Splash: What are you using for new systems at work?

[Santilli]

Would you suggest using them as a home workstation?

s

 

[blakerwry]

Heh, the machines at work are PII/Celeron class with 320MB RAM.. hardly a workstation machine. I'm giving a similar machine away to my sister for web/email/music use.

 

[Drakantus]

Dells, the last ones we ordered were 2.4ghz P4's with onboard video/sound/nic, 512MB RAM. I would never buy one for personal use, but they do have one nice feature- they run nearly silent.

 

[Jan Kivar]

Dells, the last ones we ordered were 2.4ghz P4's with onboard video/sound/nic, 512MB RAM. I would never buy one for personal use, but they do have one nice feature- they run nearly silent.

The company where I work currently bought dozen computers with setup similiar to the one You mentioned. A nearby computer shop built them. Only thing to complain is the whining noise from the retail Intel HSF, other than that they are pretty silent at idle. Nice computers for office use, though CPUs are too powerful (for now...).

Cheers,

Jan

 

[blakerwry]

I really don't see a reason to get anything other than the bare minimum p4 based celeron for office use... The main thing is to get 512MB RAM and not the 128 or 256 that comes with most celeron computers. -windows, along with a couple office apps can be a real hog.

low level graphics(TNT class or onboard intel/nvidia) are usually more than enough.


A nice monitor keybaord, and mouse are also very imporant.

 

[Santilli]

Thanks

The reason I was asking splash is he's pretty familiar with Supermicro Computers mobos. I was trying to find some sort of value in their offerings, but still be blazing fast. He has set up machines to run 24/7 on those boards, and that's kind of what I'm thinking of right now.

I'm kind of REAL mad I can't run IDE on my ASUS right now, since I have a bad chip. However, I may just buy a Panasonic reader instead, scsi.

Anyone used that program that burns DVD's from a reader onto a CD-rom?

s

 

[Mercutio]

Yes. Pinnacle InstantDVD will do that. PM me.

 

[Howell]

Greg, Is there some reason you want to buy an outrageously expensive motherboard?

I have run a SuperMicro MB in the past but I have found just as good stability out of my Tyan 2066. It only goes down for updates and when the UPS battery runs out.

 

[Santilli]

Howell:
My two mobo choices are Tyan and Supermicro.

I like the idea of buying a super stable, server board, and Asus was certainly not that.

The Tyans that I wanted, at the time, where just as expensive as the SM boards.

I'm shopping. I like the onboard scsi chips of the server boards, and, I would like 2 gig plus ram.

My other concern is being able to really let the cheetahs out to play, without the limitations of a 32bit bus.

These add up to SM or Tyan.

I always ask Gary first, since he picks value, and function, on the top end.

s

 

[Pradeep]

Supermicro don't make AMD mobos, so you would be stuck with Intel if you went that route.

If you want 64bit PCI, then you would have to get an SMP board, and that means Intel Xeons or AMD Athlon(X)MPs/Opterons.

What's your budget?

 

[CougTek]

IIRC, Gary uses the Supermicro P4SDA+ at work. It isn't not a board having the features you are looking for and its chipset dates a little (it's based on the i845).

I don't recall having used Supermicro motherboards, but the Tyan I have tried impressed me by their stability.

 

[Howell]

I think I would be just as comfortable with Epox as Tyan.

 

[Drakantus]

If you are going with a pentium based system, I would also look at intel-branded boards.

 

[Platform]

Would you suggest using them as a home workstation?

Er... Nearly all of Supermicro's offerings are too pricey for most "enthusiast" types. But, they do have a few "normal" desktop mobos which are reasonably priced these days -- mobos without onboard dual-channel SCSI, Xeon sockets, twin PCI busses, or loads of PCI-X slots, etc. Yes, they have a few SoHo mobos, but those are still manufactured to the same industrial manufacturing quality, same conservative take on BIOS code, et cetera as their server and technical workstation mobos. Supermicro emphatically does NOT target the enthusiast market! They want to have nothing to do with the overclockers and the gamers. Instead, they go after the server, telecomm, and technical workstation markets -- as they always have since about 1994.

