Yummy!

agrikk

Gawd
Joined
Apr 16, 2002
Messages
933
A screeny of my new dually Xeon 3.06GHz (Dude! You're getting a Dell!):

dual-xeon.jpg


2x 3.06GHz Xeon
2GB RAM
2x 18GB U-320 15k rpm Drives (Mirrored)
3x 36GB U-320 10krpm Drives (Raid-5)


You better believe this guy is folding! :D

Agrikk
 
i still prefer real 4-way as opposed to watered-down-with-HT :D :D :D but nice nonetheless
 
No kidding, real four-way would be so nice. Who wouldn't prefer that? :D
 
agrikk said:
A screeny of my new dually Xeon 3.06GHz (Dude! You're getting a Dell!):

dual-xeon.jpg


2x 3.06GHz Xeon
2GB RAM
2x 18GB U-320 15k rpm Drives (Mirrored)
3x 36GB U-320 10krpm Drives (Raid-5)
Darn!! That's MY rig!!! :D
 
Umm why is the faster Intel Pro 1000 network adaptor disabled, and the two slower Broadcom ones running?

==>Lazn
 
Lazn_Work said:
Umm why is the faster Intel Pro 1000 network adaptor disabled, and the two slower Broadcom ones running?

==>Lazn

Slower? All three are gigabit. How can one be slower than another?
 
agrikk said:
All three are gigabit. How can one be slower than another?

Depends. The Intel adapter is built into the motherboard, so it might have a direct connection into the northbridge. The other cards have to sit on some version of the PCI bus, and will have different limitations depending on this connection (are they 32- or 64-bit PCI cards, do they run on a 33, 66, or 133mhz bus speed, are they on seperate busses or do they share the bandwidth of a single bus, etc.).
 
agrikk said:
Slower? All three are gigabit. How can one be slower than another?
Also depends on if the other Gigabit adapters have their own processor like the Pro 1000 series, or if they steal CPU power to work.
 
That's quite an interesting read. I never would have thunk that NICs have different performance characteristics, but then again, after giving it any thought, it makes perfect sense.

Why wouldn't gigE adapters have different performance charcteristics? I mean everything else about computers does so why would nics be any different? :D
 
Hey, I've got one of those too!:

work5.jpg


Mine is mostly an Intel machine:
Dual Xeons at 3.02 GHz on an Intel SE7505VB2 motherboard with 2G Crucial ECC
Intel SC5250 server housing with hot-swap SATA bay
Four Western Digital 74G Raptors in RAID 10 with 3Ware Escalade 8506
Dual Viewsonic VP171s on a Matrox Parhelia 256M
M-Audio Audiophile 2496 connected via coaxial to Denon AVR-1604 with five Mirage OmniSat Micros and a Mirage LF100 sub
 
Lazn_Work said:
Umm why is the faster Intel Pro 1000 network adaptor disabled, and the two slower Broadcom ones running?
==>Lazn
I bet the broadcom's are built into the board. They do have their own processors. And i bet the intel is a 64bit PCI card.

I'll post my Precision 450 tomorrow :)
 
all onboard nics are PCI even if they are on the northbridge, they still have to connect onto a bus, same with onboard sound ide raid etc, all goes to pci
 
FLECOM said:
all onboard nics are PCI even if they are on the northbridge, they still have to connect onto a bus, same with onboard sound ide raid etc, all goes to pci

Yep with the only exception so far the CSA Intel Gigabit NICs.

(PCI is handled by the southbridge on a Intel Chipset, and the CSA connection goes to the northbridge, via a 13bit 266Mbytes/sec bus, see:http://www.intel.com/design/network/products/lan/controllers/82547ei.htm though it is probably sill similar to PCI, I am not sure of it's signaling characteristics. )

==>Lazn
 
just because it goes to the pci bus doesn't mean its oging to be slow, unless you're talking pci-32 specifically. Tyan's board usually go through the pci-x if they have it, so you've got more than enough band width.
 
the major difference between onboard nics and pci nics is really the cpu usage though. As far as getting more bandwidth out of a nic card things like hard drive throughput and what not can also be a limiting factor as well.

However I didnt know about that whole csa to northbridge thing that sounds like a pretty smart idea from intel
 
DemonDiablo said:
the major difference between onboard nics and pci nics is really the cpu usage though. As far as getting more bandwidth out of a nic card things like hard drive throughput and what not can also be a limiting factor as well.

However I didnt know about that whole csa to northbridge thing that sounds like a pretty smart idea from intel

A good PCI nic has less CPU usage than a bad onboard nic.

As FLECOM said, onboard nics ARE PCI nics. (the only exception being the CSA ones)

http://www.sudhian.com/showdocs.cfm?aid=539

"CPU usage is universally higher at the small packet sizes and lower at the larger ones. Both NV250GB and Intel Pro/1000 MT hit their lowest CPU usage points at 16K, and both rise slightly thereafter—NVIDIA from 50% at 16K to 60% at 64K, MT from 30 – 35% at the same points. The Realtek 8110S actually turns in the best CPU usage at 64K packet sizes of all the AMD platform integrated solutions, but its performance relative to its usage is sorely lacking when compared to NV250, which manages three times the bandwidth with only 10% more CPU power.

Again Intel’s PCI-based card compares well here. Although it offers only 48% the raw throughput of NV250GB, it uses only 58% as much CPU power. Obviously if throughput is what you want at whatever CPU cost, its not a good deal, but for a good balance between the two it’s an attractive proposition."

See a Intel PCI nic has LESS cpu usage than a onboard Nvidia nic.

==>Lazn
 
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