Considering Dual CPU, require some input

[Zero1]

Hi guys, long time no browsing

Well I've finally snapped and my Athlon64 3400+ just doesn't cut it anymore. It's fine for most things, but I do a lot of video encoding, especially with x264, so I need all the firepower I can get.

My aim is to build something that will feature dual processors, so one of the pair will be equal to or faster than my Athlon64 3400+ Clawhammer (1MB cache, only S754 though), so that I won't suffer when it comes to non multithreaded apps. I'd also like to ensure it's significantly faster than an Athlon64 4800 x2 (I suppose that's fairly easy).

I'd like to keep the cost $500 or below for each CPU if possible, I was thinking of dual Opteron 250's. Fortunately a lot of the programs I use benefit from multi processors in some way, here's a little list of what I commonly use, the most used being at the top of the list:

x264 CLI (H.264 encoder - www.x264.nl)
Virtualdub/AVISynth & XviD
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Premiere Pro 1.0/1.5 (cringe, I guess I should try the older version sometime)
Adobe After Effects 6.5

Considering dual CPU is a scary thought at the moment, many questions. I'd appreciate it if you guys could help me out on these. Unfortunately I'm stuck using my mobile phone's GPRS right now, it's slower and less reliable than 56k! (or trust me, I'd have done a lot more googling, that's half the fun )

I'd very much appreciate any linkage that might be useful.

1) Cases
I'm tight on floorspace. Currently I'm using an Aopen H700A tower, it's a 6 bay beast but is only as wide as a basic case (about 200mm). It's about 450mm deep but isn't large enough to take a dual CPU board. Can anyone recommend a 6 bay case or equivalent that will house a dual CPU board? I can go up in depth and height, but not width.

2) RAM
I hear that you need registered RAM with some (if not all) boards. It's my understanding that due to it's error checking that it's more stable. Might be a silly question but will I notice this increased stability, or will Windows still crash all over the place? (ie will a normal user benefit, or only mission critical stuff).

3) Motherboards
This has been my biggest stumbling block so far, maybe due to my requirements. I need a board, preferably that has:
-1x AGP/PCI Express (PCI Express preferably since I plan to get a graphics card with H.264 decoding)
-1x PCI-X (I have a 3ware Escalade 9500s, and I'd like to make the most of it.
-2x PCI (For my DVB Tuner, Soundcard and possibly additional ATA Controller (or could these be plugged into a PCI-X slot also?).
As for onboard features, I don't care what it has or hasn't got. Onboard LAN would be good, I guess that's pretty standard though.

4) Power
Obviously I'll be needing a new PSU. I'll be running 4-6 harddrives, 4 CD/DVD drives, 2x Opterons and probably a Radeon X1000 series, I'm guessing ~550W should be sufficient. I believe my current rig of 2 harddrives, single Athlon 64, 4 CD/DVD drives and a Matrox Parhelia uses about 280W (seems low, does that sound reasonable?). Also is there any specific name for these PSU's?

5) Cooling
Now this is a scary thought. I'd be tempted to grab a couple of those big copper heatsinks that Thermalright produce and stick a Vantec tornado on like I have done with this system (though it seems to be running hot recently, I wonder if something came loose, or if my mobo is lying). Other than that it would have to be watercooling, but I have never attempted watercooling before, so I have no clue of what is involved, let alone costs or reliability. Yes, I bet this is going to be something that gets VERY hot.

6) Overclocking
I don't really need to know this since it's something I can find myself should I go dual CPU, but thought I'd throw it in anyway. Any of you overclocked dual Opteron rigs before, and what sort of result did you get?

Also how do Opterons differ from Athlon 64's? I understand that they are tuned for server like usage, but I thought I heard somewhere that they are good with video processing too.

Well that's about it I think, I appreciate your time if you've read this far

One thing to note is that I live in the UK and we don't have as much selection as you guys, so I would probably end up importing my stuff from www.provantage.com

 

[andrew911tt]

To be faster then a 4800 X2 you would need to run 2 duel core opterons wich will run over $650 each (because you have to go socket 940)
Then it would be 2 x 2.4 vs 4 x 1.8
A 4800 x2 will be faster then 2 opty 250s


As for a case you should go for a "Cooler Master Stacker"

 

[Zero1]

To be faster then a 4800 X2 you would need to run 2 duel core opterons wich will run over $650 each (because you have to go socket 940)
Then it would be 2 x 2.4 vs 4 x 1.8
A 4800 x2 will be faster then 2 opty 250s


As for a case you should go for a "Cooler Master Stacker"

Thanks for the reply, but I think you are confusing the 4800 X2. 4800 X2 is a single CPU with 2 cores. Dual Opteron 250 is 2 CPUs with 1 Core per CPU. Both options have 2 cores in total.

I'd have expected 2x single core CPU's running at 2.4GHz each to be faster than a single CPU running at 2.4GHz with 2 cores?

I have to admit I'm new to dual core, but I don't think the Athlon64 4800 x2 is going to be as fast as or faster than a dual Opteron 250.

