Opinions on dual Xeon...

[VJ]

Well, I have made some inquires concering a dual AMD system, and now (at the advice of a collegue) I also checked the dual Xeon route.

The main purpose of the machine will be photo-editing (and later on also video-editing). I have become somewhat concerned about the dual AMD solution, mainly due to compatibility issues (AGP vs. PCI64/66, Parhelia, ...), although there seems to be coming an end to them... I didn't consider dual Xeon beforehand, as I thought it would be much more expensive (it turns out it still is within my league ).

So, any comments/experience on performance, compatibilty, ... (regarding the i860 chipset) ?


Jörg

[SteveC]

No real useful comments, but we got a few dual Xeon's here at work a few years ago (Dual PIII Xeon 550's, 1Gb RAM IBM servers - still in use) and when we first got them I was doing some video format conversions on my desktop PC which was taking ages (hours), but when I ran it on the Xeons and it took a few minutes I was impressed.

[Ribbit]

Wasn't the Parhelia/SMP thread also talking about issues with the i860? <runs off to reread thread>

[VJ]

Which thread is that ?
(the "best Athlon dual..." does not make mention of the Xeon)


Jörg

[Ribbit]

This one: http://forums.murc.ws/showthread.php?s=&threadid=35942

[isochar]

The parhelia ran perfectly on my Supermicro. My personal experience for the last 8 months is that my Supermicro i860 is on-par with the best BX-boards that were out there. You won't regret the investment.

I like doing the pricing comparisons, so here they are:

Athlon MP 2200+ x 2 = $442
256mb PC2100 ECC x4 = $260
Tyan Thunder K7X w/o SCSI = $345
=$1047

Xeon DP 2.2ghz x2 = $504
RDRAM PC800 ECC x 4 = $336
Supermicro P4DCE+ = $365
=$1205

[K6-III]

Let me make a small edit to that:

MSI K7D Master-L $200
2xMP 2000+ $310

Giving you a total price of $770, or major savings...

[XHotKolaX]

K6-III- Might wanna add some memory there...equal speed procs would be nice too.

isochar- Which vendor would you reccommend getting the P4DCE+ from? I was looking at the P4DC6+ and figure if they have one, they'll have the other.

[isochar]

K6-3, don't forget that the Supermicro board is enterprise-class, as is the Thunder. The MSI isn't quite there.

Only difference between the two is that the DC6+ comes with the SCSI controller. I've always been a proponent of being able to upgrade every part of the system when I want to, so the DCE+ fit my bill.

As for the vendor, I'd go with the one I quoted - Micropro. $352 + $12 UPS Ground. Here's their site:

http://www.micropro.com

Their site price differs from the pricewatch.com price, so make sure you tell them the price you saw on pricewatch:

http://www.micropro.com/pricewatch/index.htm?item_id=MBPSMP4DCE

I've ordered from them twice before, and haven't had any problems. Both times they shipped the order within 48 hours of the purchase.

[isochar]

One more thing, if you guys can hold off about a month and a half, we'll see the Placer motherboards out - AGP8x, 4.2gb/s of Dual-DDR goodness, and PCI-X. In addition, it'll support the 603 & new 533fsb 604 pin Xeons.

[Chucky Cheese]

Supermicro

isochar,

i second that on the supermicro...i do not do any 3d gaming, just web surfing, email and finacial analysis(...charts and graphs).

my system...

Supermicro SC760P4 case w/400W Power supply
Supermicro P4DC6+ Dual Xeon motherboard
- Intel 860 chipset
- Dual Channel SCSI - Adaptec AIC-7899 "Crossbow Ultra160 SCSI ASIC"
- Intel 82559 Network Controller
- AC97' audio
- USB 1.1 Ports(2), and 2 Header connections
- The rest of the reguler I/O is provided

Intel P4 Xeon 1.7 Ghz w/256K/ATC Processor x (2)
Memory - 512Mb ECC Rambus @ 800Mhz x (2) (Total of 1024 MB)

Video - Matrox Parhelia - 512

Displays - Dual Head Configuration

Pri. - Samsung 210T (21.3" TFT) - DVI
Sec. - Samsung 210T (21.3" TFT) - DVI

Sound - Creative Audigy Platinum
- Live Drive II

HDDs.
- 1 Cheetah X15 36LP @ 36.4 GB(ST336752LW) BOOT
- 2 Seagate Cheetahs 73 LP @ 73.4 Gb ea.(ST373504LW)

CD/CD-RW/DVD

- Plextor PX-40TW (SCSI ID 0)
- Pioneer DVD 305s (SCSI ID 1)
- Plextor CD-RW PW-W1210s (SCSI ID 2)


1394/USB 2.0 - Adaptec Duo-connect AUA 3121 - 3 usb/1 1394 ext. ports - 1 each int.

- external ZIP 100 drive
- Epson Stylus Scan 2500
- USB to Parralle cable
- Granite Digital FireVue 1394 Bridge hosting a WD1800BB HDD.

this board has been very stable!!!

cc

[VJ]

Originally posted by isochar
One more thing, if you guys can hold off about a month and a half, we'll see the Placer motherboards out - AGP8x, 4.2gb/s of Dual-DDR goodness, and PCI-X. In addition, it'll support the 603 & new 533fsb 604 pin Xeons.

Do you have any sites commenting on these boards ?
(and even if they do turn out to be too expensive for me, it might result in a price-drop for the current crop of Dual Xeon boards)

What are good manufacturers in your opinion ? I already had Tyan and Supermicro on my list...

Jörg

[WyWyWyWy]

You will find Xeons have much better performance than Athlon MPs mainly due to the cache and Hyperthreading. And also SMP applications tend to optimise better towards Intel...

[VJ]

Yes, about that hyperthreading... I read that it does not always perform that good in Windows, due to the fact that Windows consider the system to be a 4 processor, not incorporating the fact that 2 of them are dependant on the other. (Apparently, some Linux-kernels do know the dependencies between the hyperthreaded ones and the *real* ones).
I would have to use Windows, so I'm not sure if enabling hyperthreading would be that beneficial. Or am I missing something (new Hardware Abstraction Layers ?) ?

Jörg

[VJ]

This might be important:
Intel to drop Rambus support in new CPU products.

http://www.ebnonline.com/story/OEG20020226S0040

Hmm, guess I'll better wait for those Placers to arrive...

Jörg