Dual boards are all flimsy and buggy

[St3v3]

Sorry, but I only have one comment on this one .....

"Poorly written programs cause more crashes than the hardware itself".

I wouldn't say the opteron is buggy, but the software thats written for it.

I've seen many dual boards and they always have suffered from the same poorly written programs for multithreading.

[prehensile]

i'm being educated here

true the audio programs here crash every time on a dually for some configurations. possibly longhorn will incorporate multithreading interpretation of programs...

[spikegifted]

Originally posted by viet cong zombi
like the dual opteron worksation board, but it's got to be said dual amd board are dribbly motherboard efforts in any sense.

the processors went up form 0.5Ghz to 1.5Ghz in about one year, and now it's slowed down heckloads. maybe Nvidia would have the forsight of making a dual channel memory and cpu board...

all the dual boards i've ever heard of crash and burn. when ou try to run a mix of programs on them. essentially workstation boards just mean that they are too buggy to do much with.

with all the development going into Overclocking, where is all the motherboard research going to when it comes to high end real world dual boards? i guess the motherboard makers are too busy making peripherals like asus cd'r super gpu's.
R'n'D, only reliable old single chipsets. essentially motherboard shops just buy little cd factories and print transistors onto chipsets and that's all. meanwhile via is ailing because i little dual memory system is choking it up. oh well.

all the time the market for a 250 dollar base unit going at 3-4 ghz because all computers are actually "workstations". essentially games are fun "CAD" high power programs, and everyone is liable to run a defragmenter while opening and closing windows and copying files around. my computer is still overloaded at times and i press lots of buttons but it stays blocked...a chipset from AMD that is something that you can call "a good old chipset" that simulates some kind of real dual channel emulating software would sell twice as much opterons and athlons to the overclocker market.

evil intel will make tons of slower but faster ripoffs deals till the most distant point in the horizon as things go at the moment.

What are you talking about? I've a couple of AMD duallies. I can report that I'm very happy with their performances and have had very few problems.

If you go to a forum like the one in 2CPU.com you're going to see all kinds of people with duallie problems. But that's expected - people go to forums to talk about problems and look for solutions. However, if you spend a little more time reading about it, most of these problems are very simple to fix and most of the time is because of inexperience rather than fundamental problems with the platform.

[spikegifted]

Originally posted by Stoo
Well, they have the NForce 3 pro which is an opteron chipset, but it's uniprocessor only at the mo. I'd like to see what they could come up with for a dual solution though

Try this link... Or do a Find on the page (as it moves around...)

[HEADRAT]

First review of the Asus PC-DL

http://www.gamepc.com/labs/view_cont...=xeoncw&page=1

Building a dual 2.4 GHz Xeon system and overclocking it to 3 GHz + uber gaming/rendering/crunching/encoding system never looked to cheap/easy (relatively

I'm trying to convince myself at the moment that Xeons are the way to go rather than waiting to see what happens with Opteron and Prescott.

Either way a dual 2.6 GHz Xeon system overclocked to 3GHz + is gonna be a lotta "bang for your buck".

In the UK you can pickup a couple of 2.4 GHz Xeons for :-

2 x 2.6 Xeons (£200 each)
Asus PC-DL (£220)

compare this to Opteron :-

2 x 242 Xeons (£405.32 each)
MSI K8D Master-F (£361.31) not really a this some board as the PC-DL but its the only one I could find a price for !

The Xeon package is looking compelling !

HEADRAT

[TiG]

Heh, however compare the cost of the dual xeon platform to the cost of the p4c 3gig machine. Then think that you could just as easily by a 2.4gig p4c and get that to 3gig without even trying.

Xeons and opterons however much that report bigs them up are NOT made for gaming platforms. Games just simply don't make use of two processors.

Its a simple fact that its not designed to take advantage of the other processor, SQL server etc etc on the other hand certainly will and this is the real reason for dual processor machines.

Servers.!

TiG

[HEADRAT]

I agree for gaming, there are a few exceptions but not enough to worry about.

As I mentioned in my post I did say gaming/rendering/crunching/encoding, I think gaming should have really come @ the end of that list

The thing is buying a PC isn't all about gaming is it, I use VMWARE alot and being able to give it its own CPU appeals. Also for re-encoding video a dual system would kick ass !

HEADRAT

[Bindibadgi]

Originally posted by HEADRAT
First review of the Asus PC-DL

http://www.gamepc.com/labs/view_con...d=xeoncw&page=1

Building a dual 2.4 GHz Xeon system and overclocking it to 3 GHz + uber gaming/rendering/crunching/encoding system never looked to cheap/easy (relatively

I'm trying to convince myself at the moment that Xeons are the way to go rather than waiting to see what happens with Opteron and Prescott.

Either way a dual 2.6 GHz Xeon system overclocked to 3GHz + is gonna be a lotta "bang for your buck".

In the UK you can pickup a couple of 2.4 GHz Xeons for :-

2 x 2.6 Xeons (£200 each)
Asus PC-DL (£220)

compare this to Opteron :-

2 x 242 Xeons (£405.32 each)
MSI K8D Master-F (£361.31) not really a this some board as the PC-DL but its the only one I could find a price for !

The Xeon package is looking compelling !

