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Hardware

LinuxHardware.org Has Linux DDR Shootout 105

Posted by michael from the do-you-feel-lucky dept.
Goatbert writes: "More Athlon news, seems to be a lot of that going around. This time, LinuxHardware.org has a DDR Athlon motherboard comparison to find out which of the three featured chipsets performs the best with Linux."
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LinuxHardware.org Has Linux DDR Shootout More

LinuxHardware.org Has Linux DDR Shootout

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  • Wait a second! Linux and DDR? (Score:3, Funny)

    by dR.fuZZo ( 187666 ) on Thursday August 23, 2001 @10:22AM (#2207883)
    Ok, so I just finally ordered my PSX version of Dance Dance Revolution (and two dance pads) to play on my PS2. But NOW you're telling me I can play Dance Dance Revolution on Linux? I guess I should've waited...

  • Site is sloooooow.. here's a copy (sans graphs) (Score:3, Informative)

    by rerunn ( 181278 ) on Thursday August 23, 2001 @10:25AM (#2207899)
    Technology Brief: DDR SDRAM
    DDR. What is it and why do you care? DDR SDRAM is the next evolution in SDRAM technology. It is also AMD's (and other manufacturers) answer to Intel's partnership and support of RAMBUS. Why pay for a proprietary technology with huge royalties when we can develop a comparable open technology that could be had for a lot less? (Sounds strangely familiar to another movement.) DDR stands for Double Data Rate and basically all that means is that for every clock cycle twice the amount of data can be sent as typical SDRAM. From a more technical standpoint, data is sent on both the positive and negative edge of each clock tick. This doesn't necessarily mean that you will see any huge performance increase out of your system but it is an attempt to stop the bottleneck that has existed on the memory bus. Going by this information, DDR memory should be marked PC266/PC200 so what does PC2100/PC1600 mean? Honestly these numbers were cooked up by the DDR advocates so that their memory wouldn't sound slower than RAMBUS's PC800/PC600 memory. These numbers come from a nifty bit of math that represents the bandwidth of the memory. The memory bus on DDR DIMMs is 8-bits wide and at 200 MHz or 266 MHz the bandwidth per second of DDR equates to 1.6 GB or 2.1 GB respectively. Along with the higher bandwidth, DDR also boasts lower power requirements needing only 2.5 volts verses the 3.3 volts of tradition SDRAM. DDR SDRAM is available in an 184-pin DIMM format and can come in registered and ECC formats like SDRAM. There are also two CAS (column address strobe) latencies of 2 and 2.5 available much like SDRAM's 2 and 3.

    Chipset Overviews
    AMD 760
    The AMD 760 was the first solution available for DDR SDRAM support for the desktop market. This chipset introduced the world to DDR and showed the first alternative to RAMBUS's RDRAM technology as the standard SDRAM successor. The AMD 760 chipset sets the standard by which all future DDR chipsets will be judged. Note that the AMD 761 north bridge is normally coupled with a VIA south bridge in order to cut costs.

    Features:

    Designed to operate at 100/200 MHz or 133/266 MHz system bus, 64 byte (cache line) data burst transfers

    33 MHz 32-bit PCI 2.2-compliant bus interface, supporting seven PCI bus masters plus the south bridge controller, PCI-to-DRAM data streaming up to 132 MB/sec

    66 MHz AGP 2.0-compliant interface supports 1x, 2x, and 4x data transfer modes, supports SBA (Sideband Address) bus

    Supports DDR SDRAM DIMMs operating at PC1600 or PC2100, up to two unbuffered DIMMs or four registered DIMMs, up to 4 GB total memory

    AMD 761 Block Diagram

    ALI MAGiK1
    ALI's solution to DDR is pretty standard and, as can be seen in the cost of boards using this chipset, is designed for a budget DDR market. Standard features follow. Note the similarities of the specs to those above. Only a lessened memory size and one less PCI master distinguish these chipsets.

