OC'ing dual Xeon?

[Jahun]

Ok, last time I OC'ed I did the easy thing of OC'ing a dual 366 celeron system to 550.

Now I am thinking about a dual Xeon 2.8G or more system (yes it is about time for a new system I don't need the system for the highest FPS in games or so, just the fastest renders in Lightwave.

I will try and read what has been written before but can some of you guys give me some ideas of how to best OC this dual system?

Many thanks

 

[Vapor]

If i recall, tom did a review of a Xeon on a 875 chipset (Asus board) and overclocked it not too long ago...but didn't try dual cpu, let alone dual overclock. With the 875 chipset, i'd imagine that OCing would be pretty standard and simple. A place you might want to check out is www.2cpu.com. Since the Xeon is so similar to the P4, you could probably get two high performance air coolers and run those to get as much power as possible. I'd get other people's opinions as well first though, I'm not as familiar with Xeons as I'd like to be.

 

[Crashman]

According to Anandtech, Asus's 875 dual Xeon board can do two things: Raise bus speed and lower multipliers (something that can't be done with a standard P4). But the bus speeds available in BIOS are limitted. Anandtech suggested Asus might remedy this with a BIOS update. You should be able to get it to at least 150MHz FSB (QDR600).

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<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>

 

[Jahun]

hmz.. are you reffering to "August 27, 2003
The Best of Both Worlds: Asus PC-DL with 875P Chipset for Intel's Xeon" about that overclocking?

Coz I only see him stating that "it is easy".. can't find results so if I'm looking at the wrong place plz tell me.

But you are right I guess, it should be easy since it's in the bios. Which brings me to the thing that I wonde rmost about: cooling.

Will air cooling do enough?
I couldn't find mounting stuff for example the Prometea mach 2 to get it on a dual system. Coz in that case I'd get one of those maybe or wouldn't those extreme low temps help that much?


Ow and btw, the benchmarks in that test of the 875 give for example in the Lightwave test +- 110 sec for the single???? xeon and 170 sec for the pentium 4.

Am I mad or is the xeon on that board outperforming the P4 by a fat 50%??

Wicked..

looking forward to a dual Xeon system..

thx guys btw!

 

[pjordan]

How much is your budget?
Yes, I think that's the one he's talking about.
Yes, it is easy, just change a number in the bios.

Air cooling is cheaper, and louder. It also doesn't cool as much. You might be better off getting a faster cpu than getting fancy cooling. The Mach 2 ,etc. is expensive. The low temps would help, but not enough to justify over water cooling, personally. Have you thought about getting an single CPU? You could get a 3.2 EE or wait till Prescott comes out in a month or two.

 

[pjordan]

Have any of you seen this?
<A HREF="http://www.aceshardware.com/read.jsp?id=60000268" target="_new">http://www.aceshardware.com/read.jsp?id=60000268</A>
I don't know if this would be fast at Lightwave, but it sure is fast. It is a Athlon 64 cooled using the Mach 2 cooling aparatus.

 

[Jahun]

hmz.. seeing the Lightwave benchmark in which the EE and the P4 3.06 Ghz are. The EE seems just ~10% faster than the P4. Mentioning again that the xeon seemed (oddly enough) 50% faster than the P4 in single operation (LW 7.5 benchmark that is): I see no reason to wait for EE nor prescot (or it must improve ALOT)

Again.. I am very uncertain about that 50%..
so.. What do you think?

ps: had a chopper in my room for a few years.. I prefer water cooling at least.

pps: I have ~ 3 months to wait before I go back to the Netherlands.. I was almost getting happy about the low dollar but damn the import tax

ppps: how much is the Mach 2 anyway?

 

[pjordan]

Around $1000. I just checked two places. How much are you planning on spending for your entire setup? I know the single cpu setup will be slower, be I think it would more bang for the buck if your a going to spend say $1000. Not sure though i guess.

 

[Jahun]

:| ok. 1000$ is too much for the unsure gain. (if someone can show me 30% increase on a dual system I'd do it though)
My budget.. hmz.. 2000 Euro max I think. If I don't need cooling. Really really too bad I can't buy the stuff in the US.. I don't think the dutch customs officer would be happy if he finds me not declaring 2k $ in compu supplies It would save 25-30% though!

But don't underestimate the dual systems.
Even if they get slow on pure becnhmarks when older, I always loved to do my renders on 1 CPU and just continue Photoshopping on the other without any real glitches (would be tougher on a single one I guess even though he might be faster)

Hmz.. there is no support for dual anyway on the mach 2..

thanks for the input!

 

[Vapor]

with 2000 euros you are limited for a dual cpu system, for one, you have to buy two processors, and the mobos are generally more expensive as well. Fortunately, with teh Asus PC-DL, you dont need ECC ram, which saves money. That said, I would recommend to get two 2.8s and the Asus PC-DL. Dual 2.8s should be fine. If you need more speed, save for two mach 2s or search around for a watercooling system that does support dual cpus (they are out there).
I agree that having a dual cpu system really is a great thing, and that people who have only used a single cpu system don't know how nice it can be. I've just never found the price justification behind it (then again, i'm usually on a much tighter budget than 2000 euros) when upgrade time rolls around. I am thinking for my next upgrade that I probably will go the way of dual processors--oh well, we'll see.

 

[Jahun]

Hmz.. ah well.

When I bought the dual Celeron 366 and OC'ed it to 550 the price was verrry justified. I found a review of OC'ing a dual Xeon 3.0 to 3.3 Ghz with watercooling. They said it would be wiser to take 2.4 Ghz and bring them to 3.0 or so.

Then again, I just take 2.8 ones and don't bother. 10% increase is not worth the trouble/cost to me. I'll spend the bucks on a kickass vidcard then.

btw: maybe I mentioned before but PC prices in US are >25% cheaper it seems... especially the "rare" stuff

 

[Vapor]

Celerons are also price-oriented, unlike xeons. I would recommend getting the 2.4s and not the 2.8s, not only would you save money, but your ram would also be clocked at 367MHz rather than 314 (if you overclock both to 3.3, which would be tough with the 2.4s), which would be the better performer and cost less (just you would need DDR400 for the 2.4s and only DDR333 for the 2.8s).

yeah, i've noticed that non-us places have a lot higher prices. even the us places have varied prices for xeons though, and most are generally expensive, unlike celerons.

 

[Jahun]

hmz you have a very intersting point there. Also I found this article:

http://www.linuxhardware.org/article.pl?sid=03/09/08/1734248&mode=thread

Check especially the last few lines in which they overclock 2.4's to 3.2 or so. This is all done with watercooling by SwiftTech and that doesn't seem too pricy to me.

And I could definately live with 2.4's @ 3.2
Ok, I'll figure that out. Lower speed and watercooling (looks niiice

On the prices.. well.. can't do much about that I have to wait a while before I go back anyway. Prices will drop I guess..

Thanks for the info guys!

 

[Vapor]

unfortunately, from the looks of it, there are no new xeons coming out any time soon, meaning that prices wont drop too much. ddr400 ram is already decently cheap, so don't expect that to go down either. Should swiftech make a new watercooler, the price of the one in that link will go down, which will help. Prices of the Asus mobo might drop should another manufacturer release the 875P for dual Xeon. Anyway, best of luck with the system.