Dual system starting to take shape **updated**

[Mloot]

Duvie, here is a very informative thread on how one guy modded his Mobile XP's to MP's, with pics even. I believe he is running to Mobile XP's at 2600mhz, or something along those lines.

Of course, I believe he is using an Iwill MPX2, which allows for higher FSB adjustments than the current dual Athlon boards, like the MSI K7D.

 

[Mingon]

If you search this forum youll find I posted the information about twice and a month before that guy

I managed to fry my mobo (k7d) by stupidly plugging a dvd-rom power cable back in when the machine was on, one big bang later and a dead motherboard doh!

With my machine at 2.266 ghz I was getting roughly 45fps encoding with dr divx 1.03 and 5.11 pro codec, when their at 2.5 they should push 53ish. Of course the good thing is that I can run 2 instances and encode at twice the speed I converted my extended edition LOTR and the two towers into 4 x 1gb fles in around 6 hours at top quality settings. At the moment I am running a 1.7ghz celeron in a pvt800 motherboard whilst I am waiting for the replacement it is soo slow its not funny. The machine hesitate just loading a web page. Personally I have my cpu's set at 18 x 138 as I cant go much higher without corrupting the scsi hard drive as its a 64bit controller in the 66mhz slot so at 38mhz pci its runing 76mhz which is quite out of spec

 

[Duvie]

updated info...

 

[Mingon]

Originally posted by: Duvie
updated info...

Further to your post in the video forum I would suggest a Ti4200-4600 video card than an ati9800. Nvdia's drivers are currently much better and with the help of rivatuner you can enable quadro support as well. I used Acad 2002 and found the 9700 was just to slow in the views I used (gourad shaded), although someone mentioned its better now in 2004.

 

[FelixDeCat]

Thanks for being the trailblazer here at AT. I was checking out Intels site watching the vids explaining the benefits of hyperthreaded Xeons. Might be fun to try this out. Good luck!

 

[Duvie]

Originally posted by: Mingon

Originally posted by: Duvie
updated info...

Further to your post in the video forum I would suggest a Ti4200-4600 video card than an ati9800. Nvdia's drivers are currently much better and with the help of rivatuner you can enable quadro support as well. I used Acad 2002 and found the 9700 was just to slow in the views I used (gourad shaded), although someone mentioned its better now in 2004.

I think I tend to leaning towards a newer 6800 or R420 ATI card to be announced here shortly...means this may be a motnh out from fruition, but those who know me know I like to beat a dead horse....I am no hurry when I still have questions....


Other questions to arise from painstaking research is that the Asus board skimped and as 1 phase power and rumored gets very hot with the higher fsb...May have to buy some heatsinks and actively cool them....Also since this is an issue many suggest that it may not be fully compatable or get support from Asus to run the 800's...The Iwill at 150-160 more does have a 3 phase power though it is filled to the brim with things I am not interested in like 66bit pci slots and PCI-x....

A bit of a quandry here as a low priced vid card allows me to throuw more into the mobo, however I may go get a high priced card still just not a designated CAD card so I don't want both of them high....I have some threads and PMs out to ppl trying to ascertain what kind of fsb is the limit on the Asus....


MINGON....I did that once with an older Geforce card and it didn't performa as well as everyone said....PLus the more research I have found shows the newer cards with their advances in opengl, shaders, more pipelines, 256bit memory addressing, higher speed cores and memory, and new antialiasing technology is far superior that I will not let cost hold me back from getting something that will have high visual quality.....

Like I said in the video forum maybe a 6800, 6800NU, 6800GT or 6800U may be the best thing since it specs out almost identically or better then the yet to be released and likley 1000+ dollars of the Geforce FX 4000.....

 

[SickBeast]

Duvie I just read over at the Inquirer (maybe not accurate then) that there will be dual-cored Opterons before the end of this year that will be compatible with Socket-939 motherboards. Just something to consider. If I were going the Opteron route I would definately wait for a serious Socket-939 motherboard with PCI-express and all the goodies.

Imagine 4 effective processors tho...it would be seriously fast.

 

[Duvie]

Originally posted by: SickBeast
Duvie I just read over at the Inquirer (maybe not accurate then) that there will be dual-cored Opterons before the end of this year that will be compatible with Socket-939 motherboards. Just something to consider. If I were going the Opteron route I would definately wait for a serious Socket-939 motherboard with PCI-express and all the goodies.

Imagine 4 effective processors tho...it would be seriously fast.

I have read that as well and I am not sure what the whole dual core thing is and whether it scales like that....

I imagine the price would still be high for awhile...I have resigned to the fact whether in a 8-12 months when I would be likely to update the cpus I could switch setups....Partly the reason why I am not looking at the DH800 option since that would be 350-380 dollars into a board and a harder pill to swalllow.....

It looks like now with pricing and avialable ocing it will be xeons for now....