Dual-proc Gaming Rig

GoHack

Gawd
Joined
Jul 14, 2002
Messages
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I just built a brand new system using the MSI K7D-L (red) m/b w/bios r1.8, using dual MP2600+'s w/the Barton Core (L2=512K).

It runs w/o any problems, including the installed ATI 9800Pro video and Creative Audigy sound cards, as well as the 1024 Mb Corsair XMS (non-registered) DDR.

I've run the games Anarchy Online- Shadowlands and Star Wars Galaxies, at the same time running two SETI clients, one assigned to each processor, w/o any problems.
 
Good to know :)
I ordered a MSI K7D L and 2 MPs 2400+
I'll post my experiences as soon as I get them to work...
 
Originally posted by CIWS
I like the Gigabyte board pretty well for a couple of reasons.
1. it seems to run the newer Barton cores just fine.
I can confirm this firsthand.
I modded 2 Barton 2500+'s (XPs) into MP's (L5 mod) and overclocked them to 2.2Ghz on the Gigabyte board..
Linkage

Also if you ever plan on using a "large" heatsink or waterblock that needs the 4 mounting holes the Tyan does not have them, but the MSI and gigabyte does
 
when yousay yet.


Your machine will be outdated and youll be on 2-3 other machiens before games will ever use 2cpu's.

game developers cant even make stable games at launch lets not even get them to code for 2cpus.

dual cpus for gaming is a long time off.
 
The MPX chipset has terrible memory bandwidth. I have Dual Athlon MP2100, PC2100 1024MB ECC Reg 2-2-2-5, and a Radeon 9700 Pro. I get 12000 3D Mark 2001's. It just kinda sucks for games.
 
duals are not the best thing for games, but most will play them great (not all of us need the most fps) i know i have hosted and played great games on my dual amp setup (see sigs for specs) and for when i travle to lans i take my p4c 3.0ghz (oc to ~4ghz) and it will host and i will play on it fine.


but with HT becoming more and more main stream, i think it will push the game coders to make the newer games multi threaded, even if all they do is push the audio and or AI to the other cpu (real or virtual) it will help out some.
 
Originally posted by Filter
when yousay yet.


Your machine will be outdated and youll be on 2-3 other machiens before games will ever use 2cpu's.

game developers cant even make stable games at launch lets not even get them to code for 2cpus.

dual cpus for gaming is a long time off.

I thought the Q3 engine could sucessfully use 2 cpu's?
 
The MPX chipset has terrible memory bandwidth. I have Dual Athlon MP2100, PC2100 1024MB ECC Reg 2-2-2-5, and a Radeon 9700 Pro. I get 12000 3D Mark 2001's. It just kinda sucks for games.

Terrible when compared to the latest generation of chipsets. Remember, the MPX chipset is 3 years old.

While the memory performance is falling behind, the processor performance is keeping pretty good pace.

When it comes down to the real processing, I can run two SETI clients, one assigned to each processor in 2-3 hrs on my K7D-L w/it's dual MP2600+'s. My 3.0 GHz P4 does one client in the same amount of time. That's not bad as I see it. In fact I'm processing two SETI clients for every one on the P4, w/the K7D-L.

With the K7D-L 4x AGP slot vs. today's 8x standard, my ATI 9800Pro, o/c'd to that of a 9800XT (412/730), gets me a 3DMark 2001 of 12,772. When playing Anarchy Online and Star Wars Galaxies, it works just fine w/the graphics set for even the best visual.

Of course it would be nice to see some updated drivers from AMD for their chipset. The available ones are well over three years old now. I can't believe that they are perfect.
 
GoHack

why are you running with your HT off on the 2.4c? and or if it is on, why only one instance of seti?
 
Originally posted by Frosty_axe
I thought the Q3 engine could sucessfully use 2 cpu's?


minorly and when you do use 2 you lose performance.
 
Originally posted by GoHack
Of course it would be nice to see some updated drivers from AMD for their chipset. The available ones are well over three years old now. I can't believe that they are perfect.

True enough, but I'm betting AMD has tweaked their driver set for stability over sheer performance. Plus now with the dawning of Opteron I'll doubt we'll see too much more effort toward the Dual Athlon platform.
 
why are you running with your HT off on the 2.4c? and or if it is on, why only one instance of seti?

At the moment I'm running ClimatePrediction on the P4 and SETI on the K7D-L.

With ClimatePrediction, you are only assigned one client to your email address, so downloading more than one isn't possible, unless you have a second email address, so I'm running it on the P4.

As for running w/HT activated on the P4, for some reason, the processing of the ClimatePrediction client slows down a little w/it on. I don't know about SETI, I haven't tried it. As for assigning a SETI client to it, remember HT does not run like a full second processor, so running an assigned SETI client on HT would be slower than on a separate individual processor.

I understand that ClimatePrediction is being rewritten in order to utilize the upcoming BOINC standard, or core, which supports multiprocessing. A new SETI client is in beta right now which supports BOINC and should be publicly released any day now.
 
Originally posted by Frosty_axe
I thought the Q3 engine could sucessfully use 2 cpu's?
id coded q3 for duals, but along the lines it was neutered in a patch, to where now its doable, but it takes a performance hit.
 
Originally posted by GoHack
At the moment I'm running ClimatePrediction on the P4 and SETI on the K7D-L.

With ClimatePrediction, you are only assigned one client to your email address, so downloading more than one isn't possible, unless you have a second email address, so I'm running it on the P4.

As for running w/HT activated on the P4, for some reason, the processing of the ClimatePrediction client slows down a little w/it on. I don't know about SETI, I haven't tried it. As for assigning a SETI client to it, remember HT does not run like a full second processor, so running an assigned SETI client on HT would be slower than on a separate individual processor.

I understand that ClimatePrediction is being rewritten in order to utilize the upcoming BOINC standard, or core, which supports multiprocessing. A new SETI client is in beta right now which supports BOINC and should be publicly released any day now.


i run 2 instances of seti on my p4 2.6c it only adds an hour to the time so in reality you put out more units by running 2 instances of it on 1 cpu.
 
Originally posted by GoHack
I understand that ClimatePrediction is being rewritten in order to utilize the upcoming BOINC standard, or core, which supports multiprocessing. A new SETI client is in beta right now which supports BOINC and should be publicly released any day now.
Yes, you’re completely correct. Aside from CPDN, I think Folding@Home is another DC project that is going to use BOINC as platform. And that is exactly what it is: BOINC being the platform to manage DC projects and the various DC projects are just treated as ‘applications’. The beauty of BOINC is that you can run multiple projects on the same machine, if you’ve multiple logical CPU! You can have CPDN, SETI/Autopulse and F@H and you just allocate the CPU resources on your preference.

The BOINC public beta project is going well and each release of the platform has better support, more bugs fixed and fewer new problems. It’s not perfect yet, but at the rate they’re going, I think we’re looking at it going ‘gold’ in early February! :D
 
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