Opteron System Advice, Dual or Single?

S

Striph

Weaksauce
Joined
Sep 17, 2004
Messages
68
I've been a long time P4 user, my last AMD system was an XP 2000, which has served me well as my linux box! *sniff*

But the time to upgrade has come, i've been reading up on xeons and opterons and come to the conclusion that I want to put together an Opteron system.

I've looked at the price points on several of the versions and have pretty much decided to go with the AMD Opteron 146 2.0GHz 64/32-Bit - P/N: OSA146CEP, but from there I have no idea what the best motherboard or ram for the system would be, anyone have suggestions? Would prefer something with large capacity for ram (not sure if theres an 8gb board?)

I also don't know if a low end dual Opteron 2xx would be faster than a higher end Opteron 146? I'm extremely new to this CPU so any advice would be appreciated.
 
well, you could always get a dual CPU board and get one 246 and get the other later, i dont understand why you would a single opteron over a plain ol a64 system, the opty would be more expensive and would only offer you ECC and Registered ram over the a64, something which you have not said you need

if you are going for a single CPU system, just get an a64

and as far as if two would be faster than one: it will surely be more responsive and snappier, but what are you goingto be using it for otherwise? it all depends on hte application
 
then youll have to wait for someone else to answer, im not a programming guy :p

but i do believe that typically, compilers are multithreaded. i could be wrong however.
 
i believe visual studio is multi threaded...i used it for an engineering class for 1 term.
 
Even a single CPU is going to rip through most any compilation job you're going to personally need. If the Webserver's getting a lot of hits, you might consider going SMP, but it'd probably be a lot cheaper just to buy a 2nd box to run the webserver.

If you're doing this commercially, that's a different story. If you're spending Other People's Money, definately go for the SMP rig. And buy a 2nd dual machine for the webserver.
 
Definently agree with the Other Peoples Money comment. Unless you're doing major crunching (ie, 4 hour+ compiles), stick with a standard A64 and run a native 64bit OS. If you're using it as an all in one machine that's hosting a webserver and doing compiles - a single CPU is still probably best, unless it's a pretty big webserver. If that's the case, do get a dually rig - the Tyan boards are pretty solid sever platforms, and Iwill isn't bad in their own right. Either way, if you do go dually, to hedge some cost pick up a single 2xx proc and grab the other one down the road if you feel it's necessary. Of course, if it were me (And depending on the load the webserver will handle), two "standard" A64s (or opterons) with SCSI disk drives would probably be of more benefit then a single unit. Or pour 60-70% of your budget into the Webserver, and build a 754 A64 box on the cheap for your programming work.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top