Dual Processor Boards - Advantages???

[Texun]

Can someone tell me the advantages of using a dual CPU setup with Win2k? Say for example I want to build another personal file server and already have a 900 Celeron chip, what will adding another one do for me? Are two 900's the same as a 1.8g chip? I'm thinking
probably not. I have a 900 to use and would rather not spring for a pair of PIII's.

What I am looking for is something that will allow me to dedicate some processing power to managing files, downloads, background tasks etc. but not slow the OS menu to a crawl. My current 500MHz works great as long as I don't have much working in the background.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Entropy007]

Main advantage is that you can use 2 processors🙂

 

[Bovinicus]

It will definitely help you to multitask more efficiently. Applications that are not multithreaded won't run any faster, except that some CPU power necessary for other tasks can be offloaded onto the second CPU. Most games do not have SMP support, so gaming won't be enhanced too much. Q3 is one exception to this. If you plan on using it for a server, then performance will probably be similar to that of a 1.8GHz CPU. SMP is extremely effective in multithreaded situations (Multithreaded apps, Multiple apps), and does nearly double performance. It sounds like buying another CPU might be a reasonable option for you.

 

[Inept]

When you benchmark a multiprocessor system, you'll find that it actually benchmarks worse than x times the speed of a single processor, where x is the number of processors you have. It feels faster though. A lot faster. You'll definitely notice it when you're doing some serious multitasking. A lot of what a single processor does is context switching - saving data and registers to memory so that it can run many processes in what appears to be parallel to you. Having many processors means you're going to end up context switching a lot less, and though it may not show up in benchmarks, like I said it just feels fast!

I had a dual PII 400 and an Athlon 900 at the same time last year, and the dual PII just seemed that much snappier and competent, even though it scored significantly worse in Sandra.

If all it's gonna cost you is the money for anothe Celery, get it. You're really going to love two processors. As much as Celeron's suck, two of them is pretty damned nice 🙂

 

[Texun]

Outstanding info!

Thanks for the reply. I know Celerons bite, but maybe two with 100FSB's will do a decent job. Not looking for speed as much as I am smoother multitasking. Is my understanding correct?

 

[Rand]

Well with the Celeron your out of luck as the Celeron 900MHz does not support multiprocessing in any case.
In heavily SMP optimized applications you may well se upwards to 30-40% performance boost over a uniprocessor setup.

For lightly optimized software your realistically looking at about a 10-20% performance boost.
Heavy multitasking can also benefit from SMP even if the individual applications themselves are not SMP aware, as Windows can dedicate each task to a different processor.
In non-SMP optimized applications your generally going to see a slight performance loss (3-8%) caused by bus contention and other such issues in an SMP setup.

 

[Texun]

Do any Celerons support multiprocessing?????

Thanks,

 

[Bovinicus]

Also, if you were able to run Celerons in a dual setup, they do not get their own deticated FSBs. They have to share the same 100MHz FSB. That is why the EV6 bus of the K7 core is nice. Each CPU gets it's own FSB.

 

[sechs]

Somebody once descibed to me the performance boost when going to dual processors like this:

It's not as if you have a single processor at speed 2x, but more like having two processors at speed x. You're not going to add 2 and 2 twice as fast, you're going to be able to add 2 and 2, as well as add 4 and 6, at the same time.

 

[RanDum72]

Do any Celerons support multiprocessing?????

I think the early PPGA Celerons can be run in a duallie setup but they max out at around 533-566mhz (correct me if I'm wrong).

 

[Sunner]

Even the PPGA Celeron's of old don't support SMP, but Abit made a mobo(BP6? Don't remember the name) that included a hardware fix for this, allowing you to run them in SMP mode.
There were also some adapters made for Celeron's that would allow them to run in SMP configuration with any mobo.

And the general cliche on SMP is, "If you have to ask, you don't need it", that good ole cliche holds true in 95% of the cases.

Most apps out there aren't even SMP aware, in those cases you'l be looking at no performance boost at all(like someone mentioned, there might be a slight drop due to overhead).
The apps that are SMP aware will show varying gains, some will scale nearly linearly, but those are most number crunching type apps, such as RC5, or various scientiffic applications.
Most SMP aware apps will probably show improvements in the 20-50% range, depending on the application.

