Dual-Processor Athlon 64 Mobo

[Kenny]

I know they exist, does anyone know what companies have them, any review sites, prices, good places to buy etc...

Thanks

P.S... I remember all the threads about dual-procs, but for CPU intensive tasks(e.g video encoding), you cant beat them...



Thanks, as always

Kenny

 

[Techy]

haven't seen them for 64bit, nothing much came up when i googled it.

 

[floppybootstomp]

I've heard Tyan are amongst the best but their boards demand top notch components all round before they will run efficiently.

They sell mostly to professional users and are used mostly for servers, so I understand.

I don't know if any Tyan boards support 64 Bit CPU's, it's an area I've never really looked at.

 

[floppybootstomp]

Here ya go

 

[Kenny]

Quad processors???? Thats just silly....

 

[ChristopherP]

not worth the money, thats my opinion...

 

[floppybootstomp]

Quad processors???? Thats just silly....

Well you asked....

 

[Kenny]

LOL.... true, and thanks I never thought of the fact that seeing as Dual (or quad!) processor systems are for systems that MUST NOT fail, thus little in the way of overclocking.

All food for thought....

 

[muckshifter]

They are not there for speed ... they are in there for redundancy.

Flopps' link was primarily for servers, the "Rack mount Ready" was the giveaway, and redundancy plays an important part of the build.

Dual 'server motherboards' are designed in that if one CPU fails the other takes over. The same is said for quad boards. Two are used in the same way we know as a Dual CPU configuration and the other two are ... just in case.

You will also notice the capacity of memory ... up to 32 GB. But also notice the very mean graphics ability. You don't need anything fancy in the graphic section of a server.

 

[psd99]

" Supports up to four AMD Opteron™ 800 series processors"

thats just C-R-A-Z-Y!!!!

 

[floppybootstomp]

Mucks is right on the money with his comments. As I mentioned earlier, it's an area I know little of.

I hear MSI actually do a dual processor board that's meant to be ideal for the home user, but I don't know if they make one to take 64 bit chips.

And after I linked to that site with the processors-a-gogo boards, you can search for the MSI board yourself

 

[Techy]

mulitple processor boards are generally of no use to home users this is because home applications and operating systems won't take advantage of mor than one CPU.

Just to add to a previous comment some version of windows server can support 20+ CPUs.

 

[Shorty]

Some facts:

1. Athlon 64 processors do not support a multi-processor configuration. This is because A64 does not have the coherent hypertransport link required to address x additional processors

2xx, 4xx, 8xx Opteron processors do support multi processor setups (the 1xx series do not). Those would be the processors required.

2. Multi processors are not designed for redundancy (sorry Mucks!). They are designed to handle multi-threaded and multi processor AWARE applications.

Especially in clustered environments. The redundancy is in the network load balancing, not in the chassis or processor configuration.

MPS aware applications take longer to develop and do tend to cost more as more programming thought has to be put into splitting threads & processes over the additional processors. Common examples include adobe photoshop, adobe premiere, microsoft exchange and (funnily enough) any Quake III engine powered game.

Multi-processor AMD systems require registered memory to function correctly. This provides the higher level of error checking and correction that is needed when addressing two processors and their respective clock cycles. There are true SMP systems which have an even split 50/50 over both processors (or 25/25 in a quad setup). Numa systems make one processor the "control" processor and it will address the memory on behalf of all other additional processors. This feature allows cheaper chipsets.

The most important and pertitent information related to SMP is that unless your applications are MPS aware, it will only address a single processor. The other will sit idle. With most domestic and commercial software NOT being MPS aware, they are effectively (as pointed out) useless to the average home user. Video editing?? Only if its aware, if not, it's a waste of money with two or more.

Now some of us... can use them.. I love my dual opteron. I use Visual Studio .net to compile C# applications, run a local MySQL server as just two examples of real SMP aware applications.

Long post, can go into even more detail if anyone wants to know more...

 

[floppybootstomp]

Shorty: You knocked out that post on a Saturday evening? Respek

As I mentioned earlier, this is an area I know little of but your post went some way to making me understand. Thanks for that

So basically, waste of money unless you have something, network or software, to take advantage of multi-processors?

I'd like to try Adobe Premiere with a dual board, that could be interesting. Interesting but not really economically viable for myself, a home user.

Quake III engine eh? I'll be damned.....

 

[Kenny]

TMPGEnc video encoding (dunno if thats its full name) also benfits from multi Procs.

There was me thinking that Dual Procs would be more useful than dual graphics cards...

 

[Shorty]

Shorty: You knocked out that post on a Saturday evening? Respek

I am surrounded by boxes while packing. It was an excuse to stop packing hehehehe

 

[vadim]

Only sockets 940 support multiprocessing from the AMD64s

Try this model: http://uk.giga-byte.com/Server/Products/Products_ServerBoard_GA-7A8DW.htm
Dont know how much is it, but has all you need.

 

[Kenny]

Thats got a U.K. price of under £200!! great! Tragically ive just bought new memory, so no can do Thanks tho!

Kenny