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Dual Athlon XPs, who's done it and how is it?

G

Gunnar

Senior member


I cant resist any longer, Im ready to plunge headfirst into a dualie, im writing a raytracer using MPI (which hopefully supports the AMD platform).

But I want to get AMD processors based on the newer thoroughbred b core, if anything to save on the amount of heat this thing is going to produce, and the speed advantage (not to mention the monitary benefits).

My question is, who has done this? How easy is it to do it, and what are the failure rates? Could it be possible that the newer Athlon cores are not SMP capable (though I doubt it)?
 
Been there, done that.

I used Athlon XP's that were factory unlocked, you'll have to unlock them for SMP use if you don't want to pay the $$$ for MP's.

How is it? Great, if you're doing things that will actually use both CPUs. My dual 1800's pumped out 12 seti WU's a day, & kicked ass for multi-tasking.

But when I had the offer to sell my dualie setup & build a P4, I took it.

Do it if you need the dualie capability, don't do it if you want a fast gaming system. They are not good gaming systems.

Viper GTS
 

Is there any difference between an MP and XP processor other than one being certified and the other not?

An improved snooping unit? Bigger cache? different manufacturing process?

While this wouldnt be good from a business perspective (two different processors to manufacture), maybe AMD had some other performance enhancement in mind.....

Otherwise, Id happily buy two XP processors and take my chances. Im not running a webserver or anything.
 
Originally posted by: Gunnar
Is there any difference between an MP and XP processor other than one being certified and the other not?

An improved snooping unit? Bigger cache? different manufacturing process?

While this wouldnt be good from a business perspective (two different processors to manufacture), maybe AMD had some other performance enhancement in mind.....

Otherwise, Id happily buy two XP processors and take my chances. Im not running a webserver or anything.
Click to expand...

They are exactly the same, save for the bridge configuration.

The only difference is the MP's have been fully tested & are guaranteed to work in SMP configurations, whereas the XP's are only guaranteed for single use.

They happen to work beautifully in SMP.

🙂

Viper GTS
 
Using the same bridge trick you can actually run Durons on SMP board, but ditto Viper GTS said, SMP sysems are crazy and not suitable for gamming rigs, and unless your running servers and such its really not worth it as you would have to do some crazy multitasking to fully utilize that power.

I classify SMP and RAID 0 in the same boat where people think more is better which it is in a few rare cases, but for the most part they slow the normal user down.
 
I have a dual MP2000+ system I originally built for a friend for video editing but ended up keeping after it wouldn't work with a pinnacle card (note: if anyone asks you to build them a video editing system, tell them to buy a mac).

I have had many, many problems, but most have been related to the motherboard. If you go dual, DO NOT buy the Tyan Thunder K7 (S2462). It's too big, requires a special power supply, and crashes all the time. Anand seems to like them, but I regret this purchase more than any other piece of HW I've ever bought. Lately it simply will not work with two cpus installed. It works great with one, but not two. Probably something to do with heat.

Tonight I'm taking it out of the case and sending it back to newegg. Chances are I'm getting another one in a week or so (no refunds on that board), and hopefully my problems disappear after that.
 
My box (at home) is running a Dual Athlon XP 1800+. Good box, very stable, had no issues with it. The 1800XPs are from last year, before they started to cut the bridge, so I had no problems getting them to run in SMP mode. My motherboard is the MSI K7D Master-L (fixed board) and couldn't be happier.

My main advise to you is to considering getting a good PSU before buying the board. I made sure to get an Enermax 431watt, to ensure completely clean power to the board. So far, so good.

vash
 
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