A question about twin CPU motherboard performance
I have a question on how fast a twin cpu MB would run. I may be building another computer soon, and I have a chance to get a twin CPU motherboard. I think it's an Abit BP6 with twin Socket 370's. I also saw one on eBay.
This computer is not for me, it would be for someone else.
Now, let's say I got this MB and set it up with XP Home, 256 MB (or maybe more), and 2 Celeron 500 cpus.
If I went into the Control Panel and went to Performance and Maintenance << See basic information about the computer, what would it say for processor speed? 500? 1000? Something in between? Or would it list each processor seperately?
What if I used the WCPUID program to see the processor specs?
And finally, what would the flat-out performance be like? It would be on a cable modem with one other computer. How would it do at processor intensive tasks, like downloading 30 things from Kazaa all at once and watching a video all at the same time?
Is a twin cpu MB even a good idea? Or should I just find something faster in a single cpu setup?
This computer is not for me, it would be for someone else.
Now, let's say I got this MB and set it up with XP Home, 256 MB (or maybe more), and 2 Celeron 500 cpus.
If I went into the Control Panel and went to Performance and Maintenance << See basic information about the computer, what would it say for processor speed? 500? 1000? Something in between? Or would it list each processor seperately?
What if I used the WCPUID program to see the processor specs?
And finally, what would the flat-out performance be like? It would be on a cable modem with one other computer. How would it do at processor intensive tasks, like downloading 30 things from Kazaa all at once and watching a video all at the same time?
Is a twin cpu MB even a good idea? Or should I just find something faster in a single cpu setup?
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Comments
If you looked at WCPUID or other Windows information, it should say 2 500mhz CPUs rather than 1000 Mhz.
That's an old board. The highest speed processors that it will be able to handle are probably P3-Tualatin 1.3ghz. At the price you can get those, you would be able to build a much faster machine with a single athlon XP.
Hell, for the price of two P3-Tualatins, you might actually be able to build a dual athlon system.
Dual is worth it if you need it. Like I said on icrontic:
If you have to ask, you don't need it. If you need it, you know it.
To note your other points:
Downloading 30 things on kazaa and watching a video are not at all processor intensive.
The only time you would see an advantage with duals is with applications that support multithreading, such as photoshop, video rendering, etc. Dual celeron 500s are slow as hell. Trust me, I have one - a BP6 with dual celeron 500s - the exact combo you're talking about. Win XP Pro runs like dog crap on it.
As always, get the fastest CPU you can reasonably afford.
Now his brother wants one. His current computer is a 1995 Dell Optiplex with a Socket 8 Pentium Pro and 32 MB on Windows 95. The memory is the old style chips. 18 microchips on a single stick. The MB has 4 memory slots with only 1 being used right now.
It also has what I think is called a "daughterboard (?)" which plugs into the MB. Then the modem, sound card, and etc plug into that DB.
It works, but it's old.
Somewhere they found a 3COM 10 Mbit ethernet card from 1992. It has a different style connector (not PCI or AGP), and it'll plug into this old Dell. But I don't know if I can find a driver for it anywhere.
The current plan is to try and connect this Dell to their cable modem (these 2 guys are brothers and share a duplex house). One just got cable internet, so I'm going to try and branch it off to run the second computer.
I told them that even if this 1995 Dell gets on the internet, it'll be slow as hell. But we can try. So they'll probably have me build another system and give the 1995 Dell to his son to play games on.
Prime is right. An ECS K7S5A, Athlon 1700+ (1.46ghz) combo is ~$60 and will be way faster than an old obsolete Abit BP6 w dual 500mhz CPUs (Only 128K L2 cache :thumbsdow )
I've been following their progress. They've gotten single-processor Tualatin-S @ 1.4GHz to work, but they're limited to Coppermine flip-chips in dual mode. Even then, there are some serious board hacks to be done to get that to work (socket mods, have to replace ALL the electrolytic capacitors on the board, VRM replacement is recommended). Unless you've got some skill with a soldering iron, I'd stay away from the BP6.
Like Prime et al. said earlier, dual CPU's only really help with multitasking and with multi-threaded software. Of course, if your friend is a big gamer (hard to believe with that Dell), dual processors are nice since you can serve the game at a LAN party on one CPU and play on the other without a significant performance loss.