    Features:

    Designed to operate at 100/200 MHz or 133/266 MHz system bus

    33 MHz 32-bit PCI 2.2-compliant bus interface, up to six PCI bus masters, 133 MB/sec data streaming PCI-to-DRAM

    66 MHz AGP 2.0-compliant interface supports 1x, 2x, and 4x data transfer modes, supports SBA (Sideband Address) bus

    Supports DDR SDRAM DIMMs operating at PC1600 or PC2100, up to 6 memory rows (which equals 3 double sided DIMMs), up to 3 GB total memory

    M1647 & M1535D+ Block Diagram

    VIA KT266
    Now we bring in the latest chipset to enter the DDR market, the KT266 from VIA. Like the previous chipsets, VIA is providing the basic functionality expected from Athlon DDR boards. There is of course support for current Athlon processors, PC2100/PC1600 DDR SDRAM, and the standard south bridge features. VIA though, spending a lot of time to produce the maximum performance possible, has decided to throw a bit more technology into the mix. The KT266 introduces a new technology which VIA is calling "High-Speed V-Link Hub Architecture". This new bus doubles the communication bandwidth between the south and the north bridge to 266 MB/sec. This is not only just some new fancy term, but it totally replaces the PCI bus between the north and south bridge. At speeds of up to 133 MHz compared to the PCI 33 MHz, this is a welcome enhancement.

    Features:

    Designed to operate at 100/200 MHz or 133/266 MHz system bus

    V-Link Hub Architecture - 266 MB/sec dedicated pipe from north to south bridge

    66 MHz AGP 2.0-compliant interface supports 1x, 2x, and 4x data transfer modes, supports SBA (Sideband Address) bus

    Supports DDR SDRAM DIMMs operating at PC1600 or PC2100, up to 4 GB DDR SDRAM

    KT266 Block Diagram

    The Contenders
    Now we turn to the boards themselves. In this review we will be examining one of the top boards in each category. First up is the MSI K7 Master-S which sports the AMD 761 coupled with a VIA VT82C686B south bridge. This board has been out for a short while now and is, to some, the pinnacle of perfection when it comes to AMD motherboards. With features such as onboard SCSI, it's hard to argue. Representing the ALI chipset we have the SOYO SY-K7ADA. Soyo has shown in the past couple of reviews their ability to take any chipset and bleed the last bit of speed out of it. In this case we expect no less and hope for the best from the budget DDR chipset. Finally, SOYO represents the KT266 with its SY-K7VDRAGON. This board is SOYO's first all out attempt to appeal to the enthusiast group of tweakers and case hackers. Not only is this board packed with features but it also is one of the most aesthetically boards ever produced. Now that you know what we're dealing with, on with the testing.

    Pictures: MSI K7 Master-S, SOYO SY-K7ADA, SOYO SY-K7VDRAGON. (Sorry for the blur on some of these pictures. Better ones will be posted ASAP.)

    The System
    The following table gives an overview of the common components used throughout the review.

    CPU
    AMD Athlon-C 1.2 GHz 266 MHz FSB

    CPU Cooling Device
    Thermaltake Mini Copper Orb

    Memory
    Crucial 256 MB PC2100 DDR SDRAM

    Video Card
    ABIT Siluro GeForce2 GTS

    Sound Card
    Ensoniq AudioPCI

    Network Card
    Intel Ethernet Pro/100

    Hard Drive
    Seagate Barracuda ATA III 40GB

    CD-ROM Drive
    Generic ATAPI 52x CD-ROM

    Floppy Drive
    Generic 1.44MB 3.5" Floppy Drive

    Case
    Modified Supermicro SC760-A

    Distribution
    Modified Slackware 7.1

    Kernel Version
    Linux 2.4.6

    XFree86 Version
    XFree86 4.1.0

    Features
    For feature comparison we once again turn to our handy chart:

    Motherboard
    MSI K7 Master-S
    SOYO SY-K7ADA
    SOYO SY-K7VDRAGON

    Documented Supported CPUs (from printed manual or web site)
    AMD Athlon (Socket A) up to 1.4GHz
    AMD Duron (Socket A) up to 950MHz
    AMD Athlon (Socket A) 750 MHz - 1.3 GHz
    AMD Duron (Socket A) 600 MHz - 900 MHz
    AMD Athlon (Socket A) 750 MHz - 1.4 GHz
    AMD Duron (Socket A) 600 MHz - 950 MHz

    Memory
    Support 4 memory banks using two 184-pin DDR-DIMM for up to 2 GB of memory
    Three 184-pin DDR SDRAM 2.5V DIMM sockets support up to 3GB
    Three 184-pin DDR SDRAM 2.5V DIMM sockets Support up to 3GB

