Desktop vs server cpu ?

[Carlis]

Is there any major differene between chips labeled serrver and desktop cpu's ?
Like opteron - AMD64
wodcrest - conroe

etc.

Some companys put server processors in there sk workstations. For what good?
Please help me clear this out.

Peace
Carlis

 

[Maximilian]

Generally speaking, theres little difference between them.

Certain opterons have extra HTT lanes or somthing to allow them to work in 2 4 or 8 way configurations. Server CPU's are also tested more intensively than desktop cpu's. Also they apparently use higher quality silicon.

As for woodcrest/conroe, i only know that woodcrest uses a 1333mhz FSB and conroe uses 1066mhz.

 

[Carlis]

rumers say mac will use xeon 5100 for workstations...
I wonder to what price and with what gain...

 

[Aluvus]

Desktop chips usually have features disabled to prevent them being used in multi-socket configurations.

Server chips are sometimes just cherry-picked from desktop production. Sometimes they have extra features (often more cache). Intel has in the past enabled Hyper-Threading on dual core Xeons (and Pentium Extreme Editions) and disabled it on Pentium Ds.

Woodcrest happens to have a faster Front Side Bus (for some chips) than Conroe.

 

[krotchy]

It really depends on the specific chip being discussed, however its usualy stuff like cache, socket type, 2/4/8 way configurations, bus speed, inclusion of PCI-X capabilities etc.

Course sometimes there is no difference like between an Opteron 165/170/175/180/185, which were the exact same chip as the X2 4000+,4400+, 4800+ and FX-60. Basically these all had identical cores. They called the X2/FX's Toledo, and the Opterons a denmark. However I have an Opteron 170 and it gets recognized as a toledo. Pretty much the difference in these, is that the Opterons are "rated" for active 24/7 use, while the X2's are not. However this really means absolutely nothing, and the differences are what many consider just a slightly better binning for the Opterons over the X2's.

 

[Blazkowicz]

Also server chips are more suitable for multiprocessor computing environments such as clusters, blade servers etc.