IIRC, Gary uses the Supermicro P4SDA+ at work.

Nope. No P4SDA+ at work or at home.

I have a P4SGA (has 533 MHz FSB, 6-each PCI slots) at home.

Here at work we have a lot of Pentium III workstations running Supermicro P6DGU mobos and a few servers running the similar i440GX Xeon model mobo Supermicro S2DGU with dual Xeon PIII 550. All have ran flawlessly over the years -- which is something I can't say about the IBM 36LZX hard drives in some of them, though.

In the last 4 months (at work), I have bought a few P4 servers and workstations.

The 2 workstations are based on the Supermicro X5DA8 mobo, dual-P4 Xeon, 2 GB RAM, Supermicro SC742S-420 SCA-SCSI workstation chassis, 73GB Seagate 15K.3 drives, Matrox P-650 Millennium, an Adaptec 4300 FireConnect Firewire host bus adaptor which connects to an ATAPI Pioneer DVR-105 DVD-R drive mounted inside a Granite Digital Firewire case as well as various digital still cameras, and Windows 2000. The "working folder" for data files is actually multiple JBOD'd 73GB 15K.3 drives. The fast 8X AGP Matrox P-650 Millennium graphics adaptor runs in "10 Billion (that's a USA Billion) color mode" driving a Mitsubishi DP-2070SB 22-inch monitor.

On the server front, I've just completed a server with a Supermicro X5DP8-G2 mobo, dual-P4 Xeon, 2 GB RAM, Supermicro SC-942S-600 in rackmount configuration, LSI Logic MegaRAID SCSI 320-4X (4-Channel PCI-X SCSI RAID), 4-each Adaptec 39320D (dual channel) SCSI host bus adaptors, 8-each Seagate 145 GB 10K.6 SCA-SCSI drives, 2-each Seagate 18GB 15K.3 SCSI drives.

Also, another recent server: A Supermicro X5DPL-IGM mobo, 1 GB RAM, 3-Ware 8506 SATA RAID, 4-each Seagate 160 GB SATA 7200.7 Barracuda drives.

A server a few months ago: A Supermicro X5DPL-IGM mobo, 1 GB RAM, 3-Ware 6800 ATA RAID, 8-each IBM 180 GB 180GXP ATA drives.

A little while back, an upgrade of an older Supermicro S2DGU server by replacing its old "small" SCSI RAID with an inexpensive 8500 SATA RAID and 4-each Seagate 120 GB SATA 7200.7 Barracuda drives.

Pretty soon, I might be building a host for a big ol' Primera CD/DVD duplicator. If I do (likely) it will be a Supermicro P4SPA+, 1 GB RAM, Matrox P-650, 20-pin P4 power supply, and a Supermicro SC-733T SATA SCA chassis that'll allow me to JBOD SATA drives for massive cheap local storage.

 

[Santilli]

Gary
I gather you like the Matrox cards?

s

 

[Platform]

Gary
I gather you like the Matrox cards?

Let's just say that are ESSENTIAL; best video card for 2-D photo imaging made -- 10+ years running. Also, long known for their stability.

 

[Santilli]

How much better then the Voodoo 5500 are they, in 2d, form just text, and internet?

I may have to take a trip down the valley. Bunch of stores have them, I have never looked at a monitor using one.

gs
OS BILLION colors????

 

[Platform]

How much better then the Voodoo 5500 are they, in 2d, form just text, and internet?

{cough} None of the current "game" cards can touch a G450 or later model for *professional* photographic and pre-press work (G450, G550, P650, P750, or Parhelia). In the photo, pre-press, and graphics industries, Matrox has been a very well known commodity since...... the mid-1970s!. Matrox just happens to be the oldest graphics adaptor manufacturer in existence. Some other large niches where Matrox is the 600 pound gorilla are medical imaging and various industries where multiple computer displays are used (multiple -- as in up to 16 per system) such as Wall Street, plant process monitoring, sophisticated kiosks, etc.

Lots of small-to-medium-sized VARs build dedicated graphics workstations for lots of different reasons and use a G-series, the new P-series, or a multi-monitor card to attain a certain capability, or a certain level of 2-D performance. The DACs in Matrox cards have always been the best in the business.