 

[andrew911tt]

I know what you are saying
but the single chip dual cores is much faster then the 2 chips with single cores

It has to do with the memry access between the two cores
It is faster on the single chip then on the chips side by side

 

[andrew911tt]

In almost every test the 4800 X2 (2 x 2.4) beat the dual Optys 252 (2 x 2.6)
The test that the X2 wasn't wining were the single threaded test
(you said that the stuff you do multithreaded)

http://techreport.com/reviews/2005q2/athlon64-x2/index.x?pg=1

 

[Hayden123]

i wouldn't buy dual core i would wait for price to fall i was just on newegg.com they are really expensive

 

[nessus]

I know what you are saying
but the single chip dual cores is much faster then the 2 chips with single cores

It has to do with the memry access between the two cores
It is faster on the single chip then on the chips side by side

This might be true in an Opteron board that doesn't support NUMA. In a NUMA board, the memory access speed is going to be much faster with each proc having a separate bus to the memory segment dedicated to the processor that is attached to it.

 

[Dan_D]

Hi guys, long time no browsing

Well I've finally snapped and my Athlon64 3400+ just doesn't cut it anymore. It's fine for most things, but I do a lot of video encoding, especially with x264, so I need all the firepower I can get.

My aim is to build something that will feature dual processors, so one of the pair will be equal to or faster than my Athlon64 3400+ Clawhammer (1MB cache, only S754 though), so that I won't suffer when it comes to non multithreaded apps. I'd also like to ensure it's significantly faster than an Athlon64 4800 x2 (I suppose that's fairly easy).

I'd like to keep the cost $500 or below for each CPU if possible, I was thinking of dual Opteron 250's. Fortunately a lot of the programs I use benefit from multi processors in some way, here's a little list of what I commonly use, the most used being at the top of the list:

x264 CLI (H.264 encoder - www.x264.nl)
Virtualdub/AVISynth & XviD
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Premiere Pro 1.0/1.5 (cringe, I guess I should try the older version sometime)
Adobe After Effects 6.5

Considering dual CPU is a scary thought at the moment, many questions. I'd appreciate it if you guys could help me out on these. Unfortunately I'm stuck using my mobile phone's GPRS right now, it's slower and less reliable than 56k! (or trust me, I'd have done a lot more googling, that's half the fun )

I'd very much appreciate any linkage that might be useful.

Opteron 248's would be a good lower end Opteron choice that will outperform your 3400+'s and still be reasonably priced. Opteron 250's are another good choice, but the cost goes up.

1) Cases
I'm tight on floorspace. Currently I'm using an Aopen H700A tower, it's a 6 bay beast but is only as wide as a basic case (about 200mm). It's about 450mm deep but isn't large enough to take a dual CPU board. Can anyone recommend a 6 bay case or equivalent that will house a dual CPU board? I can go up in depth and height, but not width.

I don't know about the case you speak of. However, dual Opterons aren't going to fit on any normal sized ATX motherboards. You will need a case that supports E-ATX motherboards. The CM Stackers come to mind for their price, and features. They aren't significantly larger in width than most cases. Though they are deeper and taller.

2) RAM
I hear that you need registered RAM with some (if not all) boards. It's my understanding that due to it's error checking that it's more stable. Might be a silly question but will I notice this increased stability, or will Windows still crash all over the place? (ie will a normal user benefit, or only mission critical stuff).

The bennefit to ECC ram isn't typically noticable for the home user. However, Opteron memory controllers require Registered ECC ram. This is not an option with socket 940 CPU's. You must use that type of ram.

3) Motherboards
This has been my biggest stumbling block so far, maybe due to my requirements. I need a board, preferably that has:
-1x AGP/PCI Express (PCI Express preferably since I plan to get a graphics card with H.264 decoding)
-1x PCI-X (I have a 3ware Escalade 9500s, and I'd like to make the most of it.
-2x PCI (For my DVB Tuner, Soundcard and possibly additional ATA Controller (or could these be plugged into a PCI-X slot also?).
As for onboard features, I don't care what it has or hasn't got. Onboard LAN would be good, I guess that's pretty standard though.

You'll have to go with one or the other. AGP or PCI-Express. The Tyan K8WE and SuperMicro H8DCE are two excellent choices. Though I believe the H8DCE doesn't have PCI-X. In which case the Tyan K8WE is one of your better choices. Has SLi support too. Although alternatively you can use the Tyan K8SE. Very similar to the Tyan K8WE, without SLi support.

See Tyan solutions here: http://www.tyan.com/products/html/opteron.html

4) Power
Obviously I'll be needing a new PSU. I'll be running 4-6 harddrives, 4 CD/DVD drives, 2x Opterons and probably a Radeon X1000 series, I'm guessing ~550W should be sufficient. I believe my current rig of 2 harddrives, single Athlon 64, 4 CD/DVD drives and a Matrox Parhelia uses about 280W (seems low, does that sound reasonable?). Also is there any specific name for these PSU's?

There are many to choose from. The PSU in my sig works very well for me. Here you can see some Tyan recommended PSU's. Do some research there are many to choose from. http://www.tyan.com/support/html/r_s2895.html The key is EPS12v compatibility.

