[ut2003io] SMP ?

[Andrew Pilley]

On Tue, Sep 24, 2002 at 04:35:49AM +0100, Tanis wrote:
> Gary - what spec (and OS) was this dual cpu box? I'm thinking of getting one
> myself and would appreciate yours (and others) thoughts on this.

i've been doing some research into this recently myself. (largely because
of ut2k3, and that my duron 750 doesn't cut it :) )

i'm looking at the Tyan tiger mpx myself, (many many reviews linked from
www.tyan.com if you want specs), mainly because my own particular habits
involve lots of processing (i compile things occasionally) and gaming is
slowly becoming more SMP-aware.
i'm not an overclocking freak tho, and the tyan range are ALWAYS exceptional
stability and quality-wise. don't offer much in the way of tweaking tho
the asus A7M266-D is the one if you want tweakability, although the more
recent tyan mpx bios revisions have added FSB tweaking recently.

there's a problem tho. the first set of MPX based boards had broken USB
(broken such that only one port actually works properly, so they all
get disabled due to amd's high demanding standards, and you need to
often look at the power supply's connectors (the original MP was weird
the MPX from tyan has a normal ATX + extra connectors, that work with
standard PSU's)
the S2466N-4M (the second revision of the tyan tiger mpx) has working
USB however, although it's likely to be more expensive while
people run out the original stock.

the benchmarks all show asus squeeze out more performance, but that
the tyan one is rock solid, and has some good options (66MHz 64bit pci
iirc, don't remember if the asus one had 66MHz or 33MHz).

i wouldn't bother with MSI, but that's because i don't have any experience
with them.

also, if you're worried about heat, look at the uber-expensive athlon
MP 2200+'s. they're made with the .13micron core, so they're a fair bit
cooler than the 2100's and below.
or you can use upper-range XP's, if you like voiding warranties :)

Andrew 'ashridah' Pilley








> 
> Jay.

-- 
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Andrew Pilley  -   Cybersource Pty Ltd, Lvl 9, 140 Queen St. Melbourne
ashridah at cyber.com.au        Ph. 9642-5997 www.cyber.com.au