Which 2xx Opterons for dually rig? *BAD NEWS SEE THREAD*

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: MichaelD
I got an email reply back from Tyan which totally contradicts everything posted over in 2CPU thread. Here is the email in it's entirety.

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by any "well known" issue between ATI9800 and the S2885. We have tested this video card on multiple occasions with all the bios versions of this motherboard and we do not have any problems at any level. We have run many 3d type of benchmarks and not a single issue yet again.

We know there are issues with the 9800XT card but it has problems with everyones Opteron solution and is not unique to the Tyan product.

3. The guy acknowledges 9800XT probs...but that's the one ATI card that posters in that thread HAVE gotten to work.

That's really wierd. I'm not sure what the actual issue is (technically speaking), but you certainly have my curiousity now. Do you think that the issue is something that ATI perhaps knew about, and then made some "fixes" to the chip between the release of the R350 and R360 cores? I know that there were a lot of compatibility issues that people reported when some of the 9800s first arrived, but I thought that most of those were DX8.1/power/BIOS issues, not anything specific to the AGP interface silicon. Maybe there actually were/are problems, and the BIOS updates were actually workarounds?

Maybe the reason that Tyan hasn't had any issues, is because their test cards are newer builds of the cards or updated chip revisions, that don't have the problems of older chips/cards? (Plus, some of the newest 9800 Pro production, is actually using R360 cores in some cases.)

Can you say more about what the issue exactly is?

 

[MichaelD]

Hi VirtuallLarry (fellow Zombie! 🙂)

I read up on it...what I could find, anyway. It's actually not a "Tyan" issue per se; it's the AMD AGP Graphics Tunnel chip, the 1851 that has the problem.

Something about the 1851 chip and the hardware on the 9800-series cards doesn't jive. All NVidia cards seem to work perfectly though.

I am going to hold onto my dough for now...prices will only come down in the coming months. I am not desperate for an upgrade right now. I always WANT to upgrade though. 😉

For a board of this caliber, I doubt the price will drop below $375 and I can live w/that. Prices on Opterons, specifically the new ones WILL come down as time passes.

Who knows? The Opteron is a very big deal for AMD; it's how they are trying to steal Xeons' market share. Maybe they will release a patch/driver for the 1851 chip. *crossing fingers*

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: MichaelDThanks, n0cmonkey. Unfortunately, that board has two major strikes against it:

1. It's got no 64-bit/PCI-X luvin
2. It's an MSI

Besides the money factor, those are the two reasons I haven't bought it. 😉

The former is what totally kills it for me, since that's half the reason I was looking at doing this in the first place. Blame He Who We Shall Not Flame. *cough*mechBgon*cough*cough*cough* 😀

64bit PCI rocks. 3 of my machines have it, and building the athlon without it was a tough thing to do. 😛

I would imagine by Q4 2004, things may look better. Unfortunately, the AMD AGP 1851 tunnel seems to hate everything but WORKSTATION cards. I.E. gamers are left out in the cold. 🙁 No Tyan for me. I am SO glad I research before I buy. I'd be totally heartbroken to have this stuff FEDEXed to my house and have it not work. :brokenheart:

Have it FEDEXed to my house, send me a 9800Pro, and I'll test for you. 😀

 

[MichaelD]

😀 😉 I love this place. 🙂