If I were you, I'd save the money and get a faster rig, I bet for the price if a dual mobo, you could get a cheap SocketA mobo and an AXP 1600+, if not better, and for most stuff that rig would easially outperform dual 900's, Celeron(assuming you can find an adapter) or P-III's.

 

[Wolfsraider]

Originally posted by: Sunner
Even the PPGA Celeron's of old don't support SMP, but Abit made a mobo(BP6? Don't remember the name) that included a hardware fix for this, allowing you to run them in SMP mode.
There were also some adapters made for Celeron's that would allow them to run in SMP configuration with any mobo.

And the general cliche on SMP is, "If you have to ask, you don't need it", that good ole cliche holds true in 95% of the cases.

Most apps out there aren't even SMP aware, in those cases you'l be looking at no performance boost at all(like someone mentioned, there might be a slight drop due to overhead).
The apps that are SMP aware will show varying gains, some will scale nearly linearly, but those are most number crunching type apps, such as RC5, or various scientiffic applications.
Most SMP aware apps will probably show improvements in the 20-50% range, depending on the application.

If I were you, I'd save the money and get a faster rig, I bet for the price if a dual mobo, you could get a cheap SocketA mobo and an AXP 1600+, if not better, and for most stuff that rig would easially outperform dual 900's, Celeron(assuming you can find an adapter) or P-III's.

texun unless you just want a duallie the athlon xp 1600 would be better as stated above by sunner imho

 

[Rand]

Originally posted by: texun
Do any Celerons support multiprocessing?????

Thanks,

PPGA/Slot1 Celeron's based on the old Mendocino core, at 300-533MHz were SMP capable. Even that was unofficial and required a bit of 'hacking around' on the mobo manufacturers part to enable operation. The Covington core was also SMP capable, though again unofficially (266-300MHz)
Coppermine, and Tualatin core Celeron's are completely incapable of multiprocessing.

 

[Texun]

Thanks to all for the info.

Sunner, Wolfsraider, Rand, Bovinicus, or anyone else I have another dually n00b question \ clarification:

I am not looking so much for the sports car effect as much as I am a "tractor" for my small home network. I want to smoothly operate the the menus, open folders, x-fer files, managing mail, etc. while running other tasks like multiple downloads, etc. My understanding is that dual cpu's with an OS that supports SMP will help this, correct? As far as running SMP ready apps, I don't do anything else except download, churn files and burn CD's.

As far as the Celeron... I'll can get my hands on a PIII 700 by trading a few parts I have in the closet. If not, AMD single rig here I come. My only reason for not going with AMD, or a high end Intel in the first place, is because I wanted to avoid the the heat, current draw and fan noise from the single but faster chips. Plus, the dual board is a done deal and since that is what I have to work with I thought I would use it.

Normally I am very picky about the parts I get if they are to be used for my main PC, but all I want the server to do is serve files over my network without slowing the OS in my Celeron 500 to a crawl every time I open a window while downloading several files or x-fering files to another PC. I currently have 256 now and do nothing other than what I mentioned above. It works great unless I want to do more than one thing. The Aopen board I have now will only go to 256 so adding more memory is not an option there.

Thanks to all for the info. I've been building my own PC's for years without a problem but the dual setup is fresh ground for me and I do appreciate the help.

 

[Wolfsraider]

I am not looking so much for the sports car effect as much as I am a "tractor" for my small home network. I want to smoothly operate the the menus, open folders, x-fer files, managing mail, etc. while running other tasks like multiple downloads, etc. My understanding is that dual cpu's with an OS that supports SMP will help this, correct? As far as running SMP ready apps, I don't do anything else except download, churn files and burn CD's.

texun
its your money and if i was in your shoes i might do the same.from what i have seen there is a big bonus in going dual just not in benchmarks,but rather in doing the things you describe.it will definately make the system snappier as the load will be half what it will now

ie ... even if one processor is chugging away at 100 % the other is available

perhaps you might read more check the forums they have a newbie area although you can just ask questions in the proper area

a lot of these guys are using the same type equipment you are looking at or started out on similar hardware.

i almost went dual processors this time my self as i love the idea of not waiting to do seperate tasks
but my 2.8 is actually pretty decent at this and with the scsi drive coming i am looking forward to seeing the differences there.one thing is certain my next computer will be a dualie scsi monster

tim taylor voice>>>arr arr arr<<<tim taylor voice
lol

 

[OS]

Originally posted by: texun
Thanks to all for the info.