HEADRAT

Xeons share a single P4 533mhz bus so in effect they are slower accessing memory overall then a single P4. Opterons have a dedicated hypertransport dual DDR bus per processor = uber bandwidth.

Id still go opteron if i wanted a powerful dually rig.

[HEADRAT]

Originally posted by Bindibadgi

Id still go opteron if i wanted a powerful dually rig.

Have you actually read any of the reviews !

For an encoding/rendering workstation the Xeon whoops the Opterons butt.

HEADRAT

[Stoo]

Originally posted by spikegifted
Try this link... Or do a Find on the page (as it moves around...)

Ooooooooooooooooooooh

[Bindibadgi]

Originally posted by HEADRAT
Have you actually read any of the reviews !

For an encoding/rendering workstation the Xeon whoops the Opterons butt.

HEADRAT

eh?? Ive read otherwise. In virtually everything the opteron wins.

[TiG]

I've checked there benchmarking figures against other Opteron reviews and they seem to be VERY poor. I dunno if i'm ready to believe those figures just yet, I know xeons can beat opterons in things like MPEG conversions and a few of the super high end light ray traces. To this i have no doubt, but i'm not convinced by these benchmarks.

Especially when comparing the opterons to the AMD MP processors. Everything i've seen with the MP vs the opteron the MP gets trounced.

I'd be interested to hear other peoples views on these benchmarks.

Thanks
TiG

[HEADRAT]

Originally posted by Bindibadgi
eh?? Ive read otherwise. In virtually everything the opteron wins.

Got any examples, I'd like to see a review where an Opteron beats and Xeon and encoding video for exampel ?

HEADRAT

[spikegifted]

Originally posted by TiG
I've checked there benchmarking figures against other Opteron reviews and they seem to be VERY poor. I dunno if i'm ready to believe those figures just yet, I know xeons can beat opterons in things like MPEG conversions and a few of the super high end light ray traces. To this i have no doubt, but i'm not convinced by these benchmarks.

Especially when comparing the opterons to the AMD MP processors. Everything i've seen with the MP vs the opteron the MP gets trounced.

I'd be interested to hear other peoples views on these benchmarks.

There are several issues regarding the benchmarks for the Opteron I'll like to raise you attention to...

1) The Opteron can handle both 32bit and 64bit computing, however all the reviews I've seen so far only benchmarked in 32bit, so the value equation is not complete. (It may be case that some Linux sites have carried out reviews that involved 64bit computing, but certain those that are based on Windows...)

2) Some of the benchmarking hardware were not well thought out or the hardware is taken to do something that is not it's original intention... For example, GamePC's review of the Tyan Thunder K8S only used 2 sticks of RAM, which means that either both CPUs are sharing the one single dual-channel memory or the CPUs are both accessing it's own single channel memory setup. The Opteron platform performs best with dual-channel memory supplying both CPUs. Also, the Opteron is a platform that is designed to opterate in SMP (just like the Xeon), so it is kind of insane to use a single CPU and bash it about and churn out an article (like Anand's review of the Opteron as a Desktop Platform, GamePC's review of the nForce3 Pro single Opteron solution and AMDZone's Opteron 246 1P Review ... ). I know that the fact that single CPU boards are around means that we should consider it has part of the platform, but IMHO, that is just taking things out of context. When was the last time you see the Xeon reviewed as a single CPU platform?? Given a well thought out setup, the Opteron can hold it's own in most cases - see TechChannel.de's review (in German, but the benchmarks numbers are just the same...)

3) The Opteron needs to scale!! By most measures, the Opteron is running too slow, even though it still holds it own when competing against CPUs that are running over 1GHz faster (Intel's P4Cs and Xeons). However, as I've made this assessment, I also recognize that there's lots of potential for the CPU as it is running in relatively slow speed. So soon as AMD manages to push out higher speed grades, the Opteron will become very competitive. This point was illustrated when AMDZone carried out some overclocked benchmarks on the Opteron. Here they overclocked an Opteron 246 (2GHz) to 2.25GHz and it did very well. Ok, the benchmarks are not exactly workstation class or server platform, but it is a good indication of things to come.

If you want to see more indepth discussions regarding all things SMP related, check out the excellent 2CPU.com forums...

[Bindibadgi]

Originally posted by HEADRAT
Got any examples, I'd like to see a review where an Opteron beats and Xeon and encoding video for exampel ?

HEADRAT

I cant be bothered to find them again to be honest. I prefer the opterons, i dont give a flying monkeys if the xeons even make my dinner for me and im not going into it anymore cause ur attitude is a leaves a lot to be desired tbh.

[HEADRAT]

Originally posted by Bindibadgi
I cant be bothered to find them again to be honest. I prefer the opterons, i dont give a flying monkeys if the xeons even make my dinner for me and im not going into it anymore cause ur attitude is a leaves a lot to be desired tbh.

Well with a reasoned arguement like that what can I say

If you are part of a discussion forum that usually means you want to "discuss" things.... .. .

All I asked was you to substantiate your claim that you'd seen review where the Opteron had beaten a high end Xeon in encoding/rendering !

Obvioulsy using the "flying monkey" approach kind of negates the need for any kind of debate on the subject

As for the attitude thing, LOL !

HEADRAT

PS Please don't let my low post count make you think that I'm a "newb" !