Has anyone used a dual athlon PC?
25 January 2002, 11:17 AM
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Does anyone here have any experience of using a PC equipped with Dual athlon CPUs? I'm thinking of building one, but they seem thin on the ground and I've heard that you need a special PSU.
Thanks,
toerag
Thanks,
toerag
25 January 2002, 11:48 AM
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It all depends......
First off, what Athlons exactly do you want to run in dual config?
The only boards that Unofficially support the Dual Thunderbird/MP/XP cored chips are the Tyan Thunder K7 and the Tyan Tiger MP motherboards.
These were the only dual AMD capable motherboards released, until the last few weeks, with the very arrival of the the Tiger MPX motherboards with revised AMD chipsets. There are also other manufacturers jumping on this bandwagon, such as Asus, Microstar, etc....
The problem with these boards is that AMD have stipulated that if the BIOSes on these boards detect either a Dual XP setup, or dual Thunderbird setup, then it ignores the second CPU, therefore running single CPU mode only. It is currently unknown as to whether all of the manufacturers are adhering to this rule.
The only board that had it's own standard of PSU needed was the Thunder K7 board. This was expensive and slightly awkeard to get hold of. The Tiger MP onwards reverted back to the ATX standard.
What you must keep in mind is the power requirements of these boards. A 300W PSU is an absolute minimum, but more importantly, the maximum wattage that it can supply along the +5V line. The minimum stated is 30W, but from personal experience, at least 35W along the +5 is necessary for stability, especially as you then add components into the system, such as cdroms, hd's etc, etc.
Have loads more info on these beasts, but short of time. Any questions, let me know.
Cheers,
Nick
P.S, some info on them on the site and in the forums if you want a browse http://www.2cpu.com
First off, what Athlons exactly do you want to run in dual config?
The only boards that Unofficially support the Dual Thunderbird/MP/XP cored chips are the Tyan Thunder K7 and the Tyan Tiger MP motherboards.
These were the only dual AMD capable motherboards released, until the last few weeks, with the very arrival of the the Tiger MPX motherboards with revised AMD chipsets. There are also other manufacturers jumping on this bandwagon, such as Asus, Microstar, etc....
The problem with these boards is that AMD have stipulated that if the BIOSes on these boards detect either a Dual XP setup, or dual Thunderbird setup, then it ignores the second CPU, therefore running single CPU mode only. It is currently unknown as to whether all of the manufacturers are adhering to this rule.
The only board that had it's own standard of PSU needed was the Thunder K7 board. This was expensive and slightly awkeard to get hold of. The Tiger MP onwards reverted back to the ATX standard.
What you must keep in mind is the power requirements of these boards. A 300W PSU is an absolute minimum, but more importantly, the maximum wattage that it can supply along the +5V line. The minimum stated is 30W, but from personal experience, at least 35W along the +5 is necessary for stability, especially as you then add components into the system, such as cdroms, hd's etc, etc.
Have loads more info on these beasts, but short of time. Any questions, let me know.
Cheers,
Nick
P.S, some info on them on the site and in the forums if you want a browse http://www.2cpu.com
25 January 2002, 12:15 PM
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Just for your info, this is what I run as a server at home:
Tyan Tiger MP Motherboard
Dual AMD Athlon 1.4 CPU's
2x256MB ECC Crucial DDR RAM
Vodoo3 3000 AGP
Adaptec 29160 SCSI 160 Card
Adaptec 3950U2B 64-Bit SCSI 80 Card
3x IBM 18BG SCSI 160 in Hot Swap
SCSI CDROM
DDS3 Backup
D-Link DFE550TX LAN
D-Link DFE530TX WAN
to power the above successfully, I use the following:
Enermax 465VE PSU for the Motherboard and cards.
Macron 300W PSU for the drives and cooling.
The macron gets triggered to switch on by using a relay from the Enermax. Apart from overheating occasionally being stuck in the cupboard under the stairs, the machine is rock solid and very quick
Cheers,
Nick
Tyan Tiger MP Motherboard
Dual AMD Athlon 1.4 CPU's
2x256MB ECC Crucial DDR RAM
Vodoo3 3000 AGP
Adaptec 29160 SCSI 160 Card
Adaptec 3950U2B 64-Bit SCSI 80 Card
3x IBM 18BG SCSI 160 in Hot Swap
SCSI CDROM
DDS3 Backup
D-Link DFE550TX LAN
D-Link DFE530TX WAN
to power the above successfully, I use the following:
Enermax 465VE PSU for the Motherboard and cards.
Macron 300W PSU for the drives and cooling.
The macron gets triggered to switch on by using a relay from the Enermax. Apart from overheating occasionally being stuck in the cupboard under the stairs, the machine is rock solid and very quick
Cheers,
Nick
25 January 2002, 01:56 PM
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Thanks for the info nick, that's certainly one loaded machine you've got under your stairs!! I'm looking to run 2HD's, CD-RW/DVD (whatever is the best when I get round to building this thing!), ethernet card and SCSI card on mine as a workstation. I guess I'll just need the one good PSU. I'll check out 2cpu.com, but in the meantime how much is a dual board, case+PSU? I've done a quick browse on pcindex.co.uk and can find most of the prices for the other bits, but they don't list any dual boards. I used to hang out on aceshardware.com, but I spend too much time here and on i-club now!
thanks,
toerag
thanks,
toerag
25 January 2002, 02:31 PM
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What chips are you going to run?
