For those who care... some experience I've had with cheap dual processor systems: I recently (a few months ago) bought an Asus P2B-DS (and two PII 350's). The board was defective so it had to go back to Asus. They sent a replacement after about two weeks, and since then I've had no problems whatsoever. It is very stable and I've only rebooted for kernel upgrades. I think having the Adaptec on board is a good deal -- cheaper than buying an Ultra-2 adapter separately, and it leaves an extra PCI slot free. So, I'd recommend the P2B-DS over the P2B-D. Besides the arrival of PIII, I think the rumor that Intel will soon (next year?) phase out slot 1 motherboards is driving PII's price down. PII 400's are now available retail boxed for under $200. I'm putting together another server so last week I bought a Supermicro P6DBU because, not only does it have the Adaptec Ultra-2 on board (like the ASUS), but it also has a slot for a RAID adapter, which might come in handy. I have yet to test this board, but send me mail directly if you want to hear how it goes. happy pprocessing, chipd PFENNIGER Daniel wrote: > > Hi, > > On 28-Jun-99 at 19:34, Shane Miller ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: > > > i am getting a SMP linux RH5.2 system. i initially was seeking > > a dual pentiumII ASUS board in the 233Mhz-266Mhz range with 128MB. > > i thought i should get these PIIs with 512KB L2 cache. and then > > three quickie questions presented themselves: > > > > 1. according to a techie at a store i visited, a dual pentium 90 > > is plenty fast. he said there's no need to go up to PIIs and > > his dual P90 out performed a faster dual PII mother board running > > NT. this was a networking box. i will be writing CAD/CAM software. > > i think this guy could be right for network bound apps but that > > for CAD/CAM PIIs would be appropriate. would you concur? > > Don't believe the techie, he is comparing apples with oranges. > My recommendation would be rather to take a monoprocessor above > the 233 MHz range instead of a dual P90, definitively (P90 are obsolete > 5-6 year old procs, soon it will be difficult to find processors > below 300 Mhz). You will appreciate a dual processors only if you are > often running interactive multi-threaded applications or several > applications simultaneously that keep about one proc busy. > > > 2. since the FAQ says ASUS SMP boards have (almost) no known problems, > > i checked out their website. problem is all dual (or quad) MBs > > are discontinued. so were can i get one? > > ?? check > http://www.asus.com/products/Specs/MB/p2b-d2-Spec.asp > (and others) are still advertised. > > > 3. if i get a quad-processor MB do i need to put a CPU into each > > socket to run linux? i mean, if i'm cheap i might only put 1 or 2 > > CPUs right off the start. > > Yes, it works. But it is not very useful to buy now hardware that > won't be used for over a year. Typically if one doesn't upgrade > a computer by a substantial factor (say 2) within a year, it is > rarely useful to upgrade. Better buy now just what you need, > and with the saved money buy new, cheaper hardware later. > > Dan > - > Linux SMP list: FIRST see FAQ at http://www.irisa.fr/prive/mentre/smp-faq/ > To Unsubscribe: send "unsubscribe linux-smp" to [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Linux SMP list: FIRST see FAQ at http://www.irisa.fr/prive/mentre/smp-faq/ To Unsubscribe: send "unsubscribe linux-smp" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