    Onboard External Connectors
    2 x USB, 2 x DB-9 (serial), 1x DB-25 (parallel), 1x PS/2 Mouse, 1 x PS/2 Keyboard, 1 x game/MIDI, 3 audio jacks (line in, line out, mic)
    2 x USB, 2 x DB-9 (serial), 1x DB-25 (parallel), 1x PS/2 Mouse, 1 x PS/2 Keyboard, 1 x game/MIDI, 3 audio jacks (line in, line out, mic)
    2 x USB, 1 x LAN, 2 x DB-9 (serial), 1x DB-25 (parallel), 1x PS/2 Mouse, 1 x PS/2 Keyboard, 1 x game/MIDI, 3 audio jacks (line in, line out, mic)
    Daughter Card: 6 audio connectors (Center/Bass, Rear L/R, Optical Input, SPDIF Input, Optical Output, SPDIF Output)

    Internal Connectors
    1 x IrDA, 2 x USB headers, 2 x VIA IDE, 2 x 68-pin LVD SCSI, 1 x 50-pin Narrow SCSI, 1 x Floppy, 3 x fan, 1 x WOR, 1 x WOL, 3 x internal audio (CD-In, AUX-In, MDM-IN)
    1 x IrDA, 4 x USB headers, 2 x ALI IDE, 1x Floppy, 3 x fan, 1 x WOL, 1 x internal audio (CD-In)
    1 x IrDA, 4 x USB headers, 2 x VIA IDE, 2 x Promise IDE, 1x Floppy, 4 x fan, 1 x WOL, 1x Smartcard Reader Header, 3 x internal audio (CD-In 1, CD-In 2, CD SPDIF-In)

    Expansion Slots
    1 AGP PRO slot, 5 PCI slots, 1 CNR slot
    1 AGP slot, 5 PCI slots, 0 CNR slots!
    1 AGP PRO slot, 5 PCI slots, 0 CNR slots!

    Onboard Audio
    AC`97 Digital Audio Controller
    AC`97 Digital Audio Controller
    CMI 8738 Audio Controller

    Onboard RAID
    N/A
    N/A
    Promise IDE RAID

    Onboard SCSI
    Adaptec AIC-7899 Ultra 160
    N/A
    N/A

    Notable Extras
    D-LED Error Reporting
    None
    Black PCB w/ Purple PCI Slots

    In the way of features, these motherboards cover the spectrum. Out of these three boards we see one designed for workstation use (the K7 Master-S), one designed for mainstream desktop use (the K7ADA), and one designed for the overall tweaker/enthusiast (the DRAGON). The K7 Master-S stands alone here with its awesome onboard Ultra 160 SCSI. This makes it a clear choice for those interested in some high-end SCSI devices. The D-LED error reporting is also a welcome addition as everyone hates undocumented beep codes. The only drawback to this board is its limited memory slots. Although you could conceivably stick a gig in each slot, the limited slots means planning ahead as you don't want to buy any memory you would have to replace later due to limited space.

    Both the K7ADA and the DRAGON provide an additional DIMM and can support a gig more memory. Are you using that CNR slot on your current board board? Did you have any big plans for it on your upcoming board? Didn't think so. SOYO realized that at this time no one is really using that slot and that board real-estate is valuable, leaving the under-utilized slot off of both the K7ADA and the DRAGON. This is about all the K7ADA has to offer over the Master. The DRAGON is another story. Imagine if you will, you've been given the opportunity to design your own motherboard. What would you expect from such a creation? The latest in processor support? Ample memory expansion? How about awesome 6-speaker onboard sound, IDE RAID, and onboard NIC? On top of all that lets make it attractive so that all that time you spent cutting a whole in the side of your case will actually make your system stand out. The DRAGON (code name for [D]DR, [R]AID, 6-channel hardware [A]udio, AGP Pro [G]raphics, WHO II [O]verclocking, and [N]etworking) provides all of this. The only thing more you could ask for is fancy swappable PCI color plates (maybe not).

    The BIOS on the Master provides the system tweaker with a decent amount of control. As its high point, it provides them most memory setting available on any board tested. It also proves adjustable voltage from 1.650V-1.850V and ratio settings from 9x-14x. As a low point, the FSB is adjustable only to certain predefined settings from 100/33MHz to 150/38MHz and is not incremental in single 1 MHz increments like some boards. The K7ADA BIOS is very similar to that of the Master but with fewer memory settings. There is a nice feature to aid tweakers that is a single toggle to set the memory settings to Maximum performance. This is usually worth a try but if you experience stability issues back it back down to normal.

