Wee... New SMP rig. Dual 246s anyone?

[Excelsior]

Hey all.

I finally decided (again) that I can't stand the extremely limited multi-tasking that one CPU provides. So I'm going for the gold (Well bronze really, but I can't afford 248s or 250s): A Dual 246 Opteron system.

Current things I'm salvaging from my system before selling hopefully:
PX 708A DVD Burner
Ati 9700 Pro

And new things I'll hopefully be purchasing:

Iwill dk8n mobo?? = $500 USD
Procs: 2x 246's each $441 = $882
RAM.. 2x 512 MB Registered = $300
Sata drives, 2x 200 GB = $260
Total == $1942

So, that's basically what I'm looking at... Now my main concern was per the mobo. I havne't seen many nice dual socket 940s unfortauntely, and the dk8n seemed like the nicest thing I could find.. anyone have any other suggestions for me? Also, Would it be worth it to splash on another $300 to get 2 more sticks of 512 RAM? This rig will be for multi-tasking and for gaming mostly, I'm just sick of the slowdowns I get while multitasking, and I remember the days of my dual xeon rig. Just wondering if anyone has any comments/advice or changes they think I should make.

-Excelsior

 

[SK8]

Does that mobo support numa... I would get the Tyan that does and then run 2 x 512mb for each cpu so you would have 2gb ram, if you dont want to spend as much then use 2 x 256 for each, numa is gonna be a good thing once winders uses it!

 

[verbatim]

Plus if it is numa putting 4 sticks in (2 in each side) doubles the memory speed vs 2 stick (1 in each). Or close to double anyway, its 2 memory banks work best with 2 matched sticks with one in each side.

 

[Master Mitch]

The Iwill DK8N is indeed a NUMA-style board, offering the usual 4 RAM sockets per CPU. Well, as much as that can be considered "usual." The board is hard to get these days, but it is expected that its NForce3 goodness will be happier with ATI video cards than are AMD 8151 boards. And it has chipset integrated SATA.

I see nothing wrong with the plan as such. True, the board would love to see four sticks of RAM, but waiting a while to add it shouldn't hurt anything. Especially considering the poor condition of 64-bit Windows.

 

[diehrd]

Your prices are a bit high...I would go here . http://www.pricewatch.com/
Shop around and I bet ya save 2 or 3 hundred dollars...