Millennium P650

Millennium P750

MMS G-450 (quad independent G450s on a single card)




Lately, the P650 or P750 is the way to go for higher-end professional 2-D graphics. The P650 is an affordable US$160 or less. The P750 is a slightly faster and supports triple head graphics (something I have no use for, not to mention the card has a small fan whereas the P650 is passively cooled, and the P750 is about US$200).

The Millennium P650 and P750 are derived from the Parhelia. The 2 current Parhelia models are an overpriced attempt at a gamer's card. In reality the Parhelia 128 and Parhelia 256 are fast enough to play any game on with decent results (as far as I know), it's just not cutting edge in the 3-D department. Their price is too high for what you get as far as 3-D goes.

I may have to take a trip down the valley. Bunch of stores have them, I have never looked at a monitor using one.

A while back, I used to show people on occasion what a G200 versus "the others" looked like. Using (then) the standard bearer monitor for photographics - the 21-inch Mitsubishi 91TXM -- fully calibrated, of course, it wasn't all that hard to see that the Matrox G200 was most definitely sharper and more accurate at displaying imagery tha an ATI Rage XL, a TNT card, and a card that some claimed was equal to a Martrox back then -- a more-expensive Number-9 "Imagine 128." Unfortunately, the Imagine 128 was simply more expensive, that's all. That's why Number-0 went out of business. The G200 was also faster at 2-D pans and zooms (all running on Pentium II 350MHz "white box" Intel systems.... i.e. -- secretarial workstations).

OS BILLION colors????

YES!!! 30-bits per R-G-B colour rendition full time as well as ordinary modes (32-bit / 8-bits R-G-B-Alpha, or 16-bit / 5-bits R-G-B + 1 throwaway bit). 30-bits gives you a palette of 10 billion individual colours, of which you monitor is only going to be displaying no more than 1.3 million or so colours because you have just so many pixels on that screen! I viewed the Matrox canned artificially shaded 48-bit TIFF (16-bits per RGB) image file in 8-bits-per-RGB mode as well as in the 10-bits-per-RGB mode. I could tell that there was a slight difference between the two, and after studying both renditions closely, I eventually discovered that I could detect very fine banding in the 8-bit-per-RGB rendition and that's why it seemed like a slightly brighter shade of brown than the 10-bit-per-RGB rendition. This was viewed on a calibrated 22-inch Mitsubishi DP2040U monitor in a controlled lighting environment. 10-bits will also give you 1024 shades of grey (basically no visible banding).

 

[timwhit]

Dang that is a lot of high end servers. I sure would like to know where Gary works.

I bet it is for the government, like some top secret mission or something.

 

[.Nut]

Dang that is a lot of high end servers.

Just in case one is wondering about the server with the X5DP8-G2 mobo, the one with all the SCSI channels...

It's hosting one of these (an ADIC Scalar 1000/AIT2 tape library) with over 120 TB capacity. It could've been done with Fibre-Channel, but unfortunately, that would have cost a lot more in this case. A mess of SCSI host adaptors and LVD SCSI cables was much cheaper, which made the project fit into the tight budget allowing for more hard drives (...yay! hard drives).

I sure would like to know where Gary works.

Beer factory.

 

[flagreen]

Beer factory

That explains a lot.

I've been using a SuperMicro P4DC6 with dual xeons (and onboard SCSI) for about two years now. It is the best board I have ever owned. Rock solid, trouble free and fast. Yup they're expensive. But with new chipsets coming out all the time from Intel these days you can find some reasonably good deals on the older chipset SuperMicro boards. An i860 board such as mine with SCSI can be found for under $500 these days new. Even less without the SCSI. The price on xeons has dropped dramatically as well.

 

[Platform]

The following is what you get for working in a beer factory late at night. TYPOS! Which includes a return to my strange typing defect of recent times -- the occasional dropping of the letter "N" for some reaso .

That's why Number-0 went out of business....

Number-9. I guess you could call 'em Number Zero, now.

OS BILLION colors????

YES!!! 30-bits per R-G-B...