    The DRAGON's BIOS is about as close to perfect as you can get for the overclocker in all of us. It provides total control of the CPU frequency offering 1 MHz increments from 100-233 MHz and the CPU frequency is separate from that of the memory. This means that while you may want to push your CPU to the limit, you don't have to stretch those PCI components past the specs. The voltage settings range from -0.100V to +0.025V off the specified and the multiplier ranges from 6x to 14x. Like the K7ADA it provides a convenient Maximum Performance switch for memory optimization. The DRAGON though doesn't offer as many memory settings as the Master.

    SCORES:
    MSI K7 Master-S - 8
    SOYO SY-K7ADA - 6
    SOYO SY-K7VDRAGON - 9

    Support
    The support for the features presented on these boards is overall phenomenal. The Master's onboard SCSI is supported fully as are the integrated features of the north and south bridge. The only minor fix needed was a small kernel patch to support the AGP interface. This was simply to identify the component and not a new implementation. The K7ADA's only issue was the fact that the IDE driver did not automatically enable the DMA flag. This was easily fixed by manually running "hdparm -d1 /dev/hda" as root. Even the DRAGON's amazing list of features was supported in the kernel. The AGP driver need a small patch much like the Master did and the RAID controller functioned perfectly as an IDE controller with the support of the RAID functionality right around the corner (now available in 'ac' kernel series but not the official trunk). The onboard sound was the highlight of all the the included components providing the clearest audio I've heard even matching or exceeding the ES1371. According to Jeff Field's review on NewsForge, the optical out even works providing excellent sound to your stereo receiver. Onboard LAN functionality is supported by the VIA Rhine driver.

    SCORES:
    MSI K7 Master-S - 9
    SOYO SY-K7ADA - 9
    SOYO SY-K7VDRAGON - 8

    Performance
    Here we now test the prowess of DDR memory under Linux. Will DDR make a big difference in performance? Which chipset provides the best solution under Linux? Since this is our first look at DDR, we decided to provide an extended set of benchmarks from those found in our standard motherboard guide. Below you will see the following: audio encoding with Ogg Vorbis, POVbench, Distributed.net, kernel compile, Unreal Tournament, and Quake 3. On all three of the DDR boards you will notice two scores, one labeled "Normal Settings" and another labeled "MAX settings". The MAX setting refers to the switch mentioned above to set the memory aggressively on the K7ADA and the DRAGON. For the K7 Master, the memory was set manually to comparable settings.

    On the above chart, you can see that there isn't much difference in speed from one board to the next. All Athlon scores bested the Pentium 4 at a much higher clock speed. Notice that the DRAGON based on the KT266 did out perform all of the boards (although marginally) in both normal mode and MAX mode.

    In this test we show how little the type of memory used affects some applications. All of the Athlon scores were identical easily leaving the Pentium 4 in the dust.

    Again we see how the memory used has little effect on performance for number crunching type applications. The DRAGON lagged a bit behind on this one but not by much. Again, the Athlon takes a commanding lead over the Pentium 4.

    Above we see our first noticeable differences in the boards. The DDR boards won over the SDRAM-based KT133A and heavily stomped the Pentium 4 by about a minute across the board. Here the workstation ability of the K7 Master-S really shined through winning slightly over the DRAGON and by 6-8 seconds over the K7ADA. Notice how the higher memory setting affected all three of the DDR boards. Seems the investment of several more dollars for the better memory might be worth it.

    Here we see the MAX memory settings taking effect again, giving each board a little boost at almost all resolutions. The K7 Master-S was a champion here at all resolutions being bested only by the gaming ability of the Pentium 4. The DDR memory, especially on the Master, showed the extra boost in speed the Athlon needed to catch up to the Pentium 4's posted scores. Note that the Athlon is running at 1.2 GHz while the Pentium 4 is at 1.7 GHz. The K7ADA fell slightly behind at all resolutions.

    Whatever ID does to optimize for the Pentium 4 is still extremely effective at 640x480 but tapers off quickly at increasing resolutions. The DRAGON wins at all resolutions when set to MAX performance. The Master shows interesting numbers at 640x480 by not benefiting as much as the other boards from the memory settings. At 1600x1200, all numbers have leveled out except for the DRAGON which pushes out that .1 FPS needed to beat all other contenders. The SDRAM scores posted by the KT133A are bested fairly consistently by the DDR boards.

