dual CPU mobos rule!!! (opteron?)

[omarja1]

I wish there was more support for dual processing for enthusiast users. I have been running on a dual processor system for 2 years now (dual Athlon XP 1500+ on a Tyan Tiger MP with 1GB of memory), and I must say it really rocks. It's not so much the performance on a single application which is actually a little slower than single CPU motherboards, but the advantage you get when running multiple stuff.. it's simply bewildering how the system stays responsive.
To give you guys an idea here is what I had running at a single time:
print a pdf file
mpeg 2 --> wmv compressione video (usa 2 CPU)
Virtualdub avi --> divx (divx compression)
DVD-R burning (1x)
winamp playing
emule (10000 connections)
xnap (4 users, 700KB/s)
Serv-U (2 users, 130K/s)

with all of this stuff running I start up quake 3 at 1024x768 and it runs great at 125fps (com_maxfps = 125).

At times I've also had 2 quake 3 instances open in 2 windows, both running great.

OK so all this brings me to the point of this post: dual processor motherboard are the BEST, so I want to see more and better ones.

What I'm looking forward to seeing is a DUAL OPTERON MOTHERBOARD WITH AN AGP SLOT, which I'm sorry to say I haven't seen anywhere. All the Opteron motherboards out there now support 2 CPUs but NO AGP slot. The only opteron motherboard with AGP (nforce 3, asus) supports only one CPU.
Tom's Hardware staff and forum readers.. let's push for this to happen... reply to this post if you think a dual opteron with AGP would be awesome... I think it would really be the BEST... let's make our voice heard!!!

(P.S. A dual Athlon 64 with AGP would also be fine )

 

[ccatlin]

I have a dual 800 pentium 3, running win2k right now. It runs as fast as my girlfriend's 2.66GHz Intel xp system. Maybe faster on games. Alot faster doing animation etc... =)

I'd like a dual 3.2 GHZ system...now that would rock.

-C

 

[sjonnie]

You'll be wanting the Rioworks HDAMB motherboard then
<A HREF="http://www.rioworks.com/HDAMB.htm" target="_new">http://www.rioworks.com/HDAMB.htm</A> 8x AGP Pro slot good enough for you?

<A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/myanandtech.html?member=114979" target="_new">My PCs</A>

 

[Mephistopheles]

A dual Opteron will probably be devastatingly expensive... And, for your kind of use, a dual Xeon will actually be faster. So consider going over from AMD to Intel on this one! You're mostly using 32-bit code there, and Opteron gets trounced by Xeons on those tasks... OK, maybe not on server tasks, but your use of its capabilities will probably be limited. For far less money, you could get a nicely priced dual 2.8 Xeon on a <A HREF="http://www.supermicro.com/PRODUCT/MotherBoards/E7505/X5DA8.htm" target="_new">X5DA8</A>, which has all nifty features you could ever imagine onboard, like Ultra320 SCSI controllers, gigabit ethernet, and up to 12GB of system memory. Oh yes, and AGP 8x.

Opteron is a new technology anyway. I'd let it mature before buying it, but I'd understand anyone who goes out and buys it...

One more thing: the 3.06Ghz, 1MB cache Xeon launch on Monday will drop prices immensely, and that can be a good advantage.

 

[sjonnie]

I dunno about that. Prices from Newegg. Xeon 2.8GHz, $479 ea., Supermicro X5DA8 $599, total cost $1557 just for board and processors.

On the other hand you could get two AMD MP 2800+ processors for $289 and a MSI K7D Master-L for $195. Total price $773.

That's a BIG price difference.

<A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/myanandtech.html?member=114979" target="_new">My PCs</A>