Forum: Geek Forum
Topic: Dual Tbirds
started by: Sithiee
Posted by Sithiee on Feb. 21 2001,20:21
when will this technology be available? im not the most on top of things person anymore, so i figure this is the best place to ask. imm lookin to put together a new top of the line machine that will hopefull last me 2-3 years and still run top of the line games, id like :
Dual 1.2 Ghz/266mhz Athlon Tbirds (1.3 if theyre available at the time of purchase...)
maybe 1GB of DDR ram
GeForce 3 for pc if its available
SB Live Platinum 5.1
Some mad Speaker setup
top of the line dvd, cd burner, monitor, mouse/keyboard etc...but at the heart of this remains me knowing whether they have the dual tbirds, or when theyre comingout... i thought before it was sposed to be january, but i have seen nothing...
Posted by MattimeoZ80 on Feb. 21 2001,20:56
hrm, i've heard rumors of some japanese board or something, but i'm all hyped up now about the geforce 3! w00t! that is just gonna rock. looks like a good system but you might want to get dual pIII's or just one tbird... it'll last you a long time. you could get that and when they come out with a dual mb just transfer everything over and buy another tbird. thats all.------------------
Ah screw it.
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ICEGAMING.COM
Posted by Sithiee on Feb. 21 2001,21:44
i thought dual processors were supposed to be near each other in serial number, off the same wafer or somethin...and price is an issue, so id rather buy it all at once...
Posted by damage on Feb. 21 2001,22:16
In most dual proc. situations, the applications running have to be optimized for dual proc. configs. Although the OS may be opt. for it, the games pr'lly are not so they might not take full advantage of both procs. Something to think about.------------------
damage@detonate.net "On a long enough timeline the survival rate for anyone drops to zero."
-Narrator 'Fight Club.'
Posted by askheaves on Feb. 21 2001,22:32
Firstly, you can't buy a computer that will last you 2-3 years and still be even close to up to date. I bought a PIII 800 (@929) last August. 6 months, and I'm about to be lapped for the same price. Granted, I can still play the best games, but it's not going to last 1.5 years. It's diminishing returns. Never buy the most top of the line computer. Buy lower power more often.Secondly, damage is absolutely right. Don't even think about running Win98, or WinME or any Win9X OS. Hell, you have a hard enough time getting it to use over 64meg of memory, much less a second processor. It's not built for it. You need to run a Lunix thingy, or WinNT/Win2K/WinXP Professional. These will actually schedule threads on opposing processors. Actually, I'm not even sure if it will spread threads across processors, maybe just processes. If it distributes across CPUs by thread, then games won't be very useful since most of the optimized games aren't running many threads, and CPU time is quickly leaving as the bottleneck. If it distributes by process, then it's hopeless. You have a fast CPU and hotplate. What you need to do is get that GeForce3, and a bunch of Voodoo Rush cards and daisy chain them 
Posted by Sithiee on Feb. 21 2001,22:59
first off, your wrong, the computer i have right now was built about 2 1/4 years ago, and the only thing ive upgraded is the video card. second, yeah, i know, i was planning on going with a non beta version of whistler cause it is smp. also, there are plenty of games that are smp, such as q3a. also, even if the game doesnt have smp, the second processor can take care of other backround things, which in turn lightens the load. and also, because i bought near top of the line when i got this computer (i build my computers, i dont buy them prebuilt, cause those are shit) it still runs most things of today...
Posted by DeadAnztac on Feb. 21 2001,23:18
..spend now for dually t-bird with DDR RAM ... or pay 跌 in 6 months for a new single T-bird DDR RAM, then a year later another 跌 upgrade... hrmm... of course that's just my humble opinion 
Posted by DeadAnztac on Feb. 21 2001,23:20
oh and I'de expect dual mb's for the t-bird in a month or so.
