Help! Athlon MP or Xeon workstation? Hammer?

[dseeley]

I'm putting together a 3d workstation for myself and am faced with a big dilemma: Athlon MP or Xeon procs. I am on a moderate budget, so I could afford Xeon 2.2s if I scrimped elsewhere - Athlon MP 2100s are very attractive from a price perspective. I know that the Xeon is technically the fastest... but only by a hair it seems.

Is the current breed of Athlon MP 2100 and 2200 a good horse to bet? I hear lots about hammer but can't wait that long and would like to build a flexible system that can grow as better procs get cheaper. The Xeon boards I'm looking at are expensive since I need AGP. How careful should I be with power supplies for Athlon MPs?

Any advice? Others with Athlon MP 3D workstations? I would love to hear from you. Experts, please give me even the quickest reply to warn me away from a dead-end move.

Thanks to the great community and Anandtech!

-ds

 

[Kartajan]

if i was you, athlonmp.

I'd focus on the best graphics card for your useage...

 

[Megatomic]

What type of video work specifically will you be doing? Each platform excels in certain areas but not in all areas. If you will kindly describe the work you intend to make the workstation do you will get a more informed opinion from the crowd here.

 

[LH]

What software will you be using, and what is your budget?

 

[andreasl]

Aces Hardware has written quite alot of articles about Workstations. I recommend you read some of them. List here. There are more considerations than just the CPUs.

 

[Superwormy]

Most people will reccommend dual Athlon XPs because of the price and FPU performance, but lately progs like 3D STudio MAX have enabled lots of P4 optimizations which have helped it quite a bit.

If you were to get a dual Athlon system, I'd be careful to go with a big amd approved power supply and a tried and tested motherboard, Tyan makes nice dual boards ( not sure if anyone else even makes dual athlon boards...? )

 

[Crusty]

ASUS Makes a few dual-athlon boards. IMO they are just as reliable as Tyan's and perform the same if not better. Try the a7m266-d.

 

[dseeley]

Thanks for all the good advice!

I will be running Maya 4 and will want to do some shake/combustion work as well. I'm looking at a Wildcat 870 VP as the video card.

-ds

 

[GoodRevrnd]

Originally posted by: MCrusty
ASUS Makes a few dual-athlon boards. IMO they are just as reliable as Tyan's and perform the same if not better. Try the a7m266-d.

An ALi chipset??

BTW, I vote MP's if you're using Maya. The 1200's are ~$70 each, and I hear they come factory unlocked and scale extremely well.

 

[AluminumStudios]

Athlons have traditionally beaten Intel chips for 3D rendering because of their strong FPUs. But with the new versions of most popular packages like Maya and 3D Studio Max (as well as video compositors like After Effects (I don't know about Discreet Combustion)) being heavily SSE2 optimized, I would say it is probalby pretty much equal betweent them in terms of perceptible every day performance.

So I would take other factors into account such as motherboard prices, cost in general, etc.

 

[dullard]

If you buy today, the upgrade path for both seems like it could be limited. The Xeons do go up to 2.8 GHz, but any faster ones will be on a 533 MHz fsb instead of the current 400 MHz fsb. Thus the max you will be able to upgrade is from 2.2 GHz to 2.8 GHz. I'm not sure many people will ever spend the money for a 27% speed bump, so likely the Xeon route is a dead end. The Athlon MP upgrade path is less clear. No plans for any MP past 2800+ have been in the rumor mill (although they might exist). But with the Hammer just around the corner, I doubt AMD will go too high so as to not compete with themselves. It is iffy, while there may be many more Athlon MPs, there also might never be much upgrade path there. Conclusion: don't bother keeping an upgrade path in your current decision.

Future products if you can wait:
1) Rumors for cheap dual Xeon motherboards have been flying around, but I've yet to see proof of them.
2) The 533 MHz fsb Xeon's should be here shortly (within weeks). This might have a significant performance boost over the 400 MHz fsb Xeons. It is possible that the 533 MHz Xeon motherboards will be cheap - or they may have a heafty price tag.
3) The Hammer will be a good chip (potentially great, but likely just good at its release), but you are talking months until you can get your hands on one.

As for the bigger question, MP or Xeon, I think you'd be happy with either route. But since you are on quite a tight budget, I'd save the skimping and get a well rounded Athlon MP system. You are right that the performance will be nearly identical with the processors available today. I wish I could pinpoint the 533 MHz Xeon date for you - since these may be a great processor with great upgrade potential. But the price also might be slightly out of your range.

 

[IgoByte]

Definitely Athlon MPs, or perhaps Athlon XPs, if they work in the mobo you want. Athlon MP mobos aren't as expensive as XEON boards, and Athlon MPs perform on par or better.

 

[dseeley]

Thanks to all for the great advice. I am looking more seriously at Athlons now, based on recommendations from you and others. Xeons are attractive, but the overall component price for a complete system is daunting, and with little upgrade path planned this seems like false economy. I am now resolved to choose a good mid-range platform and amortize some of the expense into a faster machine a year from now. At this point my plans are:

2 Athlon MP 2100s
Tyan Tiger MPX
Antec True Power 450 or 480
Crucial DDR 1 GB
Wester Digital 80GB JB
GF4 ti 4600 (apparently can be modded to Quadro-like performance using SoftQuadro)

Last thing I am deciding is the case. Recommendations? I want this thing built like a tank.

 

[ssanches]

Originally posted by: GoodRevrnd

Originally posted by: MCrusty
ASUS Makes a few dual-athlon boards. IMO they are just as reliable as Tyan's and perform the same if not better. Try the a7m266-d.

An ALi chipset??

Wrong. It's the AMD 760MPX chipset. However I'd go for the dual Athlon MP chips on the Gigabyte 7DPXDW motherboard. IMHO the Gigabyte solution is the among the best 760MPX boards.