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suggestion for dual athlon mb?

SrDrew

Junior Member
I haven't been keeping up with hardware news over the last couple months so I was wondering if you guys could help.

Any suggestions out of the boards that are currently released, or ones that will be released in the next 6 months.

the stuff I wanted the most is (in order of importance)-
dual athlon
ddr (preferably 4 slots)
multiple ide connectors (4 would probably be enough, 6 would be nice also)

I don't need or want any onboard network, sound, scsi, or raid so the fewer of those the better, and for cards I only need 2pci slots, don't need one of those add-in usb cards either.

the only mb I have looked at so far is the MSI k7D
http://www.msicomputer.com./product/detail_spec/K7DmasterL.htm
which looks ok, but only has 2 ide plugs.

This may be a moot point, there may not be many options as far as dual athlon motherboards go, just thought I would ask, thanks =]
 
why do u want a dual system? what r u using the comp for? i had a dual pentium system, and unless your running a server or doing ALOT of multitasking, i wouldn't recommend a dualie. Most of the software out there won't allow your comp to fully utilize both processors. most of the time on mine each cpu would be at %50. only 1 or 2 programs i can think of used the full power of 2 cpu's. (form z and maybe photoshop, if i remeber right).

also, a mobo with only 3 ram dimms seems to be better, more stable. it is physically difficult to engineer 4 slots, so 3 is better. if u want alot of ram, just get 1024 meg cards, and 3 slots. most mobos will give u at least 2 gigs of ram, and alot 3 gigs. oh yea, welcome to anandtech! have fun dude! hope this helps!
 
want it primarily for Maya, still debating stuff, just wanted to know what's out there.

Do any of the mb's with 3 slots let you have 3 gigs of unbuffered or is 2 the limit?

2gigs is probably enough but I would like the option to have 3 if possible, I want to use a ramdrive for as much as possible.
 
Speaking from experience, 😉 I really like the Tyan S2460 "TigerMP" board - in fact, I have 3 of them! :Q One is running a pair of MP1200s, one a pair of XP 1700s, and the other a pair of XP 1600s. Yep, that's right, it supports running the XP chips as MPs just fine. All three boards have been rock solid, and that's important to me 'cuz I run SETI on each of the processors 24/7.

One signifigant drawback is that there aren't any real overclocking options. 🙁 I should note that all three of my boards Bios are at 1.03, so maybe a newer version does have some options. Recently newegg.com had a special on these boards at $129.00 each (I paid a bit more than that a while ago.)
rolleye.gif


Maybe PM Evadman - he bought 2 or 3 of them to use with some 1 GHz Duron cpus. 🙂
 


<< Yep, that's right, it supports running the XP chips as MPs just fine. >>


Older XP's run. Newer ones have an L5 bridge cut that stops SMP operation unless/until you reconnect the cut.

1.04 BIOS doesn't add any overclocking features.
 
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