Posted by hyperponic on Feb. 22 2001,00:12
Supposedly they have been talking about dual amd boards for over a year now, and so far...nothing! There have been a bunch of demo boards surfacing lately, but I wouldn't expect anything retail for awhile. An article up on < www.2cpu.com > has this to say about the boards: "Our partners have already got our samples. As for the market - in this year (most likely 3Q).". This message has been edited by hyperponic on February 22, 2001 at 07:12 PM
Posted by damien_s_lucifer on Feb. 22 2001,00:16
I've played with a lot of dual-CPU systems, with WinNT, 2000, and Linux. Dual CPUs don't make much of a difference for most users, even those of us who are bright enough to know what we're doing... the only place I've ever seen a difference large enough to be impressive is 1. certain server tasks (i.e. an insane Web server) and 2. certain image rendering apps (Lightwave, etc.)Frame rates usually drop on games in a dual-CPU system, because the CPUs have to share the memory bus - not to mention cache-snoop and other synchronization cycles that don't happen on a single-CPU system. Throw your $$$ into buying other cool stuff - a better monitor, an assload of memory, etc. Personally, I'm going to get one of < these > soon... This message has been edited by damien_s_lucifer on February 22, 2001 at 07:16 PM
Posted by DeadAnztac on Feb. 22 2001,01:54
Yep, that'll be mine soon I think damien I've been watching the DDR and SMP pretty closely for the past year, and my interests are starting to mount
Posted by jim on Feb. 22 2001,11:52
I run dual @ home. I started with 1 PIII 866EB @ 1001 MHZ 6.5x154FSB running Win2k. By adding a second processor I noticed a rather large performance boost. What happens, as I think Sithee was saying, is that although the game won't utilize the second proc, the OS will! So you do have more proc power available for other application. Maybe this won't increase game performance much, but what you can do, is multy task like a mother fucker!!!For instance, I see no difference in performance if I start up UT with no applications running, or if I leave IIS5/SQL2000/DHCP/DNS services running. The OS has the ability to off load those tasks to the second proc while the first proc is busy cranking out UT frames. It's great!!! I don't worry about shutting down Virus Scan, Outlook, ICQ, or any other non-gaming task bar items before jumping into a game. I still get 60fps with all details turned all the way up! Dual procs is WELL worth the money!! ------------------
jim
Beauty is in the eye of the Beer Holder
< Brews and Cues >
Posted by Sithiee on Feb. 22 2001,21:28
wouldnt that be why servers contain so many processors? with so many things to process, 8 processors can process 8 things at once.
Posted by demonk on Feb. 23 2001,19:39
I'm currently running a dual Celeron setup(going to goto dual PIII sometime this summer hopefully), and I can tell you, dual procs are great! Just like jim said, you won't see big performance increase in something like a game or application, but you will see a performance increase in the amount of stuff you can run without hickups in the OS. I don't worry about having too many programs open anymore. I can burn a CD, surf the web, use ICQ, AND use Photoshop at the same time, without any performance hits to any of them. Keep in mind though, your memmory will be what limits you in the number of stuff you can run when you get to dual procs. I've been bitten by the SMP bug, and I don't think I'll ever go back to a single CPU system.
Posted by fatbitch on Feb. 24 2001,22:42
is having dual cpu's only a matter if having a motherboard that does it, or does the capability have to be built into the cpu aswell?------------------
"I didnt know cows had boobs, I just thought they had that big nutsack with all the wieners hanging off it" - Beavis Metal/Electronic/Ambient etc..
< http://www.mp3.com/fatbitch >
Posted by Spydir Web on Feb. 24 2001,23:37
mostly mobo, but it's recommended you use the same proc's (as close serial #'s as possible) because it decreases possiblities of problems.I wish I had the $$$ for a dual system. I'd be running like 800 apache sessions just to test some dinky php/mysql thing, have q3a running, 50 some xchat's, and like 500 xterms open, just to mess with it ------------------
Spydir Web - spydirweb@techie.com
Core Arctic - < http://welcome.to/CoreArctic/ >
Posted by jim on Feb. 25 2001,10:27
tee hee... You guys would love to play with my Server up here at work.Titanic boats 8, yes 8 PIII 800MHZ XEONS With 4 Gigs of RAM. Mmmmmmmmmm, SMP goodness. Here's the fun part though. Guess what all this proc power is used for?? ???? Not a god damn thing. It's our test box!!!!! It doesn't run any production applications!!! We have some even yummier toys down in the basement datacenter!! Mostly Compaq DL360's but those are cool! All our racks servers are hooked up to sweet ass pullout < flatscreen monitors >!! There are rumors of 2 ML770's down in the basement running a SQL 2000 Cluster, although no-one has even seen them!?!?! For those of you who don't know what an ML770 is, it runs 32 procs and 16 gig of ram.... Mmmmmmmmm I just want to touch one!!! ------------------
jim
Beauty is in the eye of the Beer Holder
< Brews and Cues >
Posted by damage on Feb. 25 2001,12:38
A long time ago, I set up an E10K with 32 procs and 32Gb. Before it went into production, we loaded the solaris build of quake on it. Now THERE is a serious case of processor over kill. But it was sure fun to have that one networked.------------------
damage@detonate.net "On a long enough timeline the survival rate for anyone drops to zero."
-Narrator 'Fight Club.'
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