XP vs MP

STaN

Just a general question with regards to the above.

Im going to be buying dual athlon systems in the near future and im not sure which would be more suited, dual athlon MP 2200+ or dual athlon XP 2600+ or 2700.

Any1 got any tips?

These would be win2k servers with 2.5gigs of whichever memory.

Stephen

I thought you couldn't have dual XP's, just dual MP's? Maybe i'm wrong

po0k

why not go dual intel?

Or is this a super work box?

netman

Take extra care picking out the components. AMD dual processor systems are fantastic, but you need to be careful what you put together, or you could have serious problems.

If you're buying this with a server in mind, not as a technology enthusiast who just wants to see "how it works", stability is number one priority.

AMD 760 MPX server chipset only supports Athlon MP processors and registered (buffered) ECC memory. There are motherboards out there that deviate from the spec, and allow use of XP processors or non-ECC memory, but I'd be worried about the implementation and what toll it takes on reliability.

There's a new Epox motherboard, M762A, that's been reviewed recently and is absolutely outstanding. It only works with Athlon MPs, and only takes ECC registered (buffered) DIMM's. It also requires a minimum of 400W ATX power supply, with a 20-pin ATX connector. Look at quality power supplies, like Enermax and Enlight, not the cheap stuff that only has 400W on the label.

longword

Originally posted by SyxPak
why not go dual intel?

Dual Intel P4/Xeon is much more expensive.

longword

Originally posted by netman
AMD 760 MPX server chipset only supports Athlon MP processors and registered (buffered) ECC memory.

Dunno about the other boards, but the Tyan Tiger 760MPX board officially supports up to two unbuffered DIMMs - I went for registered anyway for my pair in case I want to put more in later. There's no good reason why non-ECC should be less reliable in normal use than non-ECC in any other board - given that you should expect about four single bit errors a year per gigabyte from cosmic rays other radiation. For 2GB+ you'll definitely want ECC registered.

It also requires a minimum of 400W ATX power supply, with a 20-pin ATX connector. Look at quality power supplies, like Enermax and Enlight, not the cheap stuff that only has 400W on the label.

I run mine on an Enermax 450W supply - lots of 10kRPM SCSI disks too. The Tyan board needs both a regular 20-way ATX supply plus an extra bit of juice from either a standard hard disk connector, or from the 4-way ATX 2.03 connector.

strat

XP's can be modded to works as MP's tho

STaN

this was the setup from the manufacturer:

Qty (1) 300watt power supply for the Tyan s2462gn
Qty (1) CCSI Wind Tunnel for the Tyan s2462gn
Qty (2) Custom low profile heat sinks for the RC-0103
Qty (1) Tyan S2462gn dual Athlon mother board with on board LAN, SCSI, and Video
Qty (2) AMD Athlon 2200+ MP “1.8Ghz
Qty (4) 512Meg ECC DDR Registered PC2100
Qty (2) 40Gig IBM 7200rpm IDE Hard Drives
Qty (1) Mitsumi Slim-CD
Qty (1) The above Configured & Tested
Qty (2) Hot-Swap IDE kit for the RC-0103, includes IDE drive shuttle and backplane

=====

Well we'll be changing that around a bit. Any imput's appretiated. Is that psu to low?

PPC

Originally posted by StrataGIST
XP's can be modded to works as MP's tho

Ya they can
guide

STaN

want long lasting & ub3r stable servers & the HIGHEST preformace obtainable with dual athlon *P processors... surely modding in the long term would affect that?

longword

Originally posted by STaN
Qty (1) 300watt power supply for the Tyan s2462gn

Well we'll be changing that around a bit. Any imput's appretiated. Is that psu to low?

Short answer, yes it is IMHO. Think 400W+ and make sure it's a quality one, not some random no-name off-the-shelf.

BTW, why get the board with the onboard SCSI yet go for IDE drives? And why go for the older 760MP chipset rather than the shiny new (well, not so older) 760MPX? Consider the S2466N-4M, unless you need the onboard video for running Windows.