Sunner, Wolfsraider, Rand, Bovinicus, or anyone else I have another dually n00b question \ clarification:

I am not looking so much for the sports car effect as much as I am a "tractor" for my small home network. I want to smoothly operate the the menus, open folders, x-fer files, managing mail, etc. while running other tasks like multiple downloads, etc. My understanding is that dual cpu's with an OS that supports SMP will help this, correct? As far as running SMP ready apps, I don't do anything else except download, churn files and burn CD's.

As far as the Celeron... I'll can get my hands on a PIII 700 by trading a few parts I have in the closet. If not, AMD single rig here I come. My only reason for not going with AMD, or a high end Intel in the first place, is because I wanted to avoid the the heat, current draw and fan noise from the single but faster chips. Plus, the dual board is a done deal and since that is what I have to work with I thought I would use it.

Normally I am very picky about the parts I get if they are to be used for my main PC, but all I want the server to do is serve files over my network without slowing the OS in my Celeron 500 to a crawl every time I open a window while downloading several files or x-fering files to another PC. I currently have 256 now and do nothing other than what I mentioned above. It works great unless I want to do more than one thing. The Aopen board I have now will only go to 256 so adding more memory is not an option there.

Thanks to all for the info. I've been building my own PC's for years without a problem but the dual setup is fresh ground for me and I do appreciate the help.

I currently use a dual CPU system, the old BP6 mobo and 2 celeron 400s.

Yes, you're right, SMP systems load up very well, they don't slow down when you are doing lots of things at once, assuming you have enough memory and fast hard drives that can keep up. I too am a very heavy multitasker. NT based OSes will load each CPU as evenly as possible.

I mean, it's late 2002, I still have a 400 mhz system and yet I don't feel particularly compelled to upgrade even after using other people's faster computers. Besides, I put alot of work into this system, even the heatsinks were custom milled at the aerospace company my dad works at to fit the board. :Q I don't play games however. Even though the cpu speed is low by today's standards, I still have lots of ram (768 mb) and 160 gb across 3 hard drives to back up the two processors.

However, you'll probably need to change your usage habits a bit. Like I have multiple hds and I know if I load a single hd down with multiple operations, it'll slow down the entire system. So I try to spread out access across multiple hds whenever possible. For this reason, I have a system hd, a media/swap file hd and a media/scratch file hd.

If you just want to get your feet wet, look in the FS/FT forums for a combo like mine, BP6 and two celerons. I saw one going for $75 dollars the other day.

 

[sharkeeper]

i almost went dual processors this time my self as i love the idea of not waiting to do seperate tasks
but my 2.8 is actually pretty decent at this and with the scsi drive coming i am looking forward to seeing the differences there.one thing is certain my next computer will be a dualie scsi monster

I have both systems (see sig) and I can tell you that a single 3.2 GHz P4 with 1.5GB of DDR can't hold a candle to my dual 2200+ system. The P4 gets over 15K in 3DMark (completely untweaked R9700) and is stable. Games fly on that system. That's about it however. Start to open the programs and multi task and the thing falls flat on its face. Sure the MP system has high end SCSI RAID but even if the P4 system was equipped with such a storage system, it would still be crippled by poor I/O performance and a sh!tty PC 32/33 bus.

SMP is very nice with XP/2000. It's almost uncanny when you run a program that brings any single cpu system to its knees (barely move the mouse) yet on the SMP system you can still work like the (other) system would be only when idle! Go in the task manager and see 50%! (because each cpu is doing half the work)

Where the advantage comes in with the P4 system is noise. (or lack of it)

Then again, if you're used to working in a real data center or NOC, you're accustomed to noise. I just like get away from the roar of the machine every once and a while. (and still go half speed if I need to!)

Cheers!