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Dual Opteron build finished. (Several images.)

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... don't go check pricing on Opterons this week. The 246 just dropped by about $200 apiece. Doh!

I'm waiting for the new Iwill motherboard to be released and I'll pull the trigger.
 
Yeah, saw that.... sigh

I'm not too ticked, though. It happens everytime.... :)
jpm121 said:
... don't go check pricing on Opterons this week. The 246 just
dropped by about $200 apiece. Doh!

I'm waiting for the new Iwill motherboard to be released and I'll
pull the trigger.
Click to expand...
 
jpm121 said:
... don't go check pricing on Opterons this week. The 246 just
dropped by about $200 apiece. Doh!
Click to expand...
Well I am not an early adopter of the fastest hardware available but the best hardware