When Dual P4?

When will i be able to dual two p4's? i heard it's coming soon

They are out and has been so for a long time. Only they are called Xeon then and has socket 603.

or just hold out an get some hyperthreaded p4s.... either solution is expensive..

The cpus aint that much more expensive than their P4 counterpart, but the boards cost 400 bucks or more. Also the only Xeon chipset that has an AGP interface is the intel860 which uses the overly expensive RDRAM memory.

the only Xeon chipset that has an AGP interface is the intel860 which uses the overly expensive RDRAM memory

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Next week that will change as there will be at least one new Xeon chipset that will also support AGP. That will be E7505, aka Placer, and it will support AGP 8X, dual Channel DDR, and PCI-X. Boards based on this chipset will also support the new 533MHz FSB Socket 604 Xeons as well as the existing 400Mhz FSB socket 603 Xeons. Of course this will likely not be any cheaper than I860/Rdram and may in fact be more expensive as dual channel DDR motherboards will be more complex to manufacture than Dual channel Rdram boards. Anyway, all the major motherboard manufacturers are expected to have boards based on this new chipset really soon.

but the boards cost 400 bucks or more

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Almost but not quite. The cheapest Xeon board is the Supermicro P4DCE+, which can be found for under $350 shipped on pricewatch. This is, of course, an existing I860/Rdram board as the Placer boards don't launch until Nov. 18th. Don't think that the P4DCE+ must somehow be a lower quality board because it's cheap. It's a very fine board. It's the same board as the P4DC6/P4DC6+ with the exception that the onboard SCSI controller is missing from the board. So, if you don't need SCSI or if you prefer to use your own SCSI PCI card then the P4DCE+ is a great low cost choice.

By the way, Prestonia Xeons (the Xeon equivalent of Northwood) already support Hyperthreading and have done so since their launch.

The rumors of a dual P4 non Xeon board have never paned out.
There is not enough power in a P4 to make it worth while anyway.
Intel does have a good processor that actually does a decent amount of work per clock cycle. Itanium 2. But is a little pricey and isn't x86 compatible except in emulation.

Xeons are the best bet if your stuck with Intel right now.

64026402 said:

The rumors of a dual P4 non Xeon board have never paned out.
There is not enough power in a P4 to make it worth while anyway.
Intel does have a good processor that actually does a decent amount of work per clock cycle. Itanium 2. But is a little pricey and isn't x86 compatible except in emulation.

Xeons are the best bet if your stuck with Intel right now.

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The P4 and the P4Xeons IS the same thing.

A "little" pricey is an understatement. Propably 5000 bucks each or more.

SP said:

Next week that will change as there will be at least one new Xeon chipset that will also support AGP. That will be E7505, aka Placer, and it will support AGP 8X, dual Channel DDR, and PCI-X. Boards based on this chipset will also support the new 533MHz FSB Socket 604 Xeons as well as the existing 400Mhz FSB socket 603 Xeons. Of course this will likely not be any cheaper than I860/Rdram and may in fact be more expensive as dual channel DDR motherboards will be more complex to manufacture than Dual channel Rdram boards. Anyway, all the major motherboard manufacturers are expected to have boards based on this new chipset really soon.



Almost but not quite. The cheapest Xeon board is the Supermicro P4DCE+, which can be found for under $350 shipped on pricewatch. This is, of course, an existing I860/Rdram board as the Placer boards don't launch until Nov. 18th. Don't think that the P4DCE+ must somehow be a lower quality board because it's cheap. It's a very fine board. It's the same board as the P4DC6/P4DC6+ with the exception that the onboard SCSI controller is missing from the board. So, if you don't need SCSI or if you prefer to use your own SCSI PCI card then the P4DCE+ is a great low cost choice.

By the way, Prestonia Xeons (the Xeon equivalent of Northwood) already support Hyperthreading and have done so since their launch.

Click to expand...

Well maybe the DDR boards wont be any cheer but the RAM certanly will be. And you need a lot of ram for a serious dual. Im looking forward to see how this chipset performs compares to the amd 760mpx.

Don't count on it.
XEONs are essentialy P4s with different sockets.

64026402 said:

The rumors of a dual P4 non Xeon board have never paned out.
There is not enough power in a P4 to make it worth while anyway.
Intel does have a good processor that actually does a decent amount of work per clock cycle. Itanium 2. But is a little pricey and isn't x86 compatible except in emulation.

Xeons are the best bet if your stuck with Intel right now.

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AMD-a-holic by chance?

Civic_Addict said:

Don't count on it.
XEONs are essentialy P4s with different sockets.

AMD-a-holic by chance?

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I have poor loyalty. I go with the bang for the buck or the latest good deal. I have a P4 at 2.8, good deal from a freind. Plus my dual P3 and my 1.1 Celeron notebook. Right now the best power per dollar is the dual AMD. So the wind blows this way today.

64026402 said:

I have poor loyalty. I go with the bang for the buck or the latest good deal. I have a P4 at 2.8, good deal from a freind. Plus my dual P3 and my 1.1 Celeron notebook. Right now the best power per dollar is the dual AMD. So the wind blows this way today.

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I understand getting good deals. I'm a cheap *** myself when it comes to some things. Things aside from my 'toys' that is. Car, computer, R/C..... Those don't get cheap things put in 'em.

Dual

I don't know...

If you actually need a dually for its supreme processing power(engineering/scientific/raw calculation), odds are a dual AMD will work better and cost less than a dual xeon (unless you go for high-end clock speed xeons $$$). But if I was going for a dually, I'd stash away my funds and hold out until next year for 64 bit cpu's.