5) Cooling
Now this is a scary thought. I'd be tempted to grab a couple of those big copper heatsinks that Thermalright produce and stick a Vantec tornado on like I have done with this system (though it seems to be running hot recently, I wonder if something came loose, or if my mobo is lying). Other than that it would have to be watercooling, but I have never attempted watercooling before, so I have no clue of what is involved, let alone costs or reliability. Yes, I bet this is going to be something that gets VERY hot.

Coolermaster Hyper 6's or Hyper 48's are two coolers I can recommend and I know they'll fit most Opteron motherboards. Any Zalman solution should work well also. Pretty much any coolers that work well on Athlon 64's and X2's will work just as well with socket 940 Opterons.

6) Overclocking
I don't really need to know this since it's something I can find myself should I go dual CPU, but thought I'd throw it in anyway. Any of you overclocked dual Opteron rigs before, and what sort of result did you get?

Also how do Opterons differ from Athlon 64's? I understand that they are tuned for server like usage, but I thought I heard somewhere that they are good with video processing too.

Well that's about it I think, I appreciate your time if you've read this far

One thing to note is that I live in the UK and we don't have as much selection as you guys, so I would probably end up importing my stuff from www.provantage.com

The Opteron has additional HyperTransport links for muti-CPU usage and communications with other onboard devices. The Opteron also has a 144bit memory controller instead of a 128bit memory controller for Registered ECC memory support.

Opterons can handle more memory, installed in more banks without a reduction in speed or latencies. Unlike the Athlon 64/FX/X2's. All Opterons have 1MB of L2 cache. Some Athlon's only have 512k. Other than that, they are essentially the same thing. It has been said that the quality control process for Opterons is far more strict though. I have no proof of that, but it makes sense.

As for overclocking, you won't get very far. A speed bump to the next processor models clock is about the best you can do. So a 2.0GHz Opteron will likely hit 2.2GHz and not go much if anything beyond that. It is more of a motherboard/memory limitation of the platform than the processors themselves.

Really I think your needs are likely to be served just as well for less money with an X2 4800+. The Opteron has few advantages over the X2 series, and unless you want to step up to dual dual core, and have some applications that take advantage of it. It's generally a waste of funds. Where the Opteron can really shine is of course in higher clock speeds over the X2's. For example the Opteron 254's are 2.8GHz like the FX-57. There is no single dual core CPU in AMD's lineup that can out perform two of those chips consistantly. Though in applications that handle more than two simultaneous threads, the dual core Opterons beat the 254's. Even so, the cost is higher, and the advantage minimal. Especially since you can acheive such speeds with an A64 X2 rather easily.

Though many of the applications you specified can take advantage of the Opteron, the only real gain you would see is PCI-X (If you are dead set on having it.) and the increased memory support. Though your OS would have to support having more than 4GB of ram.

 

[Zero1]

Many thanks for the replies guys, especially Sir-Fragalot, that was ideal

I'm still undecided. If I go X2, I potentially don't get the full potential out of a nice TB raid array, but if I do go dual CPU, there are many more costs involved for something that is only a bit faster it seems that allows me to make full use of my RAID card.

There's also the power consumption which is beginning to tip me in favour of the X2. I just have this feeling that upgrading to the X2 isn't going to be substantially faster than my current 3400+, since I hear non multithreaded apps only tend to run at the equivalent of a 4000.

On that note, does anyone have an idea of when AMD will release something faster than the 4800, or is it early days?

Well, time will tell. I really need to get fixed up with an ISP and do some cosing.

Much thanks again guys.

 

[sykocus]

Many thanks for the replies guys, especially Sir-Fragalot, that was ideal

I'm still undecided. If I go X2, I potentially don't get the full potential out of a nice TB raid array, but if I do go dual CPU, there are many more costs involved for something that is only a bit faster it seems that allows me to make full use of my RAID card.

There's also the power consumption which is beginning to tip me in favour of the X2. I just have this feeling that upgrading to the X2 isn't going to be substantially faster than my current 3400+, since I hear non multithreaded apps only tend to run at the equivalent of a 4000.

On that note, does anyone have an idea of when AMD will release something faster than the 4800, or is it early days?

Well, time will tell. I really need to get fixed up with an ISP and do some cosing.

Much thanks again guys.

For singled threaded applications, you can expect the same performance as a single core processor with the same clock speed.

You could say the new FX60 is the successor to the 4800+. Both based on the same core, with 1mb cache per core.

 

[Vertigo Acid]

I'm still undecided. If I go X2, I potentially don't get the full potential out of a nice TB raid array, but if I do go dual CPU, there are many more costs involved for something that is only a bit faster it seems that allows me to make full use of my RAID card.

Consider it a good excuse to ditch the RAID-0 and get a JBOD setup with some newer 300gb+ drives. Unless you have a specific application in mind that is going to take advantage of the higher linear transfer speeds of RAID-0, there's no reason for it. I mean, 7 hard drives for only 1360gb unformatted gigs isn't very efficient.