Is SMP worth it.

[GFORCE100]

By all means got for SMP. What processors where you thinking of? I know Pentium III but what speed? Just get the RAM too. 512MB is nice or more if you can afford it. As most of the more experienced users in the thread have said it will improve your system responsiveness and ensure smooth multi-tasking. It's definetly something a professional user would have. Windows 2000 and SMP + a lot of RAM is very sweet.

 

[Sir Fredrick]

True, if you're going SMP, you'll mostly just benefit from multitasking...but if you want good performance while multitasking, 256MB of RAM is probably a must.

 

[Hanpan]

I would run 2x700 hopefully at 1010.
As for ram i ahve 1280 megs in my house right now so that shouldn't be a problem.
Man, it seems you guys are pretty devided on this. It seems however that those who have experienced smp are more likely to recomend it. Perhaps because the ohter haven't tried. Either way thanks for teh opinions everyone. Any other points of view would also be appreciated.

 

[GFORCE100]

Well you ought to tell us what motherboard would you have? Maybe someone can tell you if you're making the right choice with the model you chose. The other thing is if you're going for SMP then you might as well do things professionally so unless your 1280 RAM is all the same speed/make/model I would not put it in your machine. I recommend you buy all the same brand RAM for this new setup. SMP is for professionals so no cutting corners.

 

[Sir Fredrick]

If the RAM will run at the same FSB setting with the same CAS settings, your system won't know the difference.

 

[Hanpan]

well 512 is all i wil put in.
As for teh board i would use the msi 694d pro.

 

[GFORCE100]

The board might not complain if you mix the RAM but the performance will most likely go down. If you try benchmarking a generic DIMM and a branded DIMM at the same settings you will see just what I mean. Ayway, who goes for SMP isn't looking to count the pennies.

The board should be okay, though I would opt for a BX chipset (yes old but very good) or a ServerWorks WS, HE chipset board. As you want to overclock I can understand why you would want to go for the MSI board. Also take a look at the Abit VP6.

 

[Sir Fredrick]

GFORCE, where have you heard that before? Even when Anand benches memory, when everything else is the same (same motherboard, processor, etc.), his benchmark is what FSB the RAM will run at.

And just cause someone's running SMP doesn't mean we're loaded either.

 

[Hanpan]

Haven't ahd much luck with abit.
As for ram i am certain i will have no problems.
Bx is ok but the boards are very expensive. IE p3b-ds.
Server works is expensive too. Again I don't have tons of money it's just it'll cost me about 150.00 to upgrade from my current setup. If i look at things like matched ram etc the price will go through the roof.

 

[GFORCE100]

Well. SDRAM is SDRAM but the performance of it can vary. Usually between +/- 5-10%. That's why I chose Crucial all round for my SMP. At least when Windows 2000 crashes (very very rare) I know it's not the RAM.

Well if you want BX then by all means for the Asus PD2-D or Tyan Tiger 100. The Tiger has a FSB of 112MHz so you can get 7x112MHz out of it. I'm going to get one when my eyes spot one since my current Gigabyte 6BXD won't let me overclock an inch. Since I run Dual P3 800's I could get it upto 8x112Mhz. A nice boost of around 100MHz which is worth it I reckon.

At the end of the day we all have our own tastes. I believe it's worth doing a job properly from day one. It is why I said those who go for SMP don't count the pennies. It's just a figure of speech. I am for quality, then quantity, not the other way round.

 

[Sir Fredrick]

GFORCE, I'd love to see where you got that from, I've never heard that before

Yes, the ASUS P2B-D is a great BX board. I'm running the P2B-DS.
those boards are also some of the very few with a 1/4 PCI divider too. If I use sofFSB to overclock my PIII450s, I can get it to 133FSB, with absolutely no stability issues (I'm using an older TNT AGP card which helps)

 

[Hanpan]

I'm Sorry Gforce but i disagree. For the most part quality is better than quantity i agree but there is a poitn of diminishing returns. For example i beleive msuhkin and siemens to be quality enough for my taste. Jsut my 0.02.

 

[Whitedog]

I have a BP6 at work with 2 Celey 500's in it and I tell you, it is a Really cool computer.

I burn CD's all the time at work. I can't afford to wait for the CD to be done to do other stuff...

I think it's a Very nice feature to have in your computer.

The only reason I don't have it at home is I wanted an AMD system.

When they come out with a Good 760 SMP board, I'm a gettin one! Whether I really need it or not!

Hey, Even some games support SMP. Quake3 is supposed to? I think the future will be bright for SMP applications.

 

[Hanpan]

I think i might just go for it. A lot of people say it's a waste of cash but most people who have run or have acess to a smp system seem to recomment it. Unless someone who has a smp system can come forward and tell me they saw little to no performance gains.

 

[dee]

Just to add support to the naysayers...

Save up a bit more and get yourself a segate x15 instead.

 

[Hanpan]

i already have a 10000 rpm hdd and don't think the x15 would show a large increase. Plus it would be a 200-250 dollar upgrade.

 

[dee]

I'm guessing you've never got to play with an x15 then?

 

[Blayze]

when the Dual AMD boards ship this year what type of ram will they use? DDR or SDRAM?

 

[Hanpan]

DDR if your talking about the dual boards to be released from amd which are the only ones i've heard of so far.

 

[Hanpan]

Dee i've decided not to go dual after all but because of customs problems i'm in canada not unwillingness. I will however look at an x15 in teh future perhaps when the second generation hammerhead? in think it's called comes out.

 

[Fandu]

Well I have a dual c464 system on a Tyan Tiger 100 with all SCSI subsystem and 280MB RAM. It's hella sweet. Like others have said, multitasking is like night and day compared to a single processor system. Even though it's only running overclocked c300a's, it quite often outperforms by gig T-bird in photoshop and Linux apps.

In fact Linux does so well with the dual processors it's freaking amazing. My friends rag on it because it's "half the mhz of mine!", and then I fire up The GiMP and give em an swift butt kicking. I'm not saying Win2K/NT doesn't do well with SMP, they certinally do, it's just more noticable to me under *NIX.

 

[Hanpan]

I may still go smp but can't at teh moment due to some problems which have arrisen.

Thanks everyone for teh input.

 

[Sir Fredrick]

I had no idea that would create a problem with customs. Intersting...

 

[mechBgon]

I've used a dualie for 3D modelling and other stuff. The "and other stuff" is where a dualie can come in useful. If the render job is going to take several hours (or days) it's nice to have a second CPU for doing the "other stuff" without having the performance level of a 286 due to the render job that's running in the background. Of course, having multi-threaded rendering is a nice option too, but my 3D software (Caligari trueSpace 4.3) had bugs that caused it to crash when using both CPUs for rendering, especially with area lights.

Overall, I'd have to say dualies have their uses. If you are trying to multi-task and your CPU is bogged down by an ongoing process in the background, then adding a second CPU will help you, provided you have enough RAM to suit the need (and of course, your SMP-enabled OS). But just having the second 1GHz CPU in there won't make a noticable difference in run-of-the-mill activities like surfing the Internet while using ICQ, IRC, listening to music and such.

 

[holden j caufield]

you won't know till you tried it. Now that I've used smp I will hopefully never have to go back to a uniprocessor. try it