Got a question about multiple CPU Mobo´s

[Phalanx01]

I´m thinking of updating my current PC to something more "special". I recently noticed the brand named Tyan Mobo, they´re supposed to be the best multi CPU Mobo manufacturers or so they claim. Now my question is this:

Will the system that I am planning to assemble be adequete to play games or should I stick to the normal desktop (money no objection)?

TYAN Thunder K8QS PRO 4xOpteron 800 dual SCSI-320 2xGiga-LAN SSI Mobo
4x AMD BOX OPTERON 244 FOR DUAL
2x Geforce FX 6800 Ultra PCI-X 256Mb
gonna use my current HD Drives; the WD73Raptor and the 250Gig Caviar SATE
was thinking of 6gigs of Twinmos DDR400
gonna put my Audigy in there also and my optical drives the 16x48 DVD the 12x DVDRW and my 52x32x52 CDRW.

Think it would cost me around 5000 Euro.

Or should I stick zith the classic desktop dream machine like the AMD FX-53 based system with a Geforce FX 6800 Ultra?

Is it a bad thing if there is smoke coming out of my case?

 

[jlanka]

why do you need such a kick ass server machine?

But anyway, it would be plenty powerful to play games.

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jlanka (. .)
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[xeenrecoil]

heya Phalanx;

Ok there is going to be a trend developing here, Nvidia for reasons unknown decided to call their new PCIe line of graphics cards PCX, the confusion of the consumer will come as no suprise, as you yourself have fallen victum to Nvidias marketing blunder, PCI-X and PCIe are not the same thing, if you read the specs of the Tyan Thunder K8QS Pro you will find it uses PCI-X Slots, and doesnt provide any PCIe slots, probably much to your embarrasment, the expansion options are as follows.

Expansion Slots
• Two independent PCI-X buses
• Two 64-bit 66/33 MHz (3.3-Volt) PCI-X slots
- from PCI-X bridge A
• Two 64-bit 133/100/66/33 MHz (3.3-Volt) PCI-X slots - from PCI-X bridge B
• One Legacy 32-bit 33MHz (5-Volt) PCI slot
• Total of five usable slots

Whats more it only has integrated PCI graphics and doesnt offer AGP.

Integrated PCI Graphics
• ATI® RAGE™ XL PCI graphics controller
• 8MB Frame Buffer of video memory

There arent any motherboards that currently offer Dual PCIe that i can find, if it exsists i cant find it.

So once again Marketing has set the stage for many fustrated and irate PC builders who arent experianced enough to catch the marketing Trick.

I dont expect we will see Dual PCIe equiped motherboards untill at the earliest Q1 2005.

Unfortunately the joke is on us, Thanks Nvidia.

 

[Phalanx01]

In other words, the cards are available but there aren't any Mobo's that support them? What's the use of that?! Oh well guess we could have expected as much...

Think I'll go a bit lower, with 2 FX CPU's. But still, what's best to have now, an AGP card or a PCI-X (PCIe) vid card? Price difference between the 2 (at least at my suppliers) is minimal.

Is it a bad thing if there is smoke coming out of my case?

 

[Mr5oh]

Think I'll go a bit lower, with 2 FX CPU's.

Lower!?!?, 2 FX Cpus !?!?, oh the pain, the agony, I have to settle for two FX chips.... lucky b@st@rd.

But still, what's best to have now, an AGP card or a PCI-X (PCIe) vid card?

Currently there is no performance difference between AGP and PCI-x/PCIe. Current cards generally can't even use the bandwidth AGP 4x provides, much less the 16x PCIe provides. So at this point in time, go with either, it won't matter.

My Desktop: <A HREF="http://Mr5oh.tripod.com/pc.html" target="_new">http://Mr5oh.tripod.com/pc.html</A>
Overclocking Results: <A HREF="http://Mr5oh.tripod.com/pc2.html" target="_new">http://Mr5oh.tripod.com/pc2.html</A>

 

[Crashman]

But still, what's best to have now, an AGP card or a PCI-X (PCIe) vid card?

Sorry, but there are no PCI-X video cards. PCI Express (PCIe) cards are available, but only supported currently by Intel's 915 and 925 chipsets. So that leaves you with AGP8x.

PCI-X is a standard PCI slot that's been modified (66MHz or 133MHz and 64-bit). It's a server form factor based on the 33MHz/32-bit PCI slot. PCIe is a new universal form factor Intel invented based on serial transfers, using new cards.

PCIe controllers support 32-pathways by design as far as I've read. That means boards with 2 x16 (graphics card) slots wouldn't have any other slots. VIA will be offering dual PCIe slots as an option to board makers by making those slots only support x8 transfers.

Which brings you back to the fact that there aren't dual x16 slot boards available, and there aren't even any PCIe boards available, and that PCI-X is something different.

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[jlanka]

nice of them to keep it simple, huh? ;-)

<pre> \|/
jlanka (. .)
___________oOOo_(_(_)_)_oOOo___________
</pre><p>

 

[Prof133]

Think I'll go a bit lower, with 2 FX CPU's.

Plan to use AMD64 CPUs in dual config? Would want to use 200 series opterons and registered+ECC memory for this build.

6gigs of Twinmos DDR400

Curious of memory use; plan to set up ramdisk in main memory, other use?

 

[El_Jefe_77]

yeah i duno whats going on with 6 gigs of memory
and that memory isn't registered I'm guessing.
1 gig of registered memory is way more than enough.
dual 244 opteron would run really well. I would stripe the drives instead of fancy raiding them, youll actually see a performance difference then.

MSI makes a very nice 2x940 slot mobo for this type of use.
the fx-53 is a smoking way to do it, but, dual processors will work with dual processor programs that are comming out more and more.

 

[Phalanx01]

Err all things considered I think I´ll wait a little while longer to upgrade, think around XMas. All this PCI gizmo stuff is driving me nuts. Not to mention the CPU circus going on now...

Gives me more time to consider the available posibilities...

Is it a bad thing if there is smoke coming out of my case?