Ahem. 10-bits-per-RGB = 30-bits-per-pixel (as opposed to the usual 8-bits per RGB / 24-bits-per-pixel).

 

[Santilli]

"Amazing" how much data making beer can produce :mrgrn:

So your pick for home would be the P 650 Gary?


Flagreen, and Gary:

Bill, you bring up a very good question: Is it better to buy an old dual board, with slower processors, but superior quality, or a faster single processor, with a less expensive board, like asus, and put up with stuff like POS ide controllers?

Also whats the point where absurd becomes involved in describing pricing for the setups?

s

 

[Buck]

Also whats the point where absurd becomes involved in describing pricing for the setups?

It becomes absurd when you can no longer logically justify or even argue the benefits of spending the extra money. Gary can reasonably argue the benefits of his specified components for reliability and stability, which is a must for him and his company. Other companies may view this as frivolous spending and may purchase computer components with the expectation that they are disposable appliances that will only last 1 to 2 years and must then be replaced. Their demand is different.

So, what are your requirements Santilli? Once you have determined that, you'll find the appropriate price range that resonates with that special ring of value for you.

 

[Buck]

By the way Gary, how would reckon the Supermicro P4SPA+ motherboard would fair in a lab environment where the enclosure would be left open and technicians would regularly test different peripherals in the system (e.g. HDDs, memory, CD/CDRW devices, FireWire adapter cards, etc.)? Your description made Supermicro boards sound robust enough to survive this type of environment for years to come. I figured I would couple this board with a P4 2.4Ghz, 533Mhz FSB CPU.

The reason I picked this board, besides the abuse it would receive, is that the request was made for native SATA, onboard LAN, and onboard video.

 

[Dïscfärm]

"Amazing" how much data making beer can produce :mrgrn:

Lots of beer means lots of servers to serve that beer! The 1182-slot ADIC "jukebox" behind me supplies tunes for the patrons.

So your pick for home would be the P 650 Gary?

Well, since I do NOT play computer games and have NO desire or time to play the damned things, a Millennium P650 is perfect for me at home, as I do photo work at home and have been known use Matrox’s multi-monitor capabilities at home as well. 3-D games can indeed be played on a P650, as it does 3-D calculations, but just not at cutting edge nVidia speeds, but more like nVidia circa 2001.

Flagreen, and Gary:
Bill, you bring up a very good question: Is it better to buy an old dual board, with slower processors, but superior quality, or a faster single processor, with a less expensive board, like asus, and put up with stuff like POS ide controllers?
Also whats the point where absurd becomes involved in describing pricing for the setups?

OK, sticking with Intel solutions here...

My old college engineering textbooks cover such topics as finding the best choice with multiple numbers of variables. This is commonly done using analysis tools such as cost/benefit analysis, break-even analysis, etc.

Dispensing with the fancy mathematics, just perform a quick shirtsleeve calculation of $ x MHz on "newer" 604-pin 533 MHz FSB Xeons and 800 MHz FSB P4. Do the same for the "older" 603-pin Xeon and 400 MHz FSB P4. But first, make sure you are wearing a white shirt so that the numbers and text in the shirtsleeve calculations are plainly visible and use an indelible pen so that the calculations will be there for years as handy information; this will also impress friends and those seated to next you on the train and in restaurants.

From your calculations, I suspect that you'll get more bang-for-the-buck with a 2.6 or 2.8 GHz / 800 MHz FSB (non-Xeon) P4 for basic computing. So, going with a 2.6 GHz or 2.8 GHz P4 with an 800 MHz FSB will give you a certain level of VALUE.

But, if you really need SCSI for hard disc (and what storage freak wouldn't), you either have to go with an add-in card or get SCSI embedded on the mobo. Getting high-performance SCSI on the mobo is a less expensive proposition than buying the equivalent on a separate PCI expansion card. So, if you suddenly find yourself being led down the SCSI path, your only choice is to go with a Xeon mobo, as nobody is making new P4 mobos with embedded SCSI (nor PCI-X).

