Dualies? Really 2 for 1?

[surrealchereal]

Is it that complicated to set one up? Why do people have them?
Is it just for speed or are you getting 2 boards for the price of one?
Would someone tell me why they love theirs and would never go back to a single processor board?
Do they do more than just go faster?

[NDC]

Is it that complicated to set one up?

It's about as complicated as setting up a uni-processor system.. Nothing special..


Is it just for speed or are you getting 2 boards for the price of one?

SPEED! A dual mainboard will not cost you double in most cases unless it has on-board SCSI, LAN, etc. The price is about 50% higher on SMP mainboards vs. uni-processor mainboards...


Why do people have them?

Because dual processor systems perform much better under multi-tasking environments vs. a uni-processor system. Many people that have dual processor systems are either, running it as a server, dedicated workstation, or file server... One common mistake that many people make is that having a dual 1Ghz = 2Ghz performance. That's absolutely incorrect. Even a program such as Photoshop which supports SMP will not give you 2Ghz performance, perhaps about 1.7~1.8Ghz peformance at the most. However, multi-tasking is unbelieveably faster on a dual processor system vs. uni-processor systems. The reason for this is because the first process doesn't have to complete until the next process is executed... For example, when I run a heavy process on my 1.4Ghz uni-procesor system, the system hangs when I execute the next process since the first process is talking away processor time. However, even a measly dual 550Mhz, this is not the case. The first processor will continue to work on the first process and the second processor will just kick in (the second processor will share the second process if it was processing an SMP application(s))... People who say that buying a dual processor system is a waste of money because not many application support SMP is all BS. NT, Win2k, XP Pro, the OS itself supports SMP, therefore you can take advantage... People who have actually used, not just heard about multi-processing will agree with me 101%. ;) But if you plan on using this system as a game rig, getting a single processor at high clockspeeds will give you much better performance since most games are not coded to take advantage of more than a single processor. It doesn't matter if you have dual 2Ghz processors since the game will only run at 2Ghz and the other processor will just sit there and veg... LOL :D For a DC kinda person that you are, you could really take advantage using a multi-processor system.



Would someone tell me why they love theirs and would never go back to a single processor board?



Great site for more info (http://www.2cpu.com/smp-faq.htm)

[surrealchereal]

Thanks NDC :)

But if you plan on using this system as a game rig :D I need to have my head examined! I try oh I do try, and I'm fragged so fast my head spins..:lol:

Now distributed computing is a whole different ballgame hee hee maybe it would be a gaming rig for me! :D
That's my kind of competition! :p

[SalaTar]

Just so you know,
If you run a dual sys.Count your Advance Transfer Cache(512k,1k,2k)use the same amount of Memory in mb for each CPU.(IE 2-500 p3 512 KB Advance Transfer Cache =1024 meg mem. )

[BBA]

People who have actually used, not just heard about multi-processing will agree with me 101%


How about 200% from me...

[Pshawn5]

forget duallies!!!

i want this! :jaw:



http://www.extremedc.com/images/stompmonster.jpg

[Pshawn5]

This is a Seti cruncher the boys over at OC UK are putting together 10-XP1700's with more to come

edit: thanks goes to randy48 for showing me this... am i jealous ? HELL YEAH! :D

[NDC]

Well, all the processors aren't working together as one though... DC, SETI, etc would be good for it, but not for SMP applications...

[surrealchereal]

Hmm, My cousin is a tech director for a product that is 8 boards thick. It's for TCAS which is Airborne Collision Avoidance System..

I never pictured it to look anything like that tho! :eek: :D :D

[Viper446]

What about a really big L*nuxCluster?

look at this - hardcore clustering (http://www.tu-chemnitz.de/urz/anwendungen/CLIC/index.php3?lang=en)

[NDC]

Hey, glad you could drop by my part of town, Viper446! :)

[madfish]

surreal, wait till you try seti cmd line client on a dually with seti driver, it rocks..........