OT: Help choosing dual system

[zeruty]

Ok.. I've never really looked into dual motherboards or anything....
but with my tax refund I am looking to get a dual mobo, two cpus (pref. xp's), more DDR (I OCed this nanya to 145fsb never tried any higher, I want another stick that can atleast do that high)
like I've mentioned am thinking of OCing the fsb to 145mhz, I'm not gonna mess with the bridges or anything to up the multiplier

I want the system to be fast, yet stable...and reasonably priced
I'm gonna reuse my video card, hdd, cd drives, etc, etc... just need new mb, cpu's, more ram, and better hs/f's
I dont want a board that requires registered ddr, if it's just an unnecessary extra expense
I have an xp 1700 right now but I think i want to get two new cpus, just so I'm sure the stepping and everything matches
In the end, I am probably gonna have an asus a7v266 and an xp 1700 to sell....

I'm thinking asus, msi, or if the epox dual mb is out soon enough that may be another option

I would really appreciate all of your opinions and advice
thanks!

EDIT: oh yeah, I am going to be running ECCp on this system so it's sort of on topic

 

[Poof]

In the past, alot of the dually mobos had very few OCing options. Would be interesting to hear from people regarding whether any are out there now...

 

[m2kewl]

I have the Asus A7m266d board for over two months, there still seems to be instability with the ATI Radeon drivers (bsod once a while). I don't know if anyone else here in the same situation. Tried EVERY combo and still no go. Any opinions appreciated.

Other then that, board runs great, OC to 142 fsb. I'm waiting for more info on the Epox and Gigabyte duallies. Check out 2CPU.com - it has alot of info.

 

[zeruty]

hmm that sucks.. i have an ati all-in-wonder radeon....

 

[Evadman]

NetworkMan has a "few" Dual systems running, ask him

Also, it seems that if you go with a Tyan Dual Socket A, it will slowly kill crucial ram. Go with Mushkin.

 

[steell]

Here is a LINK to a review of currently available MPX boards, that you should read.

 

[Postman]

I have the Asus A7M266-D aswell, but I use it as network server so no AGP card or USB card is attached.

Apart from the monstrous demands for power (The barebone system didn't even boot with 300W, and would shutdown on full load with 350W) it works reasonably well.

It has 2x 256MB Apacer unregistered, unbuffered RAM, 40GB GXP60 + 60GB DX740, Intel 10/100 PRO S and Cirrus 5430 PCI VGA. I don't OC and it has been up now for a month with Debian and kernel 2.4.18-ac2.

Be aware that if you choose this board, there are two major revisions floating on retail, v1.03 and v1.04, v1.03 allows voltage mod for only CPU0, for CPU1 you need to do a bit of soldering. v1.04 fixes this issue.

 

[zeruty]

thanks for the tips guys

I am hoping the epox board becomes available so I can consider buying that one too... I'd hate to get one and then hear great things about the other board I didnt wait for

I'll see whats available when I get the money

 

[Marrkks]

umm..new egg has that Tyan Tiger (S2460) for $129/free ship again. heads up.

 

[m2kewl]

<< umm..new egg has that Tyan Tiger (S2460) for $129/free ship again. heads up. >>



Stop it! You're gonna make us all go broke...I'll have to resort to stealing my little bro's piggybank!

 

[Evadman]

Crap, Want to borrow my hammer m2Kewl?

 

[zeruty]

the tiger looks nice but doesnt it require registered ddr? and I was planning on getting crucial ram and I dont want it to die

 

[InverseOfNeo]

I just built myself a dual Tualatin system. It is base on the IWill DVD266u-RN. Great board so far. very stable and has great overclocking options (only thing it doesnt have is changing RAM voltage. But you can increase FSB by increments of 1. It has ddr, raid, onboard lan and 6.1 channel c-media audio. PM me if you wanna know more.

 

[XL]

I got 3 asus a7m266-d with the radeon 7500 mushkin high perf. mem and a pair of consecutive numbered XP1800s. Took it to 143 no problem. Seems like I took it to 147 but can't remember. got a WD HDD and they don't like being OCed. I think it's agreat board though.

 

[Robor]

The Tyan Tiger MP board does require regsitered RAM.