread.php?threadid=54871 http://www.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/Sock...36_ncch-dl.pdf http://www.asus.com.tw/pub/ASUS/mb/S...1737_nct-d.pdf A quick glance at the manual, shows NCCH-DL is ATX form factor, uses the same 875 Northbridge used by P4C800 boards, and uses ordinary unbuffered PC3200 (with ECC or without ECC, your choice). In a sense, it is like a P4C800 with two processors instead of one. The Southbridge is different, and I don't know anything about its track record. The NCCH-DL looks to be the successor to the PC-DL that Leythos mentioned, only supports FSB800, whereas PC-DL does FSB400 and FSB533 processors (officially). Note that although you stuff 4x1GB modules in it, you get to use only 3.2 to 3.5GB of the memory, due to the PCI/AGP needing some address space. And it takes an AGP 8X graphics card, so you can use the board for visualization as well as computing. (Play Doom3 on one processor, while the other one is grinding out some work. :-) The NCT-D appears to be ATX form factor too. It is 12 x 9.8 inches. It can have up to 8 GB of registered ECC DDR2 memory (I wonder where you buy that ?). I expect the NCCH-DL might have the better memory bandwidth of the two, but you may have to wait for a review site to bench it to be sure. The NCT-D has a slot for PCI Express x16, for the successor to AGP video cards. If you look at Asus web sites, you might notice that the motherboard models listed, differ from site to site. Not all boards are sold in all markets (like model numbers for microATX boards for example, sometimes differ from one part of the world to another). This makes it difficult to see stuff like the two boards mentioned above. http://usa.asus.com/products/mb/mbindex.htm (6 boards listed) http://www.asus.com.tw/products/mb/mbindex.htm (26 boards listed) On the forums.2cpu.com, you may see some mention of Tyan boards as well. Tyan has some dual and quad Opteron boards, which are fun to look at, just for the sheer amount of stuff on the board. Note that some boards take video cards, while other boards are true server boards with ATI Rage XL build-in graphics only, which wouldn't be very practical for visualization. (Useful benchmarks comparing Xeon desktops to Opteron desktops are hard to find, so I have no idea which is a better fit for you.) http://www.tyan.com/l_chinese/products/html/matrix.html (A Quad to drool over...) http://www.tyan.com/l_chinese/produc...erk8qspro.html Things to watch out for - finding a chassis to house your purchase, finding the right power supply, with the connectors needed and power rating, and the all important cooling solution for the processor. I don't know if the FSB800 Xeons will need something special for cooling or not (as they are 90nm, expect a bit of extra heat). Failure to cool these properly, means they'll run in thermal throttle mode all the time, and they won't benchmark well as a result. Perhaps forums.2cpu.som will have some suggestions. The bottom of this page, lists the Xeons available for sale: http://www.intel.com/intel/finance/pricelist/ Have fun, Paul |
#4
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Thanks to all (Leythos, Paul, Tim, anybody else whose reply has not yet made
it to my news server) for the input! Maybe the PC-DL would e a safer route -- never pays to rush in... Anyway, all the help and links is greatly appreciated; I'll keep digging! "Tim" wrote in message ... Hi, 2CPU has a link to this review covering the new nocona 800MHz offering. http://www.hexus.net/content/reviews...dXJsX3BhZ2U9MQ - Tim "Paul" wrote in message ... In article s.com, "Tony Gilchrist" wrote: Hi; I am building / upgrading a 2-proc. box, and I need some advice. I like the asus line, and want to use it, but am not clear on which mobo I would be best off with. I need two processors, and it should be reasonably fast, but that's the only major criteria. I will use a seperate scsi card, so don't want the onboard scsi (or onboard anything extra, really). The system will be used for 3D animation and graphics dev. There seem to beseveral choices: (PCH-DL, PCH-DLW, PU-DL, maybe others?) http://usa.asus.com/prog/spec.asp?m=PCH-DL&langs=09 http://usa.asus.com/prog/spec.asp?m=PU-DL&langs=09 http://usa.asus.com/prog/spec.asp?m=PP-DLW&langs=09 I am wading through the specs, but if anyone has advice or suggestions, they would be welcome. Thx! Take a look on forums.2cpu.com . There is mention of Xeon processors with FSB800. These could possibly give more memory bandwidth. The two boards mentioned are very recent (bleeding edge :-) so buying these would make you an early adopter. (The PC-DL Leythos suggested, is a mature product, so less likely to create problems for you. Whether you would be interested in these, depends on how soon you need it to work.) http://forums.2cpu.com/showthread.php?threadid=54871 http://www.