Smp Faq

[Kingslayer]

Ok. The SMP forum has taken off. There are alot of people asking the same questions. What we need is an FAQ/FYI sticky answering the usual simple SMP questions.

Let's put our heads together and kick one out.

Things to keep in mind...

Processors. (what can run dual, what can't)
Memory.
Motherboards. (keep this simple, manufacturers home pages are only a click away...)
Gotcha's (any you cant think of.)
App's (what takes advantadge of duals)
Overclocking (overclocking duals is an art form lets round up our experiences.)

This should help the new SMP guy make his choices and build his system the right way.

 

[Ice_Gargoylle]

2cpu has a good. But it can be modified to suit this sites needs better.

 

[diehrd]

What kind of CPU's do I need for a multiprocessor system?

Processors that can be used in SMP :

Intel Processors:

PENTIUM PRO
PENTIUM 2
PENTIUM 3
PENTIUM XEON
CELLY 1


AMD Processors:
Athlon MP:{ Only one supported by AMD}
ATHLON XP PRE FEBUARY RELEASES ALL {MP&MPX}
ATHLON XP AFTER 02/01/02 NEED L5 BRIDGE CONNECTED{MP&MPX}
SOCKETED ATHLONS: B 200FSB , C 266 FSB {TYAN S2460 ONLY}
DURON SPITFIRE {TYAN S2460 ONLY}
DURON MORGAN CORE {MP&MPX}

Ok Kingslayer please review and help me if I screwed up lol !!!

 

[Morpheus]

yes, wish I could get a hand with my dual P3s thread in this forum...

Newbie to SMP, building a system from scratch...

 

[donny_paycheck]

What I can glean from my own personal experience:
For memory, a lot of older multiprocessor motherboards require registered DRAM. Almost all new ones (1 year old or less) do not.

For processors;
Slot 2 Xeons can't be overclocked whatsoever!
The only PIII Xeons that use a 133mhz front side bus have 512k of cache or less. 1mb and 2mb versions ar 100fsb processors.

Get a new MPX motherboard and what you fear about the USB will not happen. It's fixed!

Almost any pair of processors will function in SMP. Different steppings, different clock speeds, different caches....all that is required is that they be the same type of processor. This is right from Intel. AMD machines have been confirmed to run the same way.

A dual Duron system is the cheapest way to build a new SMP system. For $40 per CPU and $150 or less for a refurbished motherboard, it is by far the cheapest.

Windows NT, 2000 and XP pro will use both CPUs of a dual system. Windows XP home will not.

Colin started a thread here that I think should be made into a sticky itself. It's about getting a cheap SMP system on ebay or at a computer show and experiencing the joys of running more than one CPU at a time.