Given that the price of the Xeon has come down a lot in comparison to the P4, a 2.8 GHz (533 MHz FSB) Xeon is still about 25% more than a 2.8 GHz (800 MHz FSB), a Xeon workstation mobo with dual-channel Ultra-320 SCSI that talks to 133 MHz PCI-X, AGP 8x, and a few open PCI-X/133/100 + 32-bit PCI slots, and embedded GbE will cost almost 3 times the price of a basic P4 mobo with 5 or 6-each 32-bit/33 MHz PCI slots, AGP 8x, and maybe embedded GbE.

Adding a dual-channel Ultra-320 SCSI host bus adaptor for PCI-X/133 to a Xeon mobo that doesn't have SCSI will cost $100 more than buying a mobo with embedded dual-channel Ultra-320 SCSI that talks to a PCI-X/133 expansion bus.

• Market pricing (average low, 14/Aug/2003):
  
• Adaptec 39320D dual-channel Ultra-320 SCSI for PCI-X/133........ $220
  
• Supermicro X5DA8 mobo........ $530
  
• Supermicro X5DAE mobo (no SCSI version of X5DA8)........ $410

 

[timwhit]

Santilli, I highly doubt you are doing anything mission critical enough to really need a SuperMicro board that costs over $500. Why not just pick up a Tyan board that will probably be 98% as reliable as the SuperMicro board for less than half the cost. I'm sure you can find something else to spend the money saved on. Like a new computer.

 

[Santilli]

mission critical ...

:wink:

I looked at Tyan's when they first came out with dual Athlons.

The Thunder had a bunch of problems not to mention a screwy power supply connection.

The Tiger MPX dual board looks ok, and has worked for awhile.

Tyan has a history of using Promise chips on their mobos. I don't think
much of their chips, or anyone that uses them on a quality mobo.

If the board included scsi, LVD or higher, plus a cheaper option for a scsi raid, has it ever occured to you that the board and raid card might be cheaper then a decent dual channel scsi raid controller?

Problem is adaptec makes most of the boards, and sometimes they suck.

So, what are your requirements Santilli? Once you have determined that, you'll find the appropriate price range that resonates with that special ring of value for you.

I'm always looking for a point worth upgrading. I look for a time when processors are at least 2x, hopefully 3X-5X faster. I'm also after
a time when market demand, and cost, are down.

And, I'm looking for a boot array that allows me to use my X 15's to full capacity, which really should be in the 160 mb-180 MB range, not 110 mb/sec.

I was "misinformed" on my ATTO raid card purchase. It's NOT a 64 bit
compatible card, so, it's not forward compatible with 64 bit slots.

Friends have similar drive setups on macs running in the ranges I described, or higher.

So, a Supermicro, scsi, and raid card equipped mobo starts looking pretty reasonable when you need a new mobo 64 bit capable, and a raid card capable of 64 bit.

In other words, last time I bought a raid card it was 700 bucks.

I could, or should have, bought a Supermicro with Adaptec raid card, for about the same amount of money, and, perhaps dual processor capable.

Add in the price of the mobo, and the Athlon chip, and I could have bought the mobo, card, and procesor, now, anyway. At the time, Tyan
sucked, and Supermicro was ok, but the Intel chips cost more then my car.

Always nice to hear what a true expert, Splash has to say about the subject, because I know he has looked at the options, and, as he has said, scsi narrows your choices. His well thought out, practical look at the issue is what I'm after.

When I bought my prior setup, the chip prices made Xeons out of the question. Seems to me they were around 1700 bucks for the fastest chip.

As the chip prices change, so do the dynamics of the boards, and the situations.

I realized that I'm not really a gamer. I just do research, and internet, ebay, and mail a lot.

I also like 5 years on my components. MY drives last at least that.

So, if you look at the cost for the Supermicro board, over 5 years, it doesn't seem so awful, or high.

Plus, I drive by the place on the way to Santa Clara all the time, and, there are a bunch of really good shops down there that have great prices, top flight technology, and good service.


On the otherhand, that snubby Super Redhawk SURE looked neat,...
:wink:

gs

 

[Santilli]

mission critical ...

:wink:

I looked at Tyan's when they first came out with dual Athlons.

