A couple of dual Athlon questions...

[glock20rocks]

OK, so the Athlon XP's aren't dual proc certified; what are the odds that they
will work? The MP's seem to be lagging behind on clock speed at the moment.

Anyone know if AMD is gonna make a dual-proc chipset/MP's with the new
333MHz FSB/dual channel DDR? That'd be nice

Any opinions on the best dual-proc board out right now? (Other than those two Tyan boards that need a special case/PS).

Thanks in advance for any info!!

[eFrisky]

One of the cheapest dual cpu mobo available at the moment is the Tyan TigerMP; which doesn't have any special PSU requirements, but does, as with all other dual AMD boards, demand sufficient power on the 5v line.

I'd urge you to check out the www.2cpu.com site, and especially the forums, to answer any and all of your questions. Thousands of hours of reading and very educated users - most of whom are more than happy to give excellent detailed advice on this tricky subject.

I built my system back in Feb this year, using the TigerMP and two XP1800+ processors; both of which were smp "unlocked", so I popped them in and they worked exactly as if they were the "MP" processors. Now though, most (all?) XP processors are "locked".

Personally, I'd have to think long and hard about buying XPs again, rather than MPs, but it's personal choice and an educated "risk".

Do your research before buying!

Do your research before buying!




p.s. You'll never, never, ever regret going dual..! Want to burn, play CS and rip a film? You got it!

[eFrisky]

It's not such a big deal, but here's my current uptime

[glock20rocks]

Thanks for the info! Actually, I may just skip the MP/XP's and wait for Clawhammer/Sledgehammer. www.tomshardware.com has said the Clawhammer 1.6GHz is tentively being labeled as a "3200+". :) I'll take two, thanks!

[blakerwry]

i usually go a week or so before rebooting my XP box... my NT 4 box has gone 1,323 hours straight before i added some RAM...

seems like the power goes out or something happens that just keeps me under the 1,300 hour time frame.

I have a new linux box that I hope will prove to be even more stable

[blakerwry]

One thing about the MP's is that they are not multiplier locked... I assume this is so you can buy 2 processors of unequal speed and run them at the same time

This situation might happen if CPU supply is low or you are simply upgrading from items you already have/can get cheaply... might work well to upgrade each processor every 6 months at opposite intervals...

[glock20rocks]

One thing about the MP's is that they are not multiplier locked...

Hmm...can anyone say "overclocking"?

[blakerwry]

true true... but for the price, an Athlon XP would probably give you alot better price/performance.. isn't that what overclocking is about? either that or just plain having the fastest rig around.... and MP doesn't succeed there either.

[dodecahedron]

yeah, but if you want a dual processor system, you cant use XP because they are SMP locked, as eFrisky said.
so you have to use MP. expensive.
and if you do buy MPs, why not overclock them? they are slower than XPs anyway.