Can I build a dual processor system w / two PIII 1GHz CPUs?

[Smoke]

Trying to build a fast SETI cruncher with some of the hardware I have available. Is it possible to build a dual processor system with two PIII 1 GHz CPUs?

I would appreciate some advice.

 

[ddiccico]

dell makes one (we have one in our lab), so it must be possible

 

[Smoke]

That's good news.

Now if I could get some specific advice I would be most appreciative.

 

[ddiccico]

what's the hardware you have available?

do you have a board (or one in mind) or cpus?

 

[Smoke]

I've got two PIII 1GHz, a SuperMicro S-750A Case w/300W PS, 512 MB Crucial Cas2, Video Card (G400), floppy, & CD-Rom.

I would hope all I would need would be a motherboard and slap this thing together.

Is there any special software needed for a dual cpu system? I have Windows2000Professional that could be installed for the OS...is that good enough?

 

[burnedout]

Smokeball: So long as you use an operating system that supports SMP, you'll be fine. Yes, Win2K Pro is SMP capable. I'm replying to this thread on an SMP box (Abit BP6 w/2x533) running Win2K Pro. It's crunching along at 3.00 Mkeys/s in RC5. I think the SETI client takes advantage of SMP and is multi threaded. Haven't played with SETI yet, just RC5.

As far as a board goes, consider the Abit VP6, ECS D6VAA-R Dual, Gigabyte GA-6VXDC7 and others in the $100 - $140 range.

Take a look over on 2cpu.com at some of their reviews.

I too, am putting together a dual 1 GHz box. But it's with an Asus P3C-D (not recommended because it uses RDRAM). Have zero cost into the board, so it's no big deal for me.

 

[ddiccico]

how about an abit vp6? tyan makes a couple dual p3 boards, but i've heard they're a bit picky.

iwill's dvd266-r is a nice board too.

 

[kylef]

Another vote for the Abit.

 

[Rand]

My opinion is to avoid the Abit VP6, I've used the VP6 a few times and stability is rather sub-par.

Another thing to keep in mind is that the 1GHz Pentium 3 must be of cC0 stepping or later to operate in a dual processor configuration, the cB0 stepping 1GHz P3 was not dual processor capable. Lower sped grades of the cB0 stepping are ual processor capable, as are 1GHz P3's in later steppings.

 

[Smoke]

Appreciate the comments and recs.

Is there a way to tell what stepping my PIII 1GHz CPUs are without taking the computers, in which they are currently running, apart? Not that opening them up to take a look is that hard.

I bought them in mid-February this year.

/guess I'm feeling a little lazy on this hot summer afternoon.

 

[Desmoquattro]

Well...if the RDRAM issue doesn't bother you...go get an OR840...board is superfast...so i heard. Wouldn't think twice about buying it though if RDRAM cost the same as DDR or SDRAM. Otherwise...ABIT seems to be the most logical choice...if you don't want that...go check out Supermicro with their Serverworks chipset...i don't know much about that one though.

 

[Smoke]

Thanks for the recommendations, Desmoquattro

I appreciate your help.

 

[han888]

vote for vp6, run my dual without problem

 

[dowxp]

crunching at 5.07Mkeys..

Rioworks PDVIA-LS, u get scsi! for only 150! see system info.

 

[Bingo13]

I-Will DVD266-R is a very good board, very stable so far in two systems I have built with it. I found the MSI 694D-Pro and Abit VP6 to be stable if setup properly.

 

[Smoke]

I'm not too interested in RAID. Is the I-Will DVD266-R available in a non-RAID config...like I-Will DVD266?

Can you use a RAID motherboard and use only 1 hard drive? In effect, have but not use RAID?

NEVER MIND!

I just looked up DVD266 on Price Watch and there is such a model. Whew, those are pretty expensive. I guess you get what you pay for.