I've noticed that ONLY Intel Pentium3's are SMP-able ...

[NucleusWDS]

New Celerons (coppermine) = Non SMP-able
CyrixIII/VIA CPUS = Non SMP-able
AMD Athlon = Non SMP-able
AMD Duron = Non SMP-able

So for SMP-able PCs ... you have to use P3's

Please correct if I'm wrong.

 

[Lord Gwynz]

Rumour has it the new cc0 stepping Celeron2's are SMP enabled?

 

[Sohcan]

Athlons and Durons are SMP capable...they just need a dual processor chipset (the 760MP is due out before summer).
edit: you beat me to it seewhy.

Don't forget to add the P4 to your list (those who want SMP P4 will have to wait until Foster).

 

[seewhy]

AMD Athlon/Duron=SMP-able....just no chipset support. AMD will come up with 760mp chipset that will allow dual Athlon/Duron in next 2 month, may be as early as end of Jan. Hopefully!!

 

[Modus]

Sure, but the question is whether the performance gains from SMP justify its cost.

Many corporate IT supervisors are have a silly obsession with SMP as the holy grail of power computing, which tends to drive them to great monetary lengths just to be able to list "Dual" in front of their server's specs. Unfortunately, real world performance benchmarks have clearly shown that double the chips rarely equals double the speed. The performance gains range from absolutely nothing in the majority of SMP-unaware applications where the programmers spent their time in some better use, to about 50% in certain high end professional rendering and server software.

Looked at from the only sensible viewpoint -- price/performance -- Intel SMP machines are rarely worth their added cost. An Athlon 1.2 GHz is faster than a dual P3/800 in the vast majority of applications, and costs significantly less money. And since Intel CPU's themselves are such a blatantly poor choice, buying twice as many of them only compounds the error.

Modus

 

[NucleusWDS]

SIMPLE: I need it for SERVER purposes ...

So DUAL is what I need ... can't wait for AMD 760 Chipset motherboards

 

[Erasmus-X]

Modus kind of has a point. I have a friend who is absolutely obsessed with his SMP setups (he's currently running dual PIII 700 cb0s). He's running Win2k SP1 with NO SMP-enabled software. Now, he doesn't like to admit that a 1.1GHz Athlon will SMOKE his machine 90% of the time.

It's even a bigger obsession with a frightening number of IT professionals who build servers (like Modus pointed out earlier). They assume that two processors always means better. Guess why? Because their certification material TOLD them so. The fact remains still that popular commercial OS's have never been able to make efficient use of SMP in the long run. You're almost always better off buying a faster processor and saving hundreds of dollars.

 

[Vegito]

Actually, I run a shop with only Dual P3s.. I tried a single p3 vs a dual p3 500, the dual does better in heavy excel calculations... ie. 30 meg excel financial calculation, 4000 tickers/sec, so we're heavy excel user. We're upgrading to dual 800+ on certain systems and it's soo much faster then single processor.

Our servers are also dual, for SQL, it's necessary, for other, it's just there, not necessary....

Only problem is, when we bought these systems, AMD high-end processor wasn't available, and you can't just trash 4000/per machine to switch within 1 year.

But in the 2 year scrapping, I would consider T-Birds or whatever faster AMD that is available.. the stock market only gets bigger...

1 more thing, dual p3 cracks Rc5 better then single p3.

 

[Radboy]

I agree w/ Modus.

W2K, Linux, BeOS all sppt SMP, but your prgm must also be coded for SMP .. to get full benefit.

For the home user, SMP is good for CPU intensive apps .. like 3D modeling/design, where you render overnight, or over a period of days. I looked into building an SMP box (based on Tyan Tiger 100) .. just to say I did (for the experience) .. but was unable to justify it .. for reason already stated.

Best SMP board I found was this one .. cuz it has an AGP slot. Most mobo's w/ Serverworks chipsets don't (yet) have an AGP slot, which makes them good for servers, but not workstations. But this board was too expensive for me, and I don't do very much 3D modeling. But for the person who makes their living at it, SMP is a must.

