Athlon 64's don't do SMP, is there a work around for AMD's mistake?

[soundfx4]

Just like the subject says, I was wandering if there was a work around for the athlon 64's non-smp setup? If not then I am going to have to go opteron and I don't know if opteron will perform as well at games and other regular PC programs. Also the Opterons are more expensive (well most of them are anyway) then the athlon 64 FX's. If anyone knows of a solution to this problem please let me know, as I am currently saving money for a nice fast system. Thanks! :)

[cack01]

I doubt there are any work arounds for it, since its actually a pin issue. Opterons will actually perform better in games. The only reason they are not right now, is b/c the motherboards are not make for speed, but for reliability.

[Feuerkampf]

The Opteron and the FX51 are the same processor.

If you are wanting dual processing then get the Opteron.

Eventually the FX series will move to a 939 pin configuration and no longer require registered memory. The Opteron will always as far as I know require registered DIMM's.

You can get high performance Nforce3 boards for the Opteron which have an AGP slot so they should game pretty well.

[cack01]

Originally posted by Feuerkampf
The Opteron and the FX51 are the same processor.



Yes the FX51 and Opteron are pretty much the same with the exception of the HyperTransport bus.

[OC Detective]

Originally posted by cack01


Yes the FX51 and Opteron are pretty much the same with the exception of the HyperTransport bus.
I thought they were the same - Opteron and FX51 in terms of hyper transport and the number they have whereas the A64 XP3200+ has less?

[Gnufsh]

Yes, the A64 lacks the HT links too do SMP. The AFX has te pins for them, but they may be disabled.

[Xtc4u]

The performance difference in games that I have between my dual MP system and my Opteron system are quite a bit better. In a game I got 25-30 fps on my MPs where i can get well over 100 using the same vid card but running dual Opterons.

[soundfx4]

Originally posted by Xtc4u
The performance difference in games that I have between my dual MP system and my Opteron system are quite a bit better. In a game I got 25-30 fps on my MPs where i can get well over 100 using the same vid card but running dual Opterons.

are you serious?? Holly heLL, So that means that the opterons really won't hold me back any, right? Ok then! Now I only have one problem left, and that is telling the difference between the opteron models. I know the 100's are for single, 200's for dual, but what are the others? And why are these other ones so much more expensive? One of them is 3400 dollars! :eek:

[funko]

400's are for 4-way and 800's for 8 way...
jsut continue the logic....

[soundfx4]

Originally posted by funko
400's are for 4-way and 800's for 8 way...
jsut continue the logic....


That would make since except for one small problem. There are no 400 opterons. They go 100, 200, and 800. But what I am talking about is the huge price difference, I don't care how many processors you are going to have in a system if they are all the same why is it so much more expensive? So the 800's have to be MUCH faster or something to be that much more expensive.

In 1000 units

146----$438
246----$794
846----$2149

If the only difference is that one is for single, the other for dual, and the last for quad then that price difference is ridiculous. :bang head

[Gnufsh]

So far as I know, the onlly difference between an 8xx and a 1xx is that the 8xx can be used in up to 8-way systems.

[dguy6789]

then imagine actually building an 8 way sytem, 8 cpus for $2149 YIKES! Wonder how well it would multi task :D

[soundfx4]

Originally posted by dguy6789
then imagine actually building an 8 way sytem, 8 cpus for $2149 YIKES! Wonder how well it would multi task :D


hah! yeah it would be like going from a 56k to broadband, once you experiance it, you will never want to go back :D , I'd like an 8 way system but I don't have a 50,000 dollar budget :p

[TC]

The only difference is the operating speed of the cpu and the number of cpu's it's validated to work with in an smp system. The first number in the sequence denotes the number of cpu's it's validated to work with. The last two numbers denote the operating speed.

[soundfx4]

Ok, I see, I looked it up at AMD's website to see what frequencies are equal to what numbers, so I understand that now. I have just a few more questions then. I would really like to have a quad CPU setup, but I am concerned about a few things. First of all, motherboard availability. I barley even see any dual boards out there, chances of me finding a good quad board are very low. Second, doesn't each processor have to have it's own set of memory, or something like that? And Third of coarse is price, but there is nothing any of you all can do to help me there :D :p Anyway, let me know if you all think that a quad system would be worth the time, money, and effort, because I really don't want to go through the trouble, but I do want a fast Azz computer that will last for a while. Thanks!

[cack01]

I think hyper transport allows sharing of memory spaces between cpus and and also allows each cpu to have its own seperate bus into the memory, meaning the memory is not bottle necking the cpus.

[Gnufsh]

Each CPU needs it's own memory, I believe. Each CPU can also access every other CPUs memory. This is one of the things that make Opterons scale really well in SMP applications, bandwidth scales almost linearly with he number of CPUs.

[madcow235]

Wouldnt the 8xx have 9 hypertranspots 1 for each proc and 1 for memory?

[AL Romero]

thanks for the info, but....WHAT THE HELL IS SMP STAND FOR!!!! :)

[cack01]

symmetric multiprocessing