The Thunder had a bunch of problems not to mention a screwy power supply connection.

The Tiger MPX dual board looks ok, and has worked for awhile.

Tyan has a history of using Promise chips on their mobos. I don't think
much of their chips, or anyone that uses them on a quality mobo.

If the board included scsi, LVD or higher, plus a cheaper option for a scsi raid, has it ever occured to you that the board and raid card might be cheaper then a decent dual channel scsi raid controller?

Problem is adaptec makes most of the boards, and sometimes they suck.

So, what are your requirements Santilli? Once you have determined that, you'll find the appropriate price range that resonates with that special ring of value for you.

I'm always looking for a point worth upgrading. I look for a time when processors are at least 2x, hopefully 3X-5X faster. I'm also after
a time when market demand, and cost, are down.

And, I'm looking for a boot array that allows me to use my X 15's to full capacity, which really should be in the 160 mb-180 MB range, not 110 mb/sec.

I was "misinformed" on my ATTO raid card purchase. It's NOT a 64 bit
compatible card, so, it's not forward compatible with 64 bit slots.

Friends have similar drive setups on macs running in the ranges I described, or higher.

So, a Supermicro, scsi, and raid card equipped mobo starts looking pretty reasonable when you need a new mobo 64 bit capable, and a raid card capable of 64 bit.

In other words, last time I bought a raid card it was 700 bucks.

I could, or should have, bought a Supermicro with Adaptec raid card, for about the same amount of money, and, perhaps dual processor capable.

Add in the price of the mobo, and the Athlon chip, and I could have bought the mobo, card, and procesor, now, anyway. At the time, Tyan
sucked, and Supermicro was ok, but the Intel chips cost more then my car.

Always nice to hear what a true expert, Splash has to say about the subject, because I know he has looked at the options, and, as he has said, scsi narrows your choices. His well thought out, practical look at the issue is what I'm after.

When I bought my prior setup, the chip prices made Xeons out of the question. Seems to me they were around 1700 bucks for the fastest chip.

As the chip prices change, so do the dynamics of the boards, and the situations.

I realized that I'm not really a gamer. I just do research, and internet, ebay, and mail a lot.

I also like 5 years on my components. MY drives last at least that.

So, if you look at the cost for the Supermicro board, over 5 years, it doesn't seem so awful, or high.

Plus, I drive by the place on the way to Santa Clara all the time, and, there are a bunch of really good shops down there that have great prices, top flight technology, and good service.


On the otherhand, that snubby Super Redhawk SURE looked neat,...
:wink:


The other excuse I have is the 450 P3 could use a better video card for playing movies.

The voodoo 5500 should, I think, be fine for that, and, the main machine would benefit from a Matrox, I think.

The bottom line is I really enjoy talking to Splash. It's nice to talk to someone that has superior swimming skills, bigger brain for body size then humans, and has a VERY logical, and well thought out examination of the situation. :mrgrn:

Not to mention the PCI bus card space saved with onboard scsi connectors...

s

gs

 

[Pradeep]

On the otherhand, that snubby Super Redhawk SURE looked neat,...
:wink:
gs

I prefer the Blackhawk, I find the Redhawk tends to cut into the hand with heavy recoil loads (shooting metallic silhouette out to 200m). It's good fun knocking over a 50 pound steel ram at 200

 

[Howell]

I pulled out the Glock 36, broomhandle Mauser C-96 and a Czech 1911 copy that also shoots the Tokarev round. Got to be careful with the Mauser, it'll bite.

 

[Santilli]

I had a chance to fondle a Super RedHawk 454 Casull, with 2 1/2" Barrel, and the rubberized grip. Kind of liked it.

Been thinking about getting something similar.

gs

 

[Howell]

I had a chance to fondle a Super RedHawk 454 Casull, with 2 1/2" Barrel, and the rubberized grip. Kind of liked it.

Been thinking about getting something similar.

gs

A couple of years ago I fired a Redhawk in .44 mag. I did not have the barrel alligned with my arm for the first shot and the recoil almost brought the weapon into contact with my forehead. The second and last shot bruised my hand. I'm sure the un-cushioned Rosewood grips were part of the problem but I've no desire to shoot a powerful revolver again.