    We normally post a graph sharing the IDE scores of the boards tested. With all the images already included, we felt we'd spare you the download and tell you that both the K7ADA and the Master both came in with scores of 38.55 MB/sec and the DRAGON came in a notch higher at 38.79 MB/sec.

    Overall, the benefits of DDR were apparent but minimal. It was amazing to see though how much the increased memory setting effected these boards. Especially in our gaming and kernel compiles, the increases were more dramatic than expected. The Crucial memory performed exceptionally well and was very stable even when pushed beyond specified limits.

    DDR did provide the speed necessary to catch up to the Pentium 4 in several instances. The match-up between the K7 Master-S and the DRAGON was tight, each winning two contests. The DRAGON does fall a bit behind due to its slightly lower scores in the Distributed.net bench. The K7ADA fell slightly behind in all tests.

    SCORES:
    MSI K7 Master-S - 9
    SOYO SY-K7ADA - 6
    SOYO SY-K7VDRAGON - 8

    Stability
    So are these boards stable? It depends on which board you use and which applications you use. The DRAGON was the only completely solid board not crashing under any condition. This board even held itself together when the maximum performance setting was enabled which pushed the memory beyond specs. The K7ADA was also solid, only showing weakness when we turned the maximum performance setting on, which caused the occasional lockup. The K7 Master was a solid board but occasionally X would lockup during Quake 3 benchmarking. MSI's tech support is currently working on this but according to their web site, there are known issues with a couple of graphics cards they've tested. The Abit card used in these tests is not listed but a similar GeForce2 from ASUS is. Be sure to check the compatibility page for these cards.

    SCORES:
    MSI K7 Master-S - 7
    SOYO SY-K7ADA - 9
    SOYO SY-K7VDRAGON - 10

    Layout/Design
    So how hard are these board going to be to fit into your case? Is wiring going to be an issue? Overall the answer is no for these boards. The K7 Master-S is the largest of these boards requiring three rows of screws. This board, although larger than the others, will not present any problems in most mid-tower cases. The design of the board is great with the placement of the power supply connector near the edge of the board and large capacitors that are far enough away from the CPU socket to allow installation of any reasonable cooler you want. The only slight issues come with the placement of the IDE and floppy connectors a bit low on the board. This could present a problem for those with full-towers. Although the SCSI connectors are below those, the length of SCSI cables are sufficient to reach anywhere in most cases. Be sure when running those cables though, not to block air flow.

    The K7ADA has a nice compact design with the only flaw being the placement of the power connector. They decided to place it halfway down on the far left of the board seems like a wiring nightmare waiting to happen when your power wires creep towards your CPU heatsink and fan. All other connectors are in a logical location.

    The DRAGON is remarkably well laid-out given the amount of components onboard. The power supply is a bit low but not as bad as the K7ADA's and the RAID connectors are below the halfway point on the board but somehow all other components fit onto a board the is even smaller than the K7 Master. The one thing that you should really watch out for is the LAN connector that is above the USB connectors on the back panel. Make sure that you have a back plate that fits it as SOYO does not ship one designed for the board.

    SCORES:
    MSI K7 Master-S - 9
    SOYO SY-K7ADA - 8
    SOYO SY-K7VDRAGON - 8

    Manual & Package Contents
    The K7 Master-S includes everything that you would need to set this board up. It not only includes the standard IDE and floppy cable but they also pack in the Ultra SCSI cable with terminator and a narrow SCSI cable which will save you about $50+ in cabling. Also included are plenty of useless Windows drivers disks ready to become Linux boot disks and a case sticker to show off what you got. The manual is quite thorough covering board features, layout, D-LED code list, connectors, and BIOS settings.

    The K7ADA includes the standard components(IDE cable, floppy cable, etc.). Its manual leaves much to be desired like all SOYO manuals before it. It covers the bare essentials to get the board set up and that's about it.

