I need some advice on a dual socket 370 board.

[Gmas]

Hi all,

I recently purchased two P3 933's for a customer upgrade, but he backed out, so I was thinking about putting together a dual socket 370 system. I'm primarily into AMD, so forgive my ignorance when comes to intel.

First of all, I should ask if it's even possible, or recommended, to go dual with the coppermine processor?

If so, I would also like some opinons on what the best bang for the buck board would be?

Here are the steppings:

3125A652-1016 SL52Q
3125A652-1067 SL52Q

Thanks in advance for any help!

 

[tcsenter]

In case you might be entertaining the thought of acquiring a pair of Tualatins in the future...

Probably the best choice would be a VIA Pro266T platform like the IWill DVD266U-RN. It uses up to 4GB of DDR-RAM (DDR200/266). The P3 cannot utilize the DDR interface, but the system is able to benefit from the increased memory performance. Supports PIII Coppermine and Tualatin processors and features an AGP Pro slot.

Axiontech and CensusPC have a good price on this board. You won't find a Pro266T Dual for less.

Next best would be a dual VIA Pro133T (VIA 694T) platform like the Gigabyte GA-6VTXD. This chipset utilizes PC100/133 SDRAM instead of DDR, but supports PIII Coppermine and Tualatin. I could only find two resellers who report them in stock, eWiz.com and FTI Computer

If you aren't interesting in the possibility of using Tualatins, then you may be able to find a dual Pro266 or Pro133A (VIA 694x) board, which will support Coppermine but not Tualatin (without some kind of adapter). The "T" designation in the chipsets mentioned above indicate support for Tualatin processors and were a minor revision to the VIA Pro133A and Pro266 chipsets.

There were numerous other boards produced but these are the only ones I could still find selling somewhere. I did not consult the Intel SMP documents so I do not know whether your PIII 933s are SMP capable.

 

[Gmas]

tcsenter,

Thanks for your extensive and informative post. The members here will never stop amazing me with their helpfulness. I do appreciate it!

 

[Vette73]

I also agree. Get a board that has the VIA DDR chipset. Like he said, a P3 by itself can't use the extra bandwidth, btu dual P3's have shown a nice performnace increase. That and if you use it as a server the DDR will help a good deal also.

 

[tcsenter]

Originally posted by: Gmas
tcsenter,

Thanks for your extensive and informative post. The members here will never stop amazing me with their helpfulness. I do appreciate it!

You're welcome. I looked at the PIII Specification Update and you should have no trouble using SL52Q processors in a dual setup. Don't forget to report back and share your experience; good, bad, or ugly.

 

[p0lar]

I hate to be the naysayer here, but if you take your budget and performance into consideration, you may do better to sell the intel 933s and purchase a pair of Applebred 1.6 Durons and a dual AMD board. I've yet to see a non-tualatin P3 present any performance threat to any dual AMD board - and I do mean *ANY*.

The Tualatins, on the other hand, especially the 1.4s, are some serious performers; however, for that price point, the Xeons will run them into the ground. The only advantage of those over the Xeons would be that a dual Xeon mainboard is relatively pricey, but even that has changed in the last quarter with Asus releasing their PC-DL Deluxe dual Xeon board with its immense featureset.

I personally have a hard time recommending the DVD-UR board from iWill because of all the nasty problems it had with its bios, IDE RAID controller, onboard-NIC, onboard audio, etc... have a look over at 2cpu.com's forums - you'll be hard pressed to find a majority who consider the board a worthy contender. If you're on a budget, the D6VAA was a good choice, but it will only take up to 512MB of RAM *feh*. There are probably easily 3 dozen dual P3 board out there, some manufacturers may have half a dozen of their own accord (i.e. SuperMicro).

At any rate, I suppose I'm going off topic. (=

Good luck with whatever you decide to do, but I suggest salvaging the value of the 933s while you can!

 

[Gmas]

Marlin,

Thanks for your input!

pOlar,

I certainly appreciate contradicting opinions. After all, I am looking for a free education here.

Keep your thoughts coming people!

 

[Peter]

D6VAA was a good board at its time. Remember it doesn't run Tualatin processors, only Coppermines.

 

[tcsenter]

Yes, I did not mean to endorse the fitness or suitability of any particular board. In fact, I did mention my reasons for naming those boards:

There were numerous other boards produced but these are the only ones I could still find selling somewhere.