 

[Pradeep]

I had a chance to fondle a Super RedHawk 454 Casull, with 2 1/2" Barrel, and the rubberized grip. Kind of liked it.

Been thinking about getting something similar.

gs

With a massive recoil like that, a light frame, and such a short sight radius, it wouldn't be of much use unless you were attacked in a lift. Still an awful big hole for a bad guy to look down. I would seriously shoot one before buying. It's not a comfortable experience. I've shot 454s out of a 10" Frontier Arms revolver (beautiful guns by the way), and the recoil is quite bracing. Not as bad as the .375 JDJ (444 Marlin necked out I think) on a 14" barrel on a Thompson Contender, even with porting. Friend used it on deer. Two shots and my arms were trembling so bad couldn't hold the freaking thing still. Not a good gun to learn trigger control with! Flinch city.

 

[.Nut]

Dïscfärm left off a couple of items up above...

...Given that the price of the Xeon has come down a lot in comparison to the P4, a 2.8 GHz (533 MHz FSB) Xeon is still about 25% more than a 2.8 GHz (800 MHz FSB),...

Given that the price of the Xeon has come down a lot in comparison to the P4, a 2.8 GHz (533 MHz FSB) Xeon is still about 25% more than a 2.8 GHz (800 MHz FSB) P4,


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Market pricing (average low, 14/Aug/2003):

• Adaptec 39320D dual-channel Ultra-320 SCSI for PCI-X/133........ $220
  
  
• Supermicro X5DA8 mobo........ $530
  
  
• Supermicro X5DAE mobo (no SCSI version of X5DA8)........ $410
  
  
  [*] Supermicro P4SPA+ (non-Xeon, 32-bit/33MHz PCI)........ $150

===========================================



OK now, continuing with all that earlier blather...

What the hell does a P4-Xeon buy you these days that an "ordinary" P4 doesn't. Not a lot, except the ability to run an SMP system, and to use a high-end mobo for SMP or uni-processing. At the sweet spot in the marketplace for P4-Xeon and Pentium 4 -- currently 2.6 GHz and 2.8 GHz -- the Xeon fetches about 25% more $ than an ordinary Pentium 4.

The exception would be the new Xeon with a 1 MB L3 cache (BX80532KE3066E) which, by the way, is a real barnburner compared to the rest of the current Xeons! But, performance comes at a price for the new 3.06 GHz (533 MHz FSB) Xeon with the 1 MB L3 cache. The new 3.06 GHz Xeon with the 1 MB L3 cache is $800 compared to a mere $500 for the 3.06 GHz without a L3 cache (only has 512 KB of L2 cache).



Market pricing (average low, 15/Aug/2003):

• Intel P4 Xeon 3.06 GHz / 533 MHz FSB / 1 MB L3 cache (BX80532KE3066E)........ $800
  
  
• Intel P4 Xeon 3.06 GHz / 533 MHz FSB (BX80532KE3066D)........ $500
  
  
• Intel P4 Xeon 2.80 GHz / 533 MHz FSB........ $350
  
  
• Intel P4 Xeon 2.66 GHz / 533 MHz FSB........ $300
• Intel Pentium-4 3.20 GHz / 800 MHz FSB........ $650
  
  
• Intel Pentium-4 3.00 GHz / 800 MHz FSB........ $400
  
  
• Intel Pentium-4 2.80 GHz / 800 MHz FSB........ $270
  
  
• Intel Pentium-4 2.60 GHz / 800 MHz FSB........ $210
  
  
• Intel Pentium-4 3.06 GHz / 533 MHz FSB........ $380
  
  
• Intel Pentium-4 2.80 GHz / 533 MHz FSB........ $260
  
  
• Intel Pentium-4 2.66 GHz / 533 MHz FSB........ $190

Some other details to remeber about Xeon mobos:

• You will need a power supply that meets SSI connector specifications, that means a 24 -pin, 6-pin, and 4-pin power connectors. 400 watts is the typical minimum power supply capacity.
  
• All Xeon mobos using the recent 7505 chipset only use Registered ECC RAM.

