Upgrading Dual Systems - What To Get?

[TC]

I'm planning on upgrading two of my dual P3 boxes. I'm going to go with the Tiger MP. My question is what's the best bargain cpu wise. I know from reading the Anandtech review that Durons and Thunderbird's work fine with this board. The MP crunches Seti considerably faster than the Thunderbird, and I was wondering if the Morgan/Duron core has the same new features like hardware prefectch that make the MP faster. I know it has less L2 cache though. I don't know how well they overclock either. I'm going to use the golden socket to overclock, but I'm wondering how far the Duron will go. My MP was a dismal overclocker, but maybe they've improved the stepping by now. At $80 a piece the 1100 Duron looks good, but what do you all think?

[tbirdkiri]

ok strait from an amd employ,
"mps are certified for smp"
yes the morgans will work,
but i would bother.
and as far as the mobo goes i'd wait (and i am)
for the boards coming from other manufacurers,
the Tyan boards are server style so there is no OC features

[mEKbOY]

As far as the cpu's go the duronsd work ok in smp. the t-birds are aweful as there architecture wasnt designed for it. It all depends on what you want to spend. If you are on a budget then durons at 1ghz or 1.1ghz are fine but if you want spend some cash then get a athlon mp or xp same thing. The motherboard is entirely up to you. There has been a lot os specualtion and rumors of upcoming dual motherboards with little follow. The only other non tyan is the gigabyte which i dont expect to see a lot of added oc features. Just go with a Tyan. They are overclockable with the help of some goldensockets hear:Goldensocket (http://www.plycon.com/goldsock.htm)

Depending on what you are looking to do ... the thunder k7 is for the server minded as it has all the onbaord goodies such as raid video ethernet...etc but the tiger is good if you want to add you own parts. Either way MAKE sure to get a good PSU for that tiger.. a single athlon requires a lot of power let alon two. I recomend a 500 watt psu... 400 watt the lowest. Make sure to keep the chipset cool as there have been a whole plethora of problems with tyans because of heat. Dual athlons realy takes a lot of planning so make sure you ask any more questions you have befor going out. I have done quite a lot of research on this. Check www.amdmb.com and there forums as they have a lot of motherboard info.

[TC]

Thanks for the suggestions. I know it sounds funny, but I'm trying to budget this as best I can. I figured the morgan core would be better up to the task than the old thunderbird core - that is the better of the two excluding the MP, which would be ideal. The MP's are still upwards of $200, so for four cpu's I'm looking at almost $400 savings if I get the duron. One of these will be my main desktop machine, and the other will just be a Seti and Folding box. The hardware prefetch addition to the MP made a huge difference, so I was hoping they added that to the morgan core as well.

I'm not terribly concerned about overclocking. The golden socket will give me as much freedom as I care to have with this project. I'm looking mostly for stability - and Tyan will definitely deliver there. They seem to have worked the kinks out, and I'm afraid if I wait for some other boards with overclocking features they'll be buggy for a while after they're released.

[mEKbOY]

Sounds good to me. The durons are great to me.. They seem like a good alternative and benchmarks have been impressive as well with them. The new Tyan motherboards have been revised thus being more stable.... however make sure you by the board from a sellerm that wont hassle you to get it RMA'd. Are you getting the tiger or thunder? the tiger is budget minded.

[el]

TC I saw the xp 1600 or 1.4ghz for like 168 at pricewatch so I suggest getting 2 x 1.4MPs and 2 duron x 1.0 for like around 80 each that would put you around your goal of 400 okay maybe 460 but just wait two weeks and you should be able to do it for 400 or so. can you adjust the fsb of the tiger? I wouldn't bother with the golden socket if the tiger allows any adjustments. Let us know what you decide.

[el]

okay this is weird but the xps will work correct and the 1500 or 1.33 are only 128 plus 7 shipping at atcolm so I change my mind get four of these :)

[mEKbOY]

You cannot chnage the multiplier or FSB whats so ever on the Tiger. I am also pretty sure that he wants to test out the durons. Do your research.

[el]

Well that is just stupid why are the other mobo makers taking so frigging long to put out a dual mobo. I think you should pass on the tiger and wait for a different board cuz the golden slockets are at least 40bucks and you should not have to waste money on that if other mobos are coming out soon. /me prays

[tbirdkiri]

Xp's are not SMp certified,
and the mps saty much cooler than the T-birds

[dugans]

Have fun with the upgrades; what I want to know is whats happening to the old ones? :)

[TC]

Hmm, lots to think about here. The XP's don't seem to be in stock yet - just pre selling. The MP I have does not run any cooler than the old core (same mobo and heatsink) so I'm not sure that's a consideration. Everything I've read so far indicates that while XP's and Durons are not SMP certified - nobody has had a problem running them this way, so I don't think I just have to buy the MP. I'm definitely going for the tiger MP - don't need a server board. From what I read over at Anandtech the Tiger allows either 100 or 133 FSB by jumper, and the golden socket would give me multiplier control. That's enough overclocking ability for me in this case. Thanks for the suggestions - still mulling it over.