Dual Motherboards, which to get???

[ThePrIsMcAURA]

I don't know too much about motherboards but I want to get an Asus board, I have a P2B-F at the moment and that has been rock solid for 2 years. And judging from alot of the posts Asus seem to be the best.

I have looked through the Asus site for dual boards and the only one I can find, I must not be looking properly, is the P3C-D with Intel i820 chipset.
http://www.asus.com/Products/Motherboard/Pentiumpro/P3c-d/index.html
I have read through quite a few of the posts here and most people seem to think that the i815 chipset is the bees knees. Is there one for a Dual motherboard??
They talk about RAMBUS being supported but I hope this not the ONLY ram you can use for it.

Is this a good board, has anyone had any experience with it and how upgradable is it??
Or is there another dual board that is far more exceptional and roughly the same price??

Thank you

 

[ThePrIsMcAURA]

Also forgot to mention I want to run 2 Intel 800e cpus, a Pinnacle DV500 video capture card, either a Matrox G450 or ATI Radeon video card, SoundBlaster Live Platinum and Windows 2000 Professional.

Will be using Photoshop, Premiere, alot of Video capture and editing work to be done on it.

Anything else I need to post??

THanks

 

[AndyHui]

I would recommend against picking the P3C-D, since it supports only RAMBUS.

The i815E chipset is not capable of SMP support, so you won't be able to obtain any dual boards based on that chipset.

Personally I would go for the older ASUS P2B-D...based on the BX chipset. The latest revision of this board fully supports 100MHz FSB Coppermines. Stable, performs well, uses SDRAM and is a mature solution.

 

[ThePrIsMcAURA]

Thanks for that reply much appreciated. The P2B-F that I have now is the old 440BX chipset and it works great. Thats good news that the P2B-D supports the coppermines even the 800e?

Do you know of any incompatibilty issues with this board, because I really don't want it to conflict with the other hardware I want to get.

Thanks for the reply

 

[CarpeDeo]

I belive the Abit VP6 (correct model #??) is coming out soon w/ dual fcpga support.

 

[ThePrIsMcAURA]

Long term use of this board is a must so upgradeablity is a huge option. I'll check out that Abit board, but i've heard that some Abit boards conflict with Sound Blaster cards, lots of blue screen and startup problems. Has anyone else experienced this?

I know very little about NT systems but knowing what types of protocols they support is very useful, thank you for that.

The main reason I was to get a dual cpu system is that I want to do/learn some intensive video capture and editing. I want to make my own high quality vcds. Also I have seen Photoshop and Premiere run on Win2000 and they are very fast and stable, just as good as Mac G3 450mhz 128MB Ram. So I might aswell take full advantage of Win2000 and run dual cpus for that extra processing power. And I could probably get this computer at 3/4 the price of a Mac and have more features and support.
Later on I hope to run a ftp off it and network it up to 4 computers so knowing what it can support is great.

Thanks for the replies, please keep them coming.

 

[AndyHui]

What are you looking for in terms of upgradeability? At this point in time, I would say that it is a bit of a dead end. With the Pentium 4 (non-Foster version) not capable of SMP, and a completely different desgin, your motherboard is not going to accept a P4 whatever board you decide to get now. Even support for the coming P3 Tualatin is very doubtful.

Upgrade video card? That doesn't really matter...since in most situations AGP4x does not show any material gains over AGP2X. If you are going to run a 100MHz CPU, then AGP divider is not a problem.

Faster drive transfer rates? Grab a Promise PCI ATA Controller card.....or in your case, since you seem to need very high performance, why not go with SCSI? Have a look at the ASUS P2B-DS with integrated SCSI.

I would still recommend the BX chipset over the VIA chipset for what you are doing. Performance is better, and it is guaranteed without needing to fiddle with possible problems in VIA drivers.

You want heaps of RAM? The BX will quite happily take up to 1GB. The VIA may support 1.5GB, but you are never going to be able to fit that into the standard 3 DIMM slots.

 

[nexus9]

Take a look at http://www.tomshardware.com/mainboard/00q3/000911/index.html

The MSI 694D Pro looks pretty good...