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/Sock...36_ncch-dl.pdf http://www.asus.com.tw/pub/ASUS/mb/S...1737_nct-d.pdf A quick glance at the manual, shows NCCH-DL is ATX form factor, uses the same 875 Northbridge used by P4C800 boards, and uses ordinary unbuffered PC3200 (with ECC or without ECC, your choice). In a sense, it is like a P4C800 with two processors instead of one. The Southbridge is different, and I don't know anything about its track record. The NCCH-DL looks to be the successor to the PC-DL that Leythos mentioned, only supports FSB800, whereas PC-DL does FSB400 and FSB533 processors (officially). Note that although you stuff 4x1GB modules in it, you get to use only 3.2 to 3.5GB of the memory, due to the PCI/AGP needing some address space. And it takes an AGP 8X graphics card, so you can use the board for visualization as well as computing. (Play Doom3 on one processor, while the other one is grinding out some work. :-) The NCT-D appears to be ATX form factor too. It is 12 x 9.8 inches. It can have up to 8 GB of registered ECC DDR2 memory (I wonder where you buy that ?). I expect the NCCH-DL might have the better memory bandwidth of the two, but you may have to wait for a review site to bench it to be sure. The NCT-D has a slot for PCI Express x16, for the successor to AGP video cards. If you look at Asus web sites, you might notice that the motherboard models listed, differ from site to site. Not all boards are sold in all markets (like model numbers for microATX boards for example, sometimes differ from one part of the world to another). This makes it difficult to see stuff like the two boards mentioned above. http://usa.asus.com/products/mb/mbindex.htm (6 boards listed) http://www.asus.com.tw/products/mb/mbindex.htm (26 boards listed) On the forums.2cpu.com, you may see some mention of Tyan boards as well. Tyan has some dual and quad Opteron boards, which are fun to look at, just for the sheer amount of stuff on the board. Note that some boards take video cards, while other boards are true server boards with ATI Rage XL build-in graphics only, which wouldn't be very practical for visualization. (Useful benchmarks comparing Xeon desktops to Opteron desktops are hard to find, so I have no idea which is a better fit for you.) http://www.tyan.com/l_chinese/products/html/matrix.html (A Quad to drool over...) http://www.tyan.com/l_chinese/produc...erk8qspro.html Things to watch out for - finding a chassis to house your purchase, finding the right power supply, with the connectors needed and power rating, and the all important cooling solution for the processor. I don't know if the FSB800 Xeons will need something special for cooling or not (as they are 90nm, expect a bit of extra heat). Failure to cool these properly, means they'll run in thermal throttle mode all the time, and they won't benchmark well as a result. Perhaps forums.2cpu.som will have some suggestions. The bottom of this page, lists the Xeons available for sale: http://www.intel.com/intel/finance/pricelist/ Have fun, Paul |
#5
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"Leythos" wrote in message ... In article s.com, says... snip If you want to make use of the Xeon CPU you are going to want to run XP Prof or even better, use Windows 2003 Standard Server. The Server version is better optimized to run with Xeon CPU's than XP Prof is. -- -- I am using dual Xeons in a PC-DL mobo and Windows XP Pro. Is it worth upgrading to Windows 2003 Standard Server? My machine is only used as a work-station not a server. -- Doug Ramage [watch spam trap] |
#6
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Doug Ramage wrote:
"Leythos" wrote in message ... In article s.com, says... snip If you want to make use of the Xeon CPU you are going to want to run XP Prof or even better, use Windows 2003 Standard Server. The Server version is better optimized to run with Xeon CPU's than XP Prof is. -- -- I am using dual Xeons in a PC-DL mobo and Windows XP Pro. Is it worth upgrading to Windows 2003 Standard Server? My machine is only used as a work-station not a server. -- Doug Ramage XP Pro, W2K Pro, Linux, and NT Workstation will all do you just fine as a non-server OS. And the server versions are *not* better optimized for Xeons than the non-server versions. This is a myth that is ask-and-repudiated frequently in the MicroSoft newsgroups. Xeons are a common workstation CPU and MicroSoft coded the non-server versions of their OSes accordingly. MicroSoft is not about to reduce the performance of non-OS versions of Windows in any way that gives Linux yet another advantage. -- Reply to Do not remove anything. |
#7
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Leythos wrote:
In article gK4Wc.187508$gE.109425@pd7tw3no, says... MicroSoft is not about to reduce the performance of non-OS versions of Windows in any way that gives Linux yet another advantage. MS didn't reduce the performance, they check the CPU and enable specific features that are available depending on Xeon or not. The same is true for hyper-threading, there are optimizations that can better use it when the system detects it. But a Xeon is 100% identical to a Pentium 4, except it has a different socket, and it can operate in a dual system. Some (but not all!) also additionally have a L3 cache. Roland |
#8
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wrote in message ... On Fri, 20 Aug 2004 18:34:07 GMT, Leythos wrote in message : I've found that these PC-DL Deluxe boards with fast memory and matching Xeon CPU's can outperform servers costing more than 4 times as much - Compaq, Dell, etc.. The main difference between a PC-DL server board and the others is the lack of on-board SCSI. I have a PC-DL with dual 2.8 Xeons. ASUS makes no recommendation on their web site for 1GB or ECC memory but state that the MB can use them. And their response to my emailed question was that I should 'experiment' -- not helpful. Any suggests for 1GB or ECC ( or fast/good/well-prices 512MB for that matter ) ? TIA ... Marc I am using non ECC RAM, as I have several spare sticks, and it's cheaper. Current spec is 1.5 GB, comprising : 2 x 512Mb KingMaxPC4000 2 x 256Mb TwinMOS Pc3200 Timings are 6,3,3,3 in dual channel mode. I shall be swapping the 256Mb sticks for either more 512Mb or 1Gb sticks. -- Doug Ramage [watch spam trap] |
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