(Dual) MotherB/Proccesor Recomendations

[Cut ter]

I'm thinking of going with a dual PII/PIII processor Motherboard. I don't know if Win 9(X) supports it or not.
Any recomendations from anyone running A dual processor on his/her machine.
is it the safe to say that a Dual 400 mhz machine is equivalent to a 800Mhz processor?.
What are the advantages if any?.
I hear Amd released a Anthlon processor running w a bus of 200mhz WOW wait for Pentium to kick in a 233 or so.
Can Any one give me a recomendation for a good solid Motherboard and processor to go with at a reasonable price/perfomance and adequate for NLE.
Thanks in advance

[This_Idiot]

Hi Cut Ter

My understanding is that you need at least NT4 to recognise dual-pro. And even then most software (including most Matrox drivers) won't use both processors.

I'm sure that someone else will chip in and give us more specifics

[BigBear]

it 's depend on your software that you use. if you use Adobe Product you better stick with Intel because Adobe will not support 3D Now!. Athlon will never beat Pentium III and still not K7(Athlon) for Dual system yet. Win NT will use 1 Processor per job if your editor software don't know how to use processor your Dual Processor is useless. If you still want to use have Dual system I suggest you to wait just a little longer for Intel i820 that will provide you a full power.

[Elie]

Hi,

An Asus P2B-D with 2 PIII 550's or 600's should do the trick

I personally have the Asus P2B-D with 2 PII 350's waiting to be upgraded when CPU prices drop a bit more.

Regards,
Elie

[Weasel]

NT and Win2K Pro will support Dual processors but not windows 9x. Also the application needs to support it in order to get any major speed increase. After Effects, Photoshop and some 3D packages take good advantage of it. In fact, at this point I couldn't live without it. As far as video editing software goes, I have no idea who makes use of multiprocessor systems.

I have a home-built dual PIII 500 NT workstation made around a Tyan 1836 MB. It works better than any machine I've known. Very stable and very configurable.

An added benefit of dual processors is that it impresses the hell out of your parents and girlfriends, who have no idea what a processor is, let alone two of them!

[gibverse]

First let me comment on some previous responses:

This_Idiot: Yup. 9x just ignores the 2nd processor. NT4 is nice, but 2000 will be better when it comes out... now if Matrox gets drivers is a totally different story. I can see the "any day now" that we had with the NT4 drivers all over again.

BigBear: Adobe doesn't yet support the KNI (SIMD) instructions of the new PIII. It only uses MMX, which is also present in the Athlons (along with 3dNow!). In addition, the Athlons that are out now can't be put in a dual system. You need to wait for "Mustang" Athlons to be able to do dual (due 2nd quarter 2000). Finally, it is my understanding that i820 is a single processor only (besides, it maxes @ 512 mb ram)... You'll most likely need an i840 motherboard, which are out now, and much more stable.

Elie: ASUS all the way, best mobos. Period.

Cut ter:
A dual 400 is no way like a 800. It doesn't work that way... If you ran benchmarks for that sort of stuff, you'd find you really would only get about 12% out of the 2nd processor. The key lies in the ability to assign tasks to a specific processor in NT. It's nice to let LSX go nuts making an MPEG on the 2nd processor, with your first one free to do other stuff. The new PIIIs are only at 133 mhz FSB... not 233.

As for building, here are my recommendations:
If you can wait a bit, wait. There's just too much dust in the air with AMD and Intel going at it, and then add Win 2000 due in Feb… Everything's crazy.
If you can't wait:
Pick your capture card first... Design the rest of the system around that. And this is harder than it sounds... It depends on what you want to do. Just archiving things (aka making VCDs), get an MPEG capture card. Do analog based source editing, go MJPEG (like the RR-G/Marvel), got a digital camcorder, get a IEEE 1394 card and stay all digital. After that, I'd say get an i840 motherboard... Intel is the only manufacturer making these boards I know of, so hence a wait may be in order. If not, get an Intel, pop two PIII Coppermines (I would try and avoid the slower chips now)... 650+ mhz... and don't forget to put in a FastTrack array... they really help, esp for MJPEG cards.

That’s my take on it… Any questions, feel free to ask.

John

[Palliator]

I don't know about you guys, but for me SMP has always been an experiment of sorts. I started with a dual Pentium Pro 180 setup on a Supermicro motherboard. I admit the performance gains then weren't overwhelming. Then again, I didn't have a lot of multi-threaded apps to work with under NT besides Photoshop. I think a 100% increase in performance is a dream. Anyone else think 40-60% is reasonable?

I wouldn't suggest this for a serious user, but I am currently running an Abit BP6 with dual Celerons each at 550 MHz (5.5x100) and 256 MB RAM. I am quite surprised at this setup. Besides being extremely cheap to put together, this system is very stable and reasonably fast. I've switch over to Linux with the 2.2 SMP enabled kernal and it works beautifully. I don't think the Linux environment is relevant to consumer video editing, but for compiling, some graphics work, and composing this message it's certainly easy to take a liking to.

Sorry that this doesn't help any, but I just had to add my two cents!

[This message has been edited by Palliator (edited 13 November 1999).]

[wxman]

We really need to know a price range you're working in. Eventually it all comes down to money. Dual Celeron 366 and a BP6 Set up can be yours for $200.

[Cut ter]

Where can I aquire a dual celeron for $200.00
Wxman.
By the way thanks for all the responce, I have a better idea as to what to do with my money.

Can anyone advise me on a amd chip like a k6-2 3d 400 vs. celeron.
whhich celeron and board to get?
Ereyes8377@aol.com
Thank You

[Palliator]

Um, I too would like to know where you can get a BP6 with two Celeron PPGA processors for $200. Actually, with two OEM Celerons that figure isn't too far off. You will also need a SMP compatible OS (WinNT 4.0 with service pack installed or Linux with 2.2 SMP compiled kernel).

If you're going to invest in this type of setup, do go for the Celeron 366 chips that have been pretested by a vendor to be overclockable to 550 (@ 2.1V or less). You pay a little more, but you're still getting a trememdous bargain IMHO. These are still cheaper than the 400 MHz or faster Celerons and you get the 100 MHz FSB. If you're going to overclock, do think about getting a pair of decent heatsinks / fans.

The upside to the BP6 is the huge selection of FSB speeds under 100 MHz, even chips that can't do 5.5x100 can still easily break 500 MHz (5.5x93 for example). A 1/3 PCI divider will work at this speed (I've had some devices not function properly with the PCI bus overclocked).

My setup has been very stable. I wouldn't suggest this for a mission critical server, but for the hobbiest who wants to do a little experimenting with SMP you can't beat it.

[This message has been edited by Palliator (edited 16 November 1999).]

[stran]

gibverse,

I've been told that programms not written to take advantage of a dual processor will still show improvements because NT would devote one processor to the program while it will use the second. Is this true?

[gibverse]

stran,
While this can happen, it seems more often that you have to manually assign the process to the second processor (via task manager). I have seen NT successfully do as you state, but I've also seen it run really slow as it swaps a process back and forth between the two processors. NT 4 with the newer Service Packs are much better about this than the originial version of NT, but it still happens every now and then. Hopefully, this won't be an issue at all under Win 2000.

John

[Pooh]

Hello Cut ter

I have just upgraded from a single PIII 500 under Win98 to a dual PIII 500 under NT4 with Service Pack 6. My new mobo is a Gigabyte GA-6BXD. NT installation went seamlessley. Not one single problem ( now there's a first fot a NT install ).

It's early days yet but initial findings are very positive. Can't wait for W2K though.

Pooh