    Much like the Master, the Dragon board gives you all you'll need to get going plus some. A first for any board reviewed, you get three IDE cables (ex. 2 for RAIDing and one for CDROM), one floppy cable, the audio daughter board and some heatsink compound that is seemingly for the chipset fan as they did not feel inclined to apply any at the factory. The DRAGON also includes the largest motherboard manual ever seen topping out just under 200 pages! It covers the technology on the board, board setup and connectors, a detailed BIOS walkthrough, and then goes into the RAID setup and Windows driver installation. This manual is an excellent read for the owner of their new designer motherboard.

    SCORES:
    MSI K7 Master-S - 10
    SOYO SY-K7ADA - 6
    SOYO SY-K7VDRAGON - 10

    Conclusion
    That's a lot of information to pack into one review and a lot to sum up. This first look at DDR boards paints a picture of where the Athlon scene is heading and eventually where Intel is heading. SDRAM is fading slowly to a currently slightly faster but potentially lightning new technology. DDR is here to stay and since the price of DDR now is now only slightly higher than that of standard SDRAM, anyone building a new system should look towards DDR. SDRAM will certainly be around for a good while due to the number of systems using it but much like the switch from EDO SIMMs to SDRAM DIMMs, it's inevitable. Seeing the numbers above, it seems like there is very little reason to go with a RDRAM based Intel system unless gaming is your thing and you have way too much money. The cost of 256MB of PC2100 DDR is as low as $33 according to Price Watch and 256MB of PC800 RDRAM is $85 and must be installed in pairs.

    As for the three boards reviewed, all are strong boards providing different feature sets for different users. If you want a solid DDR, don't need a lot of frills, and want to save a few bucks then the SOYO SY-K7ADA is a steal for around $95. If you are looking for the ultimate enthusiasts board with a plethora of features and a cool paint job to boot then grab the SOYO SY-K7VDRAGON for around $155. For the ultimate in workstation boards go with the MSI K7 Master with or without SCSI for about $270 and $130 respectively.

    The scores below show both the K7 Master-S and the DRAGON as very strong boards as far as points are concerned. Both the K7 Master-S and the K7ADA receive the "Works with Linux Certification" and the K7 Master-S and the DRAGON will receive our "Top Honors" award for being top notch boards for Linux enthusiasts.

    Overall Scores:
    MSI K7 Master-S - 8.5
    SOYO SY-K7ADA - 7.8
    SOYO SY-K7VDRAGON - 8.95 Awards:

    MSI K7 Master-S & SOYO SY-K7ADA
    MSI K7 Master-S & SOYO SY-K7VDRAGON

    Acknowledgments

    LinuxHardware.org is being presented by individuals that do this for the enjoyment of experimenting the latest hardware and the fulfillment of sharing those results with you. Currently LinuxHardware.org is totally non-profit and through the support of various hardware vendors, these reviews are possible. We'd like to thank the following vendors for supporting this site by providing hardware for this review:

    ABIT Computer - Provided the Siluro GeForce2 GTS.

    Crucial Techonology - Provided the 256MB stck of PC2100 CAS 2.5 DDR SDRAM.

    Intel - Provided the Ethernet Pro/100.

    MSI Computer - Porvided the K7 Master-S.

    Thermaltake - Provided a Mini Copper Orb CPU Cooler.

    Seagate - Provided a Barracuda ATA III 40GB IDE drive.

    Soyo, Inc. - Provided the SY-K7ADA and the SY-K7VDRAGON.

  • More benches: (Score:3, Interesting)

    by RainbowSix ( 105550 ) on Thursday August 23, 2001 @10:25AM (#2207900) Homepage
    Check out this link [overclockers-network.com] for benchmarks of a dual AMD overclocked to 1.6ghz. I simply crushes the dual P4 Xeon 1.7ghz
  • They are properly running their webserver on a uClinux DIMM computer
    uclinux [uclinux.com] :-)) (Or maybe a TI calculator)

  • so? (Score:1)

    by tahpot ( 237053 )
    i'm sorry, but who cares? is this really going to matter in 2 months? heck even 1 month.

    • Re:so? (Score:1)

      by sydb ( 176695 )
      Sure this appeals to a limited subset of Slashdot readers, but then so does everything.

      Of course in 2 months this will be out of date. But at any one time, there are some people looking to get decent hardware. So this serves those people looking right now. They're not about to upgrade in 2 months time just because something better is out (well, not all of them anyway...).

      Me? I'll keep my trusty 486 for my firewall, my Sun Sparcstation IPXs for network services and my 850MHz (o.c.'d from 550) Athlon for fragging.