 

[Modus]

forscheo,

<<I tried a single p3 vs a dual p3 500, the dual does better in heavy excel calculations. . . 1 more thing, dual p3 cracks Rc5 better then single p3>>

Obviously SMP shows some degree of performance advantage in certain applications. The question is, does it show enough to justify its cost versus a single faster chip? If you look at what you'll pay for any dual-P3 setup, you'll find a that an Athlon system of equal or better real world performance will cost less money.

Here is a very informative article on SMP written by a respected IT source that still maintains decent credibility with true techies:

<a target=new href="http://www.inqst.com/articles/p3vp4/p3vp4main.htm">
Inquest Market Research: P4 vs. Dual P3 vs. Athlon DDR</a>

The Dual P3 1 GHz is hard pressed to beat the single Athlon 1.2 GHz, and is often slower. The decisions fall about half and half to either side. 3DS Max, which has historically shown fantastic SMP benefits, puts the Dual P3-1 GHz only about 1/3 faster than an Athlon 1.2 GHz, while costing hundreds and hundreds of dollars more. And ordinary office and content creation benchmarks show the Athlon far ahead.

<<Our servers are also dual, for SQL, it's necessary, for other, it's just there, not necessary>>

Uh. . . no. It's not necessary to to have dual CPU's for anything. The only thing SMP brings you is the potential for extra performance in those applications that take advantage of it. Even if your SQL implementation provides up to 50% gains, which is almost unheard of in the industry, an AMD single-chip machine is still faster and cheaper.

Modus

 

[noxipoo]

Dual durons will be cheap since the thing is so damn cheap. its a dream come true and it beat the then laughable celery dual machines. Also dual machines are worth it if you run a lot of things at once and actually assign CPU's to the programs. I use one to compile videos and stuff, sure glad the thing has 2 CPUs.

 

[BoberFett]

Modus

Your argument falls apart completely when you bring servers into the discussion. Why would I want to run 2 or more separate computers when I could simply add more processors to a single machine. You could, but that means more rack space used, higher power requirements, more potential for failure (not only do we have more processors with multiple servers, but more hard drives, power supplies, etc.), more heat, and the list goes on.

You build the best single CPU computer you can, and I'll bring a quad CPU box to the table. Wanna bet that mine can serve more web pages or handle more database transactions than yours can?

 

[BoberFett]

<< 3DS Max, which has historically shown fantastic SMP benefits, puts the Dual P3-1 GHz only about 1/3 faster than an Athlon 1.2 GHz, while costing hundreds and hundreds of dollars more >>

When you're rendering something which may take months of CPU time, a few hundred dollars is insignificant compared to the time savings.

 

[JACKHAMMER]

Two things:

1. I run 3dsmax, along with other rendering programs. There is no arguement, a dual processor setup is the way to go.

2. Being able to assign different processors to different tasks is a godsend, people who use it know what I am talking about.



For people who use them, there is no substitute for a dual proc. machine.

 

[Vegito]

>>><<Our servers are also dual, for SQL, it's necessary, for other, it's just there, not necessary>>

>>>Uh. . . no. It's not necessary to to have dual CPU's for anything. The only thing SMP >>>brings you is the potential for extra performance in those applications that take >>>advantage of it. Even if your SQL implementation provides up to 50% gains, which is >>>almost unheard of in the industry, an AMD single-chip machine is still faster and >>>cheaper.

Have you even had a 30 meg excel file open ? or run millions of query ? So buy.com's quad processor must be worthless since thousands of people hit it at once then ?

Maybe buy.com should run their whole operation off a 1.2gig athlon.. lets see how many hot deals goes through.

There is a reason they build dual/quad ,etc. people actually have a used for it.. business that makes millions of dollar a day needs it.. you don't need it because you dont have a use for it.. but other people does..

I never said 50% gain in sql. Real world dual setup gets a 20-30% gain.. which is necessary if your life depends on it.

I have a p3 600 and it can't calculate our 30megger fast enough then our dual p3 500.

 

[Radboy]

Have u seen this? (2cpu.com)

 

[BoberFett]

Just for grins and giggles...

I had a vast amount of text to scan and OCR a while back. At the time, a P3 600 was the fastest thing available. The OCR software I use is SMP capable, and using a dual CPU system cut the time by 1/3. That's pretty significant considering it took even that dual 600 several months solid to finish that project. I couldn't afford to add another month or two on the time required to finish.