If you are going are MPX-based board, then really you will need to run the MP athlons, which unfortunatly run at a bit of a premium money-wise. This is probably one of the reasons why AMD have stipulated the BIOS crippling on the new boards, to help increase margins a bit. From what I can remember, the new MP chips and the XP chips are virtually identical in every way...
Mucho cash for what you want.
If you want to go for one of the now older MP-based systems then have a look at http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/Online_Catalogue_AMD_TBird_Bundles_40.html
£581 for a Tyan Tiger MP mobo, 2 1.2MP CPU's and 2 Taisol Heatsinks. Also get some Arctic SilverII compound.
Recommended PSU for what you want would be the same Enermax as I have, she can run up to 44Amps (sorry, not watts) along the +5 rail which is good. Bad thing is that they passthrough little air, so a fair bit of ventilation inside the case is a good idea. Prices vary between £70-£80 for one of these units.
Case-wise, I wouldnt really fit it in anything less than a full tower case as at least my mobo/cpu/card setup cranks out a lot of heat. Again, expensive for something with cood cooling capabilities. You would be looking at a Chieftec/Supermicro/Antec? case. Realistically between £70-100 for one of these fellows.
I was lucky enough to come across a 'Mini Fridge' case for mine.
I would probably wait for about a month and see what the boards that are being released are like. Again, 2cpu.com is good for finding out stuff.
Cheers,
Nick
If you are going are MPX-based board, then really you will need to run the MP athlons, which unfortunatly run at a bit of a premium money-wise. This is probably one of the reasons why AMD have stipulated the BIOS crippling on the new boards, to help increase margins a bit. From what I can remember, the new MP chips and the XP chips are virtually identical in every way...
Mucho cash for what you want.
If you want to go for one of the now older MP-based systems then have a look at http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/Online_Catalogue_AMD_TBird_Bundles_40.html
£581 for a Tyan Tiger MP mobo, 2 1.2MP CPU's and 2 Taisol Heatsinks. Also get some Arctic SilverII compound.
Recommended PSU for what you want would be the same Enermax as I have, she can run up to 44Amps (sorry, not watts) along the +5 rail which is good. Bad thing is that they passthrough little air, so a fair bit of ventilation inside the case is a good idea. Prices vary between £70-£80 for one of these units.
Case-wise, I wouldnt really fit it in anything less than a full tower case as at least my mobo/cpu/card setup cranks out a lot of heat. Again, expensive for something with cood cooling capabilities. You would be looking at a Chieftec/Supermicro/Antec? case. Realistically between £70-100 for one of these fellows.
I was lucky enough to come across a 'Mini Fridge' case for mine.
I would probably wait for about a month and see what the boards that are being released are like. Again, 2cpu.com is good for finding out stuff.
Cheers,
Nick
25 January 2002, 03:13 PM
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Thanks for the extra info Nick, I've just read the MPX reviews at 2cpu and [H]ard OCP. Allegedly the XP works just as well as the MP (are they any different? I can't remember if it was just the MP that had the prefetch tweaks), so I'd go for whatever's cheapest there. I've found the tyan MP for £185 and the ASUS A7M266-D (MPX) for £193 on dabs. I don't pay VAT, so it will be cheaper for me than for you! I'll let you know what it all prices out like. I'm coming from a cyrix 233 (don't laugh!) based system and use Pshop lots whilst doing other things at the same time. And I know I'll need winblows 2K or XP pro to take advantage of the dual CPUs properly.
[Edited by Toerag - 1/25/2002 3:17:55 PM]
[Edited by Toerag - 1/25/2002 3:17:55 PM]
25 January 2002, 04:53 PM
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Be careful about the motherboard running dual XP thing. On hardocp they did say that they tried it with Dual XP's and got them working happily, but remember that I mentioned that AMD were trying to enforce the 'Non MP' Bios restriction. Not all of the manufacturers may adhere to this rule, thus the MSI working perfectly. All I can say is that there was a big ald hoohaa regarding this restricting less than a month ago.
Cannee remember if the latest core XP and MP chips are any different, but in all the benchmarks that I have seen, they perform virtually identically. It would also appear that they have disabled support of the Thunderbird core Athlon and Spitfire core Duron on these new chipsets, as they chips were never officially sanctioned as SMP capable either. Also look out for articles regarding the quite possible physical crippling of the current(01/02-) XP cpu's coming off of the production line. Out of touch a bit on it now, seeing as I have already built mine.
Cheers,
Nick
Cannee remember if the latest core XP and MP chips are any different, but in all the benchmarks that I have seen, they perform virtually identically. It would also appear that they have disabled support of the Thunderbird core Athlon and Spitfire core Duron on these new chipsets, as they chips were never officially sanctioned as SMP capable either. Also look out for articles regarding the quite possible physical crippling of the current(01/02-) XP cpu's coming off of the production line. Out of touch a bit on it now, seeing as I have already built mine.
Cheers,
Nick
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