  • I have seen a lot of talk lately about SMP boards for Athlon. Yet I haven't seen such a board anywhere yet (Epox hasn't got any SMP's for athlon, just the old PII/PIII boards).

    SMP is a great advantage for a production server. I have tested Linux on some Athlon computers and it's very fast and stable. Add some SMP to that and you get an incredible amount of computing power. :)

    So, when are we going to see SMP for Athlon, guys?

  • Site is unreachable now. /. effect strikes again :-)
  • Heh, when I saw the headline I thought that there was a Linux version of Dance Dance Revolution [ddrfreak.com] coming out or something. Now that'd be sweet, dancing penguins, songs to DeCSS [cmu.edu] (look about halfway down the page), or maybe even the Free Software Song [gnu.org]. It'd be popular in San Francisco at least....
  • Maybe I just dated myself, but when I saw that headline, I asked myself "What the heck is LinuxHardware.org doing shooting up stuff in East Germany?"
    • Uhhrrruhhhh... I know it's nitpicky, but wasn't that the 'GDR', short for German Democratic Republic? As opposed to the FRG, the Federal Republic of Germany (aka 'West Germany').

      • Not if you speak German. In that case the Federal Republic of Germany is Bundesrepublik Deutschland (BRD) and the old German Democratic Republic is Deutche Democratische Republik (DDR).

  • Geez, these guys should stay away from processors until they get overclocking their BANDWIDTH straight ;)
  • This is just my luck. I read Slashdot this morning, went out and bought a DDR motherboard and now I check Slashdot again and there is a link to DDR mobo review. If I only had waited for an hour or two. Why me??!
  • PriceWatch.com [pricewatch.com](tm) has the most up to date pricelist for all computer peripherals including these great AMD MP systems. Currently you can get a tyan mobo, single 1ghz MP cpu, and cooler fan for about 409.00. You can buy the lower end SMP mobo for ~250 and the higher end (with scsi) for ~300.00. CPU prices, motherboard prices and all other hardware prices are adjusted on a daily basis.

    Buy up so the demand will lower the price. The tyan motherboard is a great board. You can get ddr memory (512 meg chips) for less than 30 bucks now!

    http://www.pricewatch.com - just click on cpu/motherboard combos and select from the two mp combinations or simply select cpu, motherboard, memory and fans to build your own.
  • once i see a board from abit that supports DDR and has soft menu 3 for the p4, then i will upgrade from my piii 750.
  • Yeah, I know pricewatch has MSI listed as making a dual board, but look a little closer. It's just a typo. That's the Tyan board. My friend and I had this discussion just the other day. That MSI board listed is really the Tyan board, look at the model #. Or else go and try to buy it, that'll be tough.

  • We just (yesterday at 4 PM) placed an order for one of the new APPRO1124 dual Athlon 1U rackmounts [appro.com], with a 2 GB of DDR RAM and 2 1.2 TBirds, and a couple 10K SCSI drives.

    I'm looking forward to playing with it when it gets here next week. :) The writeup on Anandtech about "the perfect server?" [anandtech.com] was one of our primary reasons for deciding to give this a shot.

    For the curious, the machine will be running J2SE, JBoss, and Jakarta/Tomcat, for a custom app that connects to a (in this case, local) Postgresql database, which is why we have so much RAM in it.
  • These chipsets represent the spectrum of choices when choosing a DDR motherboard...

    Unfortunately, they're missing the SiS 735 chipset, which is supposedly the fastest and cheapest of the bunch.

  • 4th chipset (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Jacek Poplawski ( 223457 )
    They didn't write anything about 4th chipset - SiS 735. I want to buy new motherboard soon, and I am not sure - is SIS 735 supported by Linux kernel? What about stability? Any problems like with VIA chipsets? Do you know where can I find that information?
    • See my above post about the SiS 735, although I don't use the onboard sound or ethernet, I did turn them on long enough to see if they worked in linux, they worked great without any messing around.. I've had no problems with the board beyond having to change the 4X default AGP mode
      to 2X (my AGP card only supports 2X), for $89 I got the fastest chipset, a choice between DDR SDRAM/SDRAM, and spare ethernet/sound, I'm very happy with my decision and I hope SiS keeps on this track (I don't care much for their previous boards =)
  • They are the best hardware company there is.
  • Linux today had this article over a week ago. Slashdot really is lagging behind...

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