 

[Santilli]

Splash I dont get the memory prices.

http://www.memorysuppliers.com/kin1gb12pccl.html

229 for a gig.

For my asus the same 1 gig ram is
http://www.crucial.com/store/listpa...oards&mfr=Asus&cat=RAM&model=A7M266&submit=Go

330 a gig.

WT.... :?: :?:

So registered ECC ram is cheaper then 2100 or higher, that they use for the new boards?

Weird.

So, the ram would be 460, it looks like the sweet spot on chips is 2.6 ghz,
600 dollars for two processors, and the mobo, around 500.

HMMMMM.

g

 

[Santilli]

Pradeep: response on the lighter side of the thread:

First off, I don't like recoil. I use 22's to make sure I'm not developing a flinch. On rifles, if it recoils too much, put a brake on it(currently doing that to 375 H&H, if I can't find a 458 Win mag barrel for it).

I have shot a 45 Linebaugh/Colt/454 Casull level gun for a long time.

The heavy loads are not for more then 10 a day. 325-360 grain bullets, going at 1550 fps, are not a joke.

I like lighter stuff, 260's at 1450, or 325's at 1350 fps. Frankly, as soon as I figure out where, I'd like to max out at 1200 fps, with either bullet, or heavier.

1200 fps is fine.

My favorite screw around load was 230 grains at 1800-1900 out of a 6 inch barrel.

But, as I said, 1200 fps is fine.

Seriously thinking about going to Reno Gun show tomorrow.

Never been to a really big one before.

By the way, the problem with 454 is most people load it too hot.
There is a point of diminishing return for recoil vs. ballistic performance.

Over 40,000 psi, or CUP in the same area, you start getting recoil, with little increase in velocity. Is what you hit going to really notice the difference between 1500 fps, and 1700 fps? Probably not. Are you going to notice the pressure spike that takes the gun from about 35 ft-lbs of recoil, to 62 ft-lbs of recoil? YOu bet you are :boom: :boom:

At that level, I really want a stock, and, I have shot loads that gave that kind of recoil. Cape buffalo pistol loads. Don't shoot many a day is all I have to say.

Haven't tried a muzzle brake on a pistol, but, if I was going to fire stuff like that all the time, I'd consider it.

gs

s

 

[Corvair]

...I dont get the memory prices.

You can do better by purchasing a pair of 512 MB DIMMs. The 1 GB DIMMs are only for high memory capacities. The 512 MB DIMMs also tend not to be under availability constraints.

So, the ram would be 460, ...

Whoa! You're looking for 2GB? Unless there's something that you are doing that I don't know about (fancy video editing, etc) I suspect 1 GB is all you could EVER use (Cntl-Alt-Del, Windows Task Manager, Performance ---> Memory Usage).

...it looks like the sweet spot on chips is 2.6 ghz, 600 dollars for two processors...

If you have $600 budgeted on (Xeon) processors, $500 for a SINGLE 3.06GHz/533MHz (Hyper-Threading) Xeon will definitely get you more bang-for-the-buck value than a pair of anything else because you probably aren't running any application programs that can spawn enough threads for 4 virtual processors to compute -- even if they were tuned for hyper-threading versus old-fashioned SMT. A Windows 2003 Server running SQL Server 2003 can.


Besides, Windows 2000 Workstation and its 2-processor licensing limit might get tripped up on a PAIR of hyperthreading (HTT) processors as they can appear to be 4 processors, whereas a single HTT processor will appear to be 2 processors. The standard version of Windows 2000 Server has a 4 processor limit. WinXP is fully compatible with HTT processors and knows the difference logical processors and real processors. I believe there may have been a BIOS work around that came along which makes Windows 2000 and Windows NT to not balk at the number of logical HTT processors at boot time. In any case, you very likely only need just a single HTT processor there at home.

 

[Santilli]

Splash:

So what's the point in getting a dual processor board?

s
:bigeek: :crap:

 

[Pradeep]

I guess the problem is that there are no single CPU mobos with decent PCI. And in a year you could get a second Xeon at bargain prices, slip it in and away you go.