Tyan Dual Opetron/Xeon Motherboards..

[tphss]

Hi,

I looking into buying a Dual CPU computer.
I wanted to know if there is a dual Opetron motherboard that I can use PCI-X Graphic cards.
Can the Tyan Thunder K8W (S2885) or S2882 use PCI-X video cards?
Now is there a difference between PCI-X and PCI-Express? whats PCI-e?
Basically I want a AMD based dual CPU motherboard that will support PCI-X video cards sinse there is no single CPU motherboard for AMD that supports PCI-X Video cards.
With intel Xeon is simpler (Tyan Thunder i7525 S2676).

Thanks.

 

[MichaelD]

I'm no pro, but I'll help you out as best I can; I just went thru this, myself. Was going to build a dual-Opteron rig, but it was just too expensive.


I looking into buying a Dual CPU computer
Building or buying? Seems you're talking about building one. If you want to BUY one, just buy a Dell Workstation with dual-CPUs

I wanted to know if there is a dual Opetron motherboard that I can use PCI-X Graphic cards.
There's no such thing as a PCI-X graphics card. PCI-X is a PCI slot standard that uses a double-length PCI slot that runs at 33/66/100/133 MHz as opposed to the standard 33MHz. It's used exclusively for SCSI hard drive controller cards (aka Host Bus Adapters)

Can the Tyan Thunder K8W (S2885) or S2882 use PCI-X video cards?
See my comment above. However, the Tyan S2885 does have PCI-X slots and therefore can use PCI-X HBAs

Now is there a difference between PCI-X and PCI-Express? whats PCI-e?
PCI-X and PCI-E are two completely different things (it is confusing, I agree w/that!) PCI-E slots can be used for any PCI-E card. Graphics, sound, HBA, etc. You get the idea. PCI-X slots are for HBAs only


Basically I want a AMD based dual CPU motherboard that will support PCI-X video cards sinse there is no single CPU motherboard for AMD that supports PCI-X Video cards.
With intel Xeon is simpler (Tyan Thunder i7525 S2676).
It seems what you're looking for is a dual Opteron board with PCI-E slots. They are due out very soon. Iwill will be releasing the DK8E, which is exactly ^^ that. I'm sure other MFRs' will follow.


I hope this helps you out some.

 

[tphss]

Thanks alot!

I really need this computer latest by the 25th! (of September..)
So if it's not out REALLY soon i'll go for Dual Xeon with the Intel E7525 chipset with PCI-e.
Does the E7525 have the heating problems the intel 915/925 chipsets have?

BTW, something not related: Intel's Hyper Threading is supported only by WinXP? Win2000Pro doesn't support/use it?!


Thanks again!

 

[MichaelD]

I can't answer your questions on that Intel chipset as I'm not familiar with it.

You should ask your Hyperthreading question over in the Operating Systems Forum here at AT.
IIRC, W2K does NOT support hyperthreading; the W2K SERVER family does...but I don't think W2K does. Ask over in the OS forum

The PCI-E Opteron motherboards won't be out soon enough for you; I'd go Xeons at this point.

BTW, a few things.

1. What are you going to use this Workstation for?
2. I hope you've got some serious bucks; this ain't gonna be cheap! What about the rest of the rig? Which AGP videocard? HD storage? Amount of memory, etc?

 

[tphss]

Emmm:
Audio recording+editing/Video editing/Photo editing/Gaming
1GB RAM+
Video card it depends if i'll buy a PowermacG5 or a Dual Xeon with PCI-e...

I don't like WinXP, I like Win2000.
I wonder if Win2000server that supports Dual CPU's will support all software and games I want...

 

[jose]

Win200pro does support dual cpu's.
Goto www.2cpu.com for info on dual proc. mobo's etc.

Regards,
Jose

 

[ProviaFan]

Just clarifying a bit on the PCI-X / PCI-E thing...

Currently, the only PCI-Express cards that have been announced, to my knowledge, are PCI-E graphics cards. Yes, when PCI-E becomes more prevalent, I'm very certain we'll see sound cards, network cards, and SCSI controllers (wait, I seem to recall a SCSI or RAID controller being announced with PCI-E interface), but they do not exist now.

PCI-X is useful for more than SCSI HBAs. There are also network cards (mostly highend fiber gigabit and 10 gigabit stuff) and fiber channel array controllers that take advantage of PCI-X slots. Matrox even makes a video card that requires a 64 bit PCI slot for maximum performance, and hence needs to be placed in a PCI-X slot rather than a legacy PCI slot (I don't remember seeing many of the older PCI-66mhz/64bit slots on server and workstation boards these days).

Windows 2000 can be run on a system with Hyperthreading, but it is not HT-aware. What this means to you in practical terms is that if you have a single processor Xeon or P4 with HT workstation, you can get the benefit of HT with Windows 2000. However, if you have a dual CPU Xeon workstation, Windows 2000 Pro will only see two CPUs: the first CPU and its virtual CPU - leaving the second CPU unused. Windows 2000 Server would not have this problem, of course, but you would encounter the problem again with a 4 CPU server, because Win2k Server only supports 4 CPUs, while a quad Xeon contains 8 logical processors. It's not an issue of incompatible hardware, it's an issue of Microsoft being hard-headed about licensing, and wanting to force more people to pay them to upgrade to XP to get the full benefit of dual and quad processor systems with HT.