 

[Modus]

BoberFett,

<<Your argument falls apart completely when you bring servers into the discussion. Why would I want to run 2 or more separate computers when I could simply add more processors to a single machine.>>

LOL, I guess that's why AnandTech uses Thunderbirds for this forum's servers?

As it stands today, a 1.2 GHz Athlon is faster in most applications (even server apps) than a Dual P3 costing hundreds of dollars more. Why go with dual P3's when a single Athlon is cheaper and faster?

My argument is not that SMP is never worthwile, just that today, SMP P3's are almost laughable compared to the fastest single-Athlon systems. Obviously certain applications will see benefits, but these are few and far between except in specialized professional software. If and when Athlon gets SMP, it's a whole new ballgame and SMP might actually might make sense from a price/performance standpoint.

forscheo,

<<So buy.com's quad processor must be worthless since thousands of people hit it at once then?>>

A site handling as much traffic as Buy.com, with their huge customer databases, shouldn't even be looking at P3's or Athlons. AnandTech's web server, which doesn't handle nearly the level of traffic and interactivity as Buy.com, is already a Sun Enterprise 250.

<<I never said 50% gain in sql. Real world dual setup gets a 20-30% gain>>

There you go. An Athlon 1.2 DDR will easily give you the same 20-30% gain over a P3 1 GHz that a second P3 would while remaining cheaper.

Modus

 

[Sohcan]

<< LOL, I guess that's why AnandTech uses Thunderbirds for this forum's servers? >>

Actually, the forums are handled by two dual P3 Xeon machines (one for the web server, one for the database server...unless they've changed the config in the last few months).

Four of the five Anandtech web servers are 1GHz T-Birds, the fifth web server and the database server are dual P3 Xeons.

Anandtech server configs

edit: ...umm...Modus, no offense, but did you even read the Inquest page you linked above? You said, &quot;The Dual P3 1 GHz is hard pressed to beat the single Athlon 1.2 GHz, and is often slower.&quot; Of the 15 benchmarks, the Dual 1GHz P3 beat the 1.2 GHz Athlon 12 times, and in some cases was up to 50% faster. Their own summary states, &quot;The range of applications we have evaluated here suggests that SMP capability could have a valuable performance impact for many Windows 2000 power users. Without doubt we will continue to find other applications of interest to professionals and consumers that respond favorably to the existence of a second CPU.&quot;

 

[Viperoni]

A little test I did a while back; Pretty simple, but I think it demonstrates the point fairly well.

With my bp6 machine and celeries @ 550 in WinME (it only uses 1 processor I know)

I was serving a dedicated Quake3 game, then I loaded up another window and started playing. I was lagging myself and the others like a madman.
It simply couldn't handle the load

Now I booted into Win2k wit hthe celeries @ 366 (dual processsor enabled obviously)

I did the same experiment, except this time I wasn't lagging anyone or myself at all, plus I was getting a respectable FPS.

What does this prove?
If you have multiple tasks to run at the same time, dual processors might be better than 1 slower one.

 

[Modus]

Sohcan,

<<Actually, the forums are handled by two dual P3 Xeon machines>>

I stand corrected. Still, the fact that the majority of AnandTech's webservers (4 out of 5) are single processor Athlon machines should make the point clear enough.

<<Of the 15 benchmarks, the Dual 1GHz P3 beat the 1.2 GHz Athlon 12 times, and in some cases was up to 50% faster.>>

I count only seven benchmarks: two of them won flat out by the Athlon, two of them a tossup depending on the specific test, and three of them won by the horrendously expensive dual P3 machine. Not to mention that 3DSmax, the one real world application tested, and also one of the most heavily SMP-optimized applications, only runs 1/3 faster with a dual P3 setup. Is that enough to justify the added cost? Perhaps if all you do is run 3DSMax, but if you run other, less SMP optimized applications, a fast Athlon is still the way to go for maximum price/performance.

Viperoni,

<<What does this prove? If you have multiple tasks to run at the same time, dual processors might be better than 1 slower one.>>

Quite a breakthrough

Modus