BTW, the network card is probably ISA (black connector on motherboard or riser with large, spread-out contacts; 16-bit ISA has a long section in the back and a shorter one in the front). I don't think Dell ever adopted EISA but if the motherboard connector is white and the card has two rows of contacts that's what it is. Most 3com drivers are built into Windows now, though it's probably a 3c905 or 3c509 and the drivers are available at 3com's website. Also, your "daughterboard" is called a riser card. Dell usually uses PCISA risers which are a pain to get, so don't break yours.
Prime is also right in that it will be much more cost-effective for you to just get them a cheap motherboard/CPU combo and a cheapo case. More for less. If you're dead set on upgrading that Socket8 Optiplex, the fastest processor it will take can be found herehere. Keep in mind that the Optiplex will take Registered or Unbuffered RAM, but not both together, so if you want to save yourself some trouble just get a couple sticks of 128 and pull the 32.
-drasnor
Excluding games you would be surprised how many programs do support multiple cpu's. Including win2k, winxp pro, phgotoshop and all the office apps for starters.
Tex
It was slow, compared to my other more modern rigs. I only used it cos it was given to me free and I thought it would make an interesting folding rig. Well it was a slow folder despite being able to run to instances of folding@home. It was also slow at web browsing and virtually anything else I tried on it.
The thing to remember is that it is old technology and no matter how many processors or ram it has in it, it'll be slow.
Wot happened to it I here you ask? well it would appear that the memory controller died & while i was taking off the hsf one of the lugs on the socket snapped off. Anybody wanna buy two celeron 533 cpu's????
Regards
Jim
Todays ide kicks scsi butt from a few years ago.
On the other hand I have a sweet tyan dual p3 700 with a GB of ram that makes a very nice Linux file server. but I don't play games nor do I expect dual p3 700's to run with a AMD 2000 I can grab at frys today with a motherboard for 59 bucks either...
Know your limits and keep your expectations of older gear firmly attached to reailty.
True, but for my S900 that has no IDE controller, getting a new 50GB (formatted capacity) Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM w/ 4MB cache LVD SCSI drive for $70 shipped with the SCA->68pin adapter is a good deal no matter how you hash it. That's about what I'd expect to pay for a similar IDE drive anyway. It's going to knock the socks off the drive I got it with, a 2GB Seagate Medalist on narrow SCSI.
There is at least one exception that I've found: my S900. It was manufactured in 1997 with a 180MHz PowerPC 604e and 16MB of RAM, but right now it has 1GB of RAM and a 900MHz PowerPC 750FX (G3) processor, USB 2.0, 1394, and Ultra2 LVD SCSI. I'm going to install MacOS 10.2.8 on it when the new drive gets here.
-drasnor
John.
Don't know what drive you got its gotta be slow as molassess./ But I have a pair of those seagates here and now.....and they can't come close to touching my 8mb cache 120gb IDE Maxtor that cost 85 bucks with 2.5 times the disk space. Not on their best day... downwind... with a old lady in a hood throwing a curse on my maxtor ide also. And they are 5 year old noisy scsi's to boot. No comparison to a modern hot IDE drives.
Not my idea of a good way to spend money and remember I have two racks of scsi drives also. I just pick modern, fast quiet scsi drives not old, slow noisy ones. I love scsi and sell raid controllers but old slow scsi isnt my bag.
You can software raid-0 thoise two drives and they still can't touch the one maxtor. Except for noise. And they are WAY noiser so they kick booty in the noise department.
Tex
A single fast, quiet SCSI drive automatically costs in excess of $250 for a 47GB hard drive, which is more than I'm prepared to spend for storage on a machine from 1997. Even if I went and got an IDE controller and fast IDE drive, it would still be plugged into my PCI bus thus negating any advantage there. It's competing with the video card, after all.
This was meant to be an example of a machine with a longer-than-normal useful lifespan, not a machine still knocking down mailboxes 7 years later example (though I'm hoping it will tackle at least a couple mid-range G4's). Sorry if it came off that way.
-drasnor
I bought three 36gb Atlas 10k III's that are twice as fast as yours and dead quiet last week for 57 a pop. I know a tad about scsi drives and what you should pay. I have about 30 here right now.
And I pay 45 a pop for the ones you bought also
Tex
-drasnor