-Nexus9

 

[ThePrIsMcAURA]

Thanks for those replies, I was reading in a computer mag a review about a new computer from Xenon Systems, the Xenon Nitro 2000 with Dual 800e Intel chips exactly what I want to get.
But on the description on the mother all it said was Nitro 2000 Serverworks HE III chipset with onboard SCSI and that's all it mentioned. The computer was bundled with 512MB of 133mhz SDRAM so at least I know sdram is compatible. I'll probably afford about 300MB.
I can't seem to get to thier website though xenonsystems.com, the mag probably misprinted it but I have their 1800 number so i'll give them a ring and ask what the motherboard really is.
I love the review benchmarks on toms hardware with 3D Max, double the cpu double the rendering performance. 3D Max will be what I will be using in school next year as well as Bryce 4 so i'll benefit alot from dual cpus.
What are good SCSI transfer rates on a motherboard? When they say SCSI 160 as part of the description does that mean 160Megabytes per second?

But thanks for the other suggestions, going to check out thier websites now.

 

[Gunslinger]

Go over to 2cpu, check out the forum, there is a lot of talk about dual boards, as the site name implies

 

[jose]

Also check out the Asus CUD-LS mobo.

Jose

 

[networkman]

Good reply there, Gunslinger!! Also, as is in your signature, I have 3 Tyan Tiger 100's that are each working with a pair of 400's, 500's and 550's, respectively; according to the docs, the Tiger 100's top out at a 100fsb and a 600 MHz cpu.

FWIW, ThePrIsMcAURA, I am purchasing a MicroStar 694D Pro board, so I can let you know my experience with that one soon, if you wish.

 

[ThePrIsMcAURA]

Thanks for that guys much appreciated and very helpful.
I was reading at tomshardware.com that those tyan tiger kick a bit of ass in price and stability. But I still want to know what the hell ServerWorks HE III chipset is equivalent to. I managed to phone Xenon and they said that it was an OEM board that is made for them and couldn't give me the info on who makes it for them.
Other specs to the board were it can support up to 1Ghz P3s, 8GB of ram in 4 DIMM slots , it has Ultra SCSI 2 built in onboard and can transfer data at 80MB/sec and has 2 ATA66 IDE slots.
Does this sound familiar to anyone?
That would be great networkman if you could tell me about your experiences with that board. I will be purchasing the computer in about 1 month and I have narrowed down all the hardware except for the motherboard. I hope 1 month is enough for you to give the mobo a good working out. BTW what does FWIW stand for?

Thanks for the replies and info.

 

[ThePrIsMcAURA]

Whoops sorry for my stupidity I found what that ServerWorks board is equivalent to a ASUS CUR-DLS , couldn't find the CUD-LS board though.
http://www.asus.com/Products/Motherboard/pentiumpro/cur-dls/index.html
http://www.serverworks.com/frames/prodHE_frame.html is for the board in the XENON.
Can anyone tell me if this board is any good, I don't know much about motherboards. Also when I rang XENON they said that only a certain type of SDRAM is supported for this board that comes from the US. Is this true, I can't see anything in there that says that.

Let me know what you think of this board.
Other Hardware I have decided on 300MB 133mhz crucial ram, Pinnacle DV500 video capture card, Matrox G450 graphics card - supports dual monitors, Sound blaster Live Platinum, 30GB Maxtor HDD, Mitsumi 4804TE burner and Aopen 8x DVD.

Does anyone know of any conflicts, installation problems between these?

Thank you

 

[xyvyx]

Guess what the ServerWorks chipsets are optimized for ?

Seriously, though, they make for wonderful motherboards... some of our rock-solid Dell servers have ServerWorks chipsets. Basically, this chipset is geared for throughput and lots of it! (eg: gigabit ethernet + multi-channel RAID)

You'll note, however, that it doesn't have AGP support Of course, most of the boards in this class have some sort of ATI video integrated, so you could use that instead Ok, so if that's not an option, maybe go for something with the 443GX chipset ?

I picked up a Tyan Thunderbolt(S1837UANG-L) about 2 months ago and couldn't be happier!
It is limited, however, to an 850Mhz chip, but that wasn't a problem for me. If it's lots of RAM you want, this is your board.. it supports up to 2GB. It comes with a really basic soundcard integrated, but I've added a SB Live! without any problems. It's also got integrated 100MB ethernet and dual-channel SCSI, so as you might expect, it's not cheap, but it's a good value if you wanted those things anyway.

happy hunting!

-Chris

 

[networkman]

FWIW = For what it's worth

 

[bluezebra1098]

The ASUS P2B-DS is also very good for video work. I have a friend who has a audio/video production business and has had months of trouble with dual Xeon 450 and the Intel motherboard especially when using RAZOR for video editing. Several contacts with vast experience with video have repeatedly told him that the newer coppermine technology does not work well with video programs such as RAZOR and he is presently building a computer today with dual 600mhz non coppermine processors with the ASUS board. A second contact also swore by the Tyan Tiger but the ASUS won out in the end.

