Why no Dual P4 Boards?

[PontiusPilate]

I have been wanting to get a dual P4 computer for a long time, but it seems there are none. The closest thing is the Asus PC-DL motherboard which supports two dual xeon processors, but the fsb is only 533 and the memory is only ddr333. i know there are dual amd 64 boards that have use ddr400, but those processors are pricey!

is it just me, or is there not a lot of interest in dual cpu boards these days? because i see very few of them. this seems odd, because for scientific computing, you cannot beat the power of 2 cpus.

can anyone shed some light on this? does anyone know if anyone will be releasing a dual p4 board anytime soon? or should i stop holding my breath?

thanks

 

[endyen]

Stop holding your breath. Intel will not put out a dual capable P4 chip.

 

[PontiusPilate]

that's unfortunate to hear, but can anyone shed some light as to why this is? is it because the xeon assumes that role? and if so, will they ever put out a xeon that has an 800fsb and will work with ddr400? that would be really sweet. thanks

 

[endyen]

I believe the next iteration will be the prescott xeon, with 800 fsb. It may not be as good as you would like. On the other hand, it may support 64 bits

 

[Crashman]

Back in the day there was the Pentium Pro, and Intel saw the Pentium Pro, and it was good. But lacking speed.

So they introduced the Pentium II. But that had slow cache. And eventually the Coppermine core PIII.

Now in the middle the Pentium II was dual capable. Intel saw this as a solution for low end servers. And they had the XEON processor, endowed with chipsets that handled higher density, and available with increased cache, for the "high end" of PC based servers.

Intel likes money. So they charged more for the Xeon, even though with the same cache, it was basically just a PII. You had to pay extra for more cache. But you were already paying extra for XEON.

Intel LIKED that people paid extra for XEON, so they decided, no more dual-capable PC processors. If you wanted Dual, you'd have to go XEON.

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>

 

[redface]

What a dramatic story! I 99.99% believe what you typed.

A fine day!

 

[Crashman]

You should, it's brief and incomplete, but accurate. I've been around a while.

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>