Where oh where are PCI-X and 800MHz FSB?

[Reignor]

Does anyone (not under an NDA) have any idea how far off motherboards with PCI-X and 800MHz FSBs are? Stupid question alert! Are there going to be dual-3GHz P4 mobos?

 

[mechBgon]

Pentium 4 doesn't do dual. Did you mean Xeon? You can buy boards with PCI-X right now, but don't look for 800MHz FSB on a Xeon for about a year. They're still working on 667MHz FSB. What are you doing that benefits from PCI-X and 800MHz FSB... video editing or ???

 

[Reignor]

Oracle database design and development. I'm in the process of trying to spec out a new machine, and whenever I build a new one, I try to get as far ahead of the curve as I can, even though I know I pay a premium to do it. I've been reading as much as I can at the various tech sites that I've been able to find, and this seemed to be what's coming next. I didn't realize it was so far off. Thanks much for the info.

What do you feel is - or is about to be (within, say, the next 6 months) - the best-performing solution out there for disk I/O intensive applications?

I'm going to be running Oracle 9.2 (which I get through work to work at home) on XP Pro. The database is going to ~20G. Since I'm going to be sitting in front of the damn thing - and since I know I won't get the performance I do at work - I'm trying to get the best machine I can.

My plan was 64-bit SCSI with 15k Seagates. Stupid question - is this realistic for what I'm trying to do?

Why is work not paying for this? Good question. My boss and I are trying to convince the PHB that working from home is doable. Unfortunately, the PHB doesn't have broadband, so my boss and I are engaged against a "Yeah, but..." attitude combined with a "Show me" mentality.

So we've got to prove that we can do what we say we can do.

Hopefully, the *next* time I build a system, work will pay for it.

 

[mechBgon]

If you plan to use SCSI, hopefully you don't have plans to use Windows XP, because AFAIK there has been no resolution of WinXP's dismal SCSI write performance. At any rate, the Cheetah 15k.3 has surfaced at Hypermicro.com (highly-recommended vendor, they pack stuff right) and with sustained throughput of up to 75Mb/sec plus sub-4ms seeks, it looks like the one to beat. I would use Win2000, since its SCSI performance is good.

If it were me, I'd build a nice dual-AthlonMP system with a board that has a 64-bit 66MHz PCI bus and perhaps onboard SCSI, such as the Tyan Thunder K7X Pro. If you want hardware RAID, then get the version without onboard SCSI and put the money towards an Adaptec 2120S or 2200S. Or look into a dual-Xeon on an E7502 board if you don't want an AMD system. Either way, go top-drawer on the power supply, preferably with an EPS unit, and get a really good UPS too, because it sounds like you don't want any preventable problems! PHB... hehe...

Six months from now I would be thinking about a nice Opteron or dual-Opteron system. The Opterons will be available with 1Mb of L2 cache, and even the 256kb-L2 versions are evidently significantly more powerful per MHz even compared to an AthlonXP, judging by Anand's quickie test he did at Comdex.