 

[ThePrIsMcAURA]

I read about the Tyan Tiger and I seem to be leaning towards Tyan now but I read at tomshardware that the board is a VIA platform and from other posts in this thread via doesn't support my video capture card.
But on the Tyan site it says that it is a Intel 440BX chipset and the Thunderbolt which I am considering aswell is a Intel 440GX chipset.
Doesn't say anythign about VIA but I am probably missing something.

Also the Tyan is the only one that I have found that supports AGP all the others have intergrated ATI or something but no AGP slot.

If the Tyan Tiger 133 or Thunderbolt are NOT VIA boards it looks like I have found my board but if they are back to the drawing board.

THanks for the replies.

 

[DieselMan]

tiger 133 is via-based, sorry!

It's not really a bad board, but the overall performance lacks a whole 5%-10% behind the bx dual boards (tiger 100), at the same clock speed. Of course, overclocking this board (for "E" chips) brings it back above the tiger 100(well, if you overclock the tiger 100, you get even better performance, but you may run into stability problems if your components can't run at 44Mhz PCI).

 

[xyvyx]

The Thunderbolt is certainly not a VIA based board...

the 443GX (later revision of the 440GX) is very similiar to the 440BX chipset, but it adds support for Xeon processors & more RAM.

I got mine from Techstore.com for $422. I'm running it with a 700Mhz P3, 256MB of ram and a "little" 15GB, 7200RPM drive from Western Digital. While there are faster things out there, it's still screams!

If you don't need the integrated SCSI, Ethernet & sound, then go for the Tiger 100. Also keep in mind that the Thunderbolt is a BIG board (Extended-ATX), so it won't fit in just any case.

cheers!
-chris

 

[ThePrIsMcAURA]

Thanks for that reply, yeah I was planning on getting a full tower case but I hope the board is not specific to which ATX cases it takes.

In the 2cpu.com forums alot of the people have steered me towards to the ASUS P2B-DS board cause quite a few use it with similiar hardware except for the Pinnacle DV500 video card, and say that it is stable as. But no-one has had the Thunderbolt, which I am still considering, and P2B-DS in their experiece to say which is better.

It may come down to price because a few have said the Thunderbolt is like $300 more in Australia. My budget is or almost blown but long term use, compatibility and stability I will pay extra for.

 

[xyvyx]

Acutally, 2CPU.com DID DO a review of the Thunderbolt, and it's partially why I got it.

check this out:
http://2cpu.com/Hardware/thunderbolt/thunderbolt.html

They wern't too fond of the layout for some of the connectors b/c they're all close together n' stuff. My case is pretty big, so it hasn't been a problem for me.

I just really like how it has so many slots + all the built-in stuff.

I *have* had 1 lockup in Win2k Pro, but after I did some driver upgrades (SB Live!, Intel ethernet), it's been just fine.

 

[Kwad Guy]

The Tyan Tiger 100 would be my recommendation for dual processors
on a budget. As long as you get a recent model (board revision "F&quot
it will support PIII processors up through 800Mhz. You can also
overclock it to some extent. It offers 100, 102, 112, 133Mhz FSB
options. Most any Coppermine processor can be run at 112Mhz FSB
without any problem or special cooling. Running one at 133Mhz
may be a problem, however, both due to the chip itself, and because
of PCI divider issues on the Tiger 100.

If you can live with Katmai processors (i.e. can live with dual
PIII 600's or less), then I'd recommend the Intel "Niteshade"
dual processor boards, also known as N440BX. These are super solid
boards, very fast, and they have onboard SCSI. You can probably
pick one up used for around $225-250.

Kwad

 

[ThePrIsMcAURA]

Thanks for that info, and my apologies for the lateness of mine.

I have been rather enthralled in one of my posts at 2cpu messageboards, thank you for referring me there, have a look if you want.
http://www.2cpu.com/ubb/Forum13/HTML/000586.html

I've pretty much settle on the ASUS P2B-DS, I like ASUS and have been pleased with their products and everyone seems to recommend them, but my budget is way over and I may still consider the Tyan Tiger 100 or Thunderbolt because I can't see on their specs that says needs REGISTERED DIMMS, which I am still trying to find out what they are.

Thank you once again for your info

 

[AndyHui]

Registered DIMMs are ECC SDRAM DIMMs. Generally ECC SDRAM comes in 2 flavours, Registered and un-Registered. Expensive...