Dual core Opteron + W2k?

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legrand

Weaksauce
Joined
Mar 30, 2004
Messages
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I believe that there should not be a problem running a Opteron 265 (dual core) with windows 2000, but can someone validate this assumption and also tell me what will be lost (not used, missed out on, etc.) by only using W2k? This is a server application and I don't have the budget to buy Win 2003 64 bit and all the required licenses to replace all the Win 2000 ones we have.

Thank you.
 
Should work, but 2K will count those as 4 CPU's, so you will need 2000 Server or higher.
 
Which version of Windows 2000 are you talking about? Although it doesn't matter in your case, the Professional edition supports 2-way SMP which means a single dual-core CPU will be supported and Server supports 4-way.
 
Further clarification :) :

The Opteron 265 is a Dual Core CPU (2 cores on one physical cpu chip). The server I am building will be dual cpu capable (2 individual cpu chips) however I will only have one cpu chip that is of a dual core style.

As for windows, it is 2000 server edition (not advanced or anything, just plain windows 2000 server).

Thanks.
 
legrand said:
Further clarification :) :

The Opteron 265 is a Dual Core CPU (2 cores on one physical cpu chip). The server I am building will be dual cpu capable (2 individual cpu chips) however I will only have one cpu chip that is of a dual core style.

As for windows, it is 2000 server edition (not advanced or anything, just plain windows 2000 server).

Thanks.
Click to expand...

your fine you have have up to 4 physical CPUs dont count the cores
soo in the case of Dual core that means up to 8 cores
 
Elios said:
your fine you have have up to 4 physical CPUs dont count the cores
soo in the case of Dual core that means up to 8 cores
Click to expand...

Windows 2000 i thought counted cores as seperate CPUs, like it does with HT
I might be wrong, but its what I thought.
 
Steel Chicken said:
Windows 2000 i thought counted cores as seperate CPUs, like it does with HT
I might be wrong, but its what I thought.
Click to expand...

MS said when dual core came out that thay will only count the actul CPU not the number of core IE you can run a dual core on XP Home just fine server is the same way
 
Elios said:
MS said when dual core came out that thay will only count the actul CPU not the number of core IE you can run a dual core on XP Home just fine server is the same way
Click to expand...

Yes, MS counts CPUs by the socket.
However Windows 2000 was released before we have HyperThreading much less dual core in the picture.
Consequently it recognizes those setups as multiprocessor systems, not multicore chips.
A single dual core chip will use both the CPU liscenses on Windows 2000 Pro.
Of course with Server there's nothing to worry about, you can't put more than 4 cores in a 2xx setup yet anyway.
Though similar (but not as severe) scheduling issues exist with 2000 since it will attempt to balance the 4 cores in a dual 265 setup as individuals, so it will only balance load on cores, not CPUs. Not as bad as with HT where all the work got dumped to one physical CPU (two logical CPU) and the second was laregly idle since both cores are full fledged CPUs, but it still won't care about balancing memory and I/O access between the sockets.

Windows XP was written with HT in mind so it does properly recognize mutlicore chips, and you can run an HT or dual core chip on home, or two of them on Pro.
You can run a dual core chip on 2000 Pro, you can certainly do it on 2000 Server, but an XP Pro license would be a bit better if you go to a dual CPU dual core setup.
 
Elios said:
MS said when dual core came out that thay will only count the actul CPU not the number of core IE you can run a dual core on XP Home just fine server is the same way
Click to expand...

2000 was around long before HT and Dual cores were available.
 
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