Advice—Dual P3s on Tyan Tomcat?

[Morpheus]

Buying parts to assemble a dual P3 1GHz system on the Tomcat & 815E chipset. This will be a 2D graphics machine with either 512 or 1024Mb RAM... Mostly, Photoshop—scanning (running 2 scanners) & photo printing (3 printers) to inkjet...

My question is about the hard drives. Planning on about 120Gb of storage and was wondering if I should RAID to avoid data access bottle neck at the hard drives? Anybody know about Tyan's onboard RAID? any good?

Since IBM is out, maybe fast WDs or, maybe [email protected] suggestions?

Thanks for any & all help...

 

[Morpheus]

no "takers" huh?

Anybody have opinions on better mobos out there? (AMD is NOT an option).... Better confiurations or just personal preferences?

I am not an SMP guy, but this project cries out for it.... or does it? Should I use a 2.2GHz Northwood?

Is RAID necessary?

 

[Ebola]

if your trying to keep up with times then you should not buy dual p3's. dual tualatins, athlons, or p4's would be a better buy. the athlon setup would be the best bang for the buck.

if your set on p3 coppermines then buy a vp6 and two 1000EB's. thats what I'm running and its pretty sweet.

why the i815 board? doesnt this board only support 512 megs of ram?

I would go with IBM drives

 

[qed]

with photoshop you'd be better off running one of the drives as a scratch disk.
sorry i'm off (feel ill)
..Q

 

[Johan]

Isn't the Tomcat a single CPU board? Only i815 SMP board I know of is the Acorp board; downfall of the 815 chipset is the 512MB RAM limitation.

 

[Morpheus]

Johan... good point... in my excitment to find an Intel chipset (vs. VIA) I made the jump from the Tyan Thunder to Tomcat... oops...

As I said, somewhere, I am new to SMP... (no kidding )

Look like the next best contender is Serverworks chipset... too exoensive, so how about VIA *cough*... the VIA 266T to be exact... on the Iwill DVD266-uRN.... paired with some DDR PC2100... P3 can't fully utilize the memory, but will see some gains based on the reviews I read...

Highpoint RAID, onboard Audio too....

thoughts anyone?

(and thanks for the help thus far)

 

[funnyperson1]

Johan... good point... in my excitment to find an Intel chipset (vs. VIA) I made the jump from the Tyan Thunder to Tomcat... oops...

As I said, somewhere, I am new to SMP... (no kidding )

Look like the next best contender is Serverworks chipset... too exoensive, so how about VIA *cough*... the VIA 266T to be exact... on the Iwill DVD266-uRN.... paired with some DDR PC2100... P3 can't fully utilize the memory, but will see some gains based on the reviews I read...

Highpoint RAID, onboard Audio too....

thoughts anyone?

(and thanks for the help thus far)

the only real advantage i see here is that DDR ram can get to much higher fsbs than most SDRAM can and therfore you could get two 1.13PIII-S tualatins to 180fsb and you would be smoking pretty much anyone....

 

[OKCFUNKY]

when i was lookin round for dual p3 rig for friend, that Iwill came up, seems to worth it and since its ddr ram, other things can utizilze the bandwidth, though not the chip. but id go for it. when you replace it down the road, you can just take out the ddr ram and use it elsewhere, whereas pc100/133 is just about to see the sunset pretty much

 

[Ebola]

The best dual p3 coppermine board is the VP6. you'll get the most help here too if you get it because theres about 10 of us with it. i believe the iwill board doesnt have voltage mods.

 

[Johan]

IIRC, there are some issues with the Iwill board (or was it a MSI board???); try a search @ 2cpu.com in the mobo section, I'm sure you'll find some info on it. On paper, the Iwill board looks great.

There seems to be a following of the i815 Acorp board I mentioned @ 2cpu.com so there is plenty of info available on this board. If you like Intel chipsets the price for the Raid version is around $130 or so, IIRC.

 

[Ebola]

I suggest 1.5-2 gigs of ram if your serious about the graphics. I was just playin in adobe today and used up over 800mb of ram.

and ddr is useless on p3's so dont waste your money.

 

[tainice]

however, if really want some oc love, go for iwill, ddr, 200fsb, and 2.05v are good enough for anyone..i want one... i will run my chip in there for now, and get it a pal later on. seriously, 2.05v?! damn that'z SWEET~~~