Kayak?

[nihili]

I'm thinking about taking the advice from another thread and buying an off lease SMP machine. After looking threough ebay, I'm thinking strongly about getting an HP Kayak. They look to be good machines and the prices seem to be a lot less than what I could build a comparable machine for. But I still have some questions that I haven't been able to answer by surfing through www.support.kayak.hp.com .

1. Does anybody want to talk me in to going some other route? Keep in mind a budget of $300.

2. It looks to me as if all Kayak models other than the XA come with dual processor motherboards. Is that right?

3. It also looks to me as if the Kayak motherboards do not need VRMS. Can anyone verify that?

4. If I get a Kayak that has PII Xeon processors, what's the chance that I could upgrade them to PIII Xeons?

That's all I've got for now, thanks,

nihili

 

[Colin]

1. Although I love my Kayak, don't discount a Dell or Compaq machine.

2. I believe so.

3. They use a plug in VRM. Very expensive if it's missing.

4. I believe so.

Things to keep in mind. PII and PIII Kayaks sold with CPU at 550 MHz or under are limited to a maximum CPU speed of 550 MHz for upgrades. This is due to the VRMs putting out 2.0 Vcore.

Kayak motherboards are availble with one or two IDE headers. Despite the SCSI card, you may want to look for a machine with two IDE headers.

HP uses some funky drive trays. You can mount 3.5" hardrives in the existing trays. To mount a 3.5 Zip or a CD drive requires $12 or $29 rails. You can make your own in about ten minutes with a drill and a pair of expansion card plates from an old case.

 

[Colin]

One more thing. Some of the older Kayaks ran NT4. On board sound, and depending on the video card, W2K drivers may not be availble. I know the AccelGraphics Spitfire is NT4 only. I believe SCSI and RAID drivers are availble for W2K.

 

[donny_paycheck]

4. If I get a Kayak that has PII Xeon processors, what's the chance that I could upgrade them to PIII Xeons?

They're interchangeable. One weird thing is that PII Xeons all use a 100mhz bus, just like PIIs. PIII Xeons with 512k of cache or less use a 133mhz bus but with 1 or 2mbs of cache they are still on a 100mhz system bus. If you have some 1ghz PIII Xeons that have 256 or 512k of cache (which defeats almost the whole purpose of having a Xeon to begin with) then it will be 133fsb. All other Xeons are 100fsb.

 

[nihili]

Re: Re: Kayak?

They're interchangeable. One weird thing is that PII Xeons all use a 100mhz bus, just like PIIs. PIII Xeons with 512k of cache or less use a 133mhz bus but with 1 or 2mbs of cache they are still on a 100mhz system bus. If you have some 1ghz PIII Xeons that have 256 or 512k of cache (which defeats almost the whole purpose of having a Xeon to begin with) then it will be 133fsb. All other Xeons are 100fsb.

Hmmm, so how much cache does a Xeon need to make it significantly better than a non-Xeon in a dual setup. I think it very unlikely that I will ever go to a quad setup. And I also can't see myself paying the prices for a 2mb cache Xeon.

I've been thinking about just gettng a Workstation class Xeon machine. But is it really worth paying the extra for that over a regular nonxeon machine if the Xeons only have 256 or 512 in the cache?

nihili

 

[donny_paycheck]

Re: Re: Re: Kayak?

Hmmm, so how much cache does a Xeon need to make it significantly better than a non-Xeon in a dual setup. I think it very unlikely that I will ever go to a quad setup. And I also can't see myself paying the prices for a 2mb cache Xeon.

I've been thinking about just gettng a Workstation class Xeon machine. But is it really worth paying the extra for that over a regular nonxeon machine if the Xeons only have 256 or 512 in the cache?

nihili

I think not. Without their large cache they're basically just Pentium IIs/IIIs in large cartridges that are SMP certified. A difference is that the cache in a Xeon runs at full processor clock speed vice a division of it and they can scale up to 8 CPUs at a time, but their main perk has always been the monster L2 caches. Slot 2 motherboards are also pretty expensive because they're meant for servers and have all the cool stuff like onboard video and SCSI. Without the large L2 cache I would opt for a PII or PIII dual. The motherboard would be cheaper and you still get 512k of cache if that's what you're after.

The large-cache Xeons are usually expensive in higher clock speeds, but not the older PII Xeons. I got a pair of 450mhz/2mb PII Xeons on ebay for $50 each. The PIIIs are expensive though.

edit- Here is an example.