Workstation chipsets/motherboards help

[Jimbd]

My current PC can't cope up so I need to buy a new workstation class motherboard by January 2001. Earlier I was looking forward to buying an AMD760MP based board, but now AMD seems to have delayed the release till 2Q 01. too late for me.

My apps are financial trading. I use dual monitors now. I would like to use atleast four to six 19 inch monitors at 1200 x 1028 running real time charts. Real time data,news feed and Dsl connection provide data and execution. The workstation will also be used for real time emulation.

What should be my next workstation board? here's a list below:

1)The i840 chipset: The Tyan i840 : Dual CPU, RDRAM, dual SCSI160, dual Lan, 64bit PCI looks most promising but i dont want overkill and to spend for it unless I need it. I will need 256MB/512MB of Ram so the RDRAM costs and board costs could be prohibitive and the board does not support raid. ofcourse I could add a raid controller.

2)The Serverworks Serverset III WS/HE boards are another choice but don't support DDR RAM,no AGP and offer only UDMA 33/66 and board cost is high. These boards are excellant for server but not suited yet for workstation. I haven't seen a board based on the WS chipset. candidates I know Tyan Hesl, Supermicro 370DLE.

3) The AMD 770 is due for release but cost and availibility is unknown.Candidates unknown.

4)The last choice is the VIA Apollo Pro266. performance are still unknown but, it may fit the bill as it offers dual CPU on PIII, DDR Ram, 266FSB, AGP, UDMA 100, Possible candidate: Iwill DVD-R266.

5) Buy the KT266 Raid board and wait it out.


Could anyone please tell me what specs I need for the best price performance.
Which chipset will give the Best Performance.
Name me motherboard candidate available by Jan/Feb. Thanks

 

[Vegito]

I do the same thing, my setup consist of

i840
1GB Of 256MB RDRAM
Dual 1GHz P3
Matrox G450 (evaluating performance & stability) or Appian Dual Monitor (like more) - Use appian for 4-8 monitor
4 - Quantum Atlas 10K U160
RAID 5 configuration w/64MB CACHE RAM

For Duals 133FSB with stability, untill amd release their chipsets & fully tests it, Intel i840 is the only solution...

or the Asus using the serverworks board.. which I do like a lot! USing PC133 SDRAM... RDRAM isn't that great anyway, so take a look at this Asus..
Asus Dual Server Board!

 

[Vegito]

DSL for real time market feed, good luck, the latency will kill you.

If you're trading options, it'll really kill you.

BTW decimalization kills bandwidth..

 

[AndyHui]

ASUS CUR-DLS is a board based on the ServerWorks chipset.

Other possible candidates: ASUS CUV4X-DLS...Dual FC-PGA P3, LAN, SCSI...

or ASUS CUV266...single CPU but DDR SDRAM.

 

[Jimbd]

forcesho , AndyHui thanks for your replies. Appreciate your feedback.

Here more:

I use the G400 32Mb DH and I like it very much but I plan to add G200 MMS or similar. Appian seems expensive. I dont know why they (matrox) haven't come up with a AGP multi monitor card.

Do I need SCSI? or IDE will do ? I find the SCSI drives to be very expensive.

Still evaluating DSL with hops and roundtrips but that just for general connectivity. Seriously considering the VSAT due to my similar experience with being bottlenecked during crises periods. I don't trade US options yet. I'm international.

Do you know anything on the 760MP release and which Vaa Apollo Pro266 Dual motherboards are scheduled for release?

 

[Vegito]

I would get the 760MP but this will be AMD's first dual, need to iron out all the bugs.. so approx 2-3 month after... Only those appians has quad monitors..

It's really hard to decide.. you want speed yet stability and has both but killed the PRICE.

There really isn't a AGP QUAD besides appians... G200 PCI can do quad..