New machine coming: Single or dual Athlon?

[rayon]

I'm thinking about getting this new machine. AMD is the way to go, but what chipset to go with?

I was considering a dual Athlon XP/MP for a moment, but to be honest, I'm not impressed by the performance of a dual configuration. According to the reviews I've seen so far, there are situations where the single Athlon performs better!

Are you guys conviced the dual configuration will be worth its cost when compared to a single proc machine? What are you thoughts?

Thanks,
Rayon

 

[BD231]

Dual wont give you any benifits man. The only time I'v seen dual procs bring about anything else than double the heat disipation was in a server, dual proc solutions just arent made for the avrage workstation. Go with the KT266A chipset, I can say with expierence that it is quite a pleasure to work with, especialy with that shinny new Athlon XP . I wouldent really recomend any other chipset for the XP at this point due to the fact that you can find a KT266A board with RAID for under 100 dollars, and nothing outperforms it!. In answer to your question, no, Dual is in NO WAY worth it unless your running a high hit-rate server.

Cheers!

 

[AMDPwred]

If you could afford to throw the money away on duals, then why not? As for a single CPU chipset, I'd go for the KT266A.

 

[Siddhartha]

What applications are you going to run on the system?

 

[kimagurealex]

what kind of KT266A motherboard with RAID u guys recommand? I am going to use it for my WINDOWS XP Pro, 2000 adv server, 2000 server, 2000 pro, Mandrake Linux, NT 4.0 server and workstation. Yes, I am studying my MSCE now so I need to have 2 more computers and install all of these OS above.
Alex

 

[rayon]

Thanks for the feedback so far.

I'll probably be running some very usual set of applications raging from internet apps (browsing, FTP, etc) to graphic and sound intensive apps (adobe photoshop, sonic foundry sound forge). I also develop software, so I would be using Visual Studio and the likes. I'll also do some gaming, of course!

The thing is that I love to do all that at once! I do lots of multitasking and it is very common to have about 10+ apps open at the same time (several IEs, outlook, visual studio, etc). And yes, I'll by lots of RAM! (I'm thinking 512MB to 1GB)

 

[ST4RCUTTER]

What applications are you going to run on the system?

This is the critical question. How much you need dual CPU's is determined by what you'll do with it. If it's for serious encoding/decoding, rendering, heavy number crunching etc. then dual is the way to go...especially if the apps have been coded for SMP. If you're not running these kinds of apps and you use your system alot for games, the cache coherency problems that occur in SMP rigs will often cause a hit to game performance.

edit: Doh! Just beat me...

Well, I'd say if you have the money go for it. A single proc system will be able to handle 10-15+ apps no problem too, but you'll want dual monitors to manage it better. The apps you're talking about should benefit from dual CPU's.

 

[Siddhartha]

I would go with a single processor system. Maybe use the money you will save on more storage, a nicer sound card, or a faster video card.

 

[BD231]

If you do alot of multi-tasking the dual setup would still be a bad choice, you'de be better off with a Gig+ of ram

 

[Atlantean]

Get a single athlon, don't waste your money on a dual setup. you could put the money that a dual mobo would cost you towards a better vid card or bigger harddrive (like get a couple seagate barracuda IV 80 gig hdd's, or wd 100 gigs, or if you want you could go with one of the new maxtor ata 133 hdd's).

 

[GoldenTiger]

Single.

 

[Viper GTS]

I've been very, very happy with my dualie TBirds. It is easily the most stable system I've ever used, I haven't had a single crash in the time I've had it, & it's damned fast.

Best decision I ever made (in PC hardware anyway).

Viper GTS

 

[Scootin159]

Thing I see though is the price differance isn't that much. It's what $200 for a Tyan Tiger mobo vs. $130 for a good KT266a mobo ($70 differance) + another $100 for a second CPU. Even when you add it all together $200 + $70 + $70 = $330 = A top rated Pentium 4 CPU alone. For as cheep as they are, I can't see why not going for it. It will extend that systems life cycle considerably if you ask me.

 

[GoldenTiger]

<< what kind of KT266A motherboard with RAID u guys recommand? I am going to use it for my WINDOWS XP Pro, 2000 adv server, 2000 server, 2000 pro, Mandrake Linux, NT 4.0 server and workstation. Yes, I am studying my MSCE now so I need to have 2 more computers and install all of these OS above.
Alex >>



I'd go for the MSI K7T266 Pro-2-RU (RAID, onboard USB 2.0 controller with headers) for a RAID KT266A motherboard. Plus, it is on a RED PCB !

 

[MichaelD]

I'd really like to see this...no one has done it yet. A head-to-head of a single XP rig vs. a duallie XP rig. Say, a KT266A board with an XP1800 vs. Tyan Tiger with dual XP 1800s. All the benchmarks that would normally be used in a QUALITY review should be used.

See, I don't rip DVDs all day ( I fail to see the attraction...I have a nice HT ) nor do I do any of that MPEG/FLASK/whatever coding stuff. But I do have multiple Explorer windows open, multiple DLs going and it really would be nice to be burning a CD at 12x and be able to surf or game w/o fear of creating another coaster.

 

[thomsbrain]

Unless you do a lot of work that you know is SMP-enabled, it isn't worth it. It can actaully slow things down in some cases. That said, it you do lots of SMP-enabled heavy apps, or encode DivX using Fair Use, a dualie system is the only way to go.

 

[jteef]

you said you do a lot of software development ? i dont know about the MS dev studio, but gcc has a flag for multiple threads. makes compling a_lot faster. If you're just doing "hello world" programs it wouldn't make much of a difference though.

I built a dual celeron 366@550 system on a bp6, and I still use it as my main computer.(3-4 years old?) It works good for everything except the latest round of games. I dont really use it for much anymore though, just autocad, pspice, irc, soundforge, winamp, and civ 3. I am about ready to build another computer. I would like to go dual cpu on it, but I decided to go with SCSI instead.

linux is fantastic with SMP.

jt

 

[rayon]

Hi all,

Thanks for the replies.

I'm thinking a dualie could be good way to go. I've been reading some other articles and reviews and that setup might be worth it in my case.
The problem now is when are those dual Athlon MBs supposed to come out? I though that would be end of november, but I still can't find any besides the Tyan ones -- they're fine, stable, but no tweaking or extra features whatsoever.

Thanks,
Rayon

 

[khtm]

I believe the AMD 760MPX chipset-based mobos won't be out until late december at the earliest.

I could be wrong though.

I'm waiting for them too!

 

[Poontos]

For quite a bit of stuff, the dual processor setup will be a bit slower than a single CPU.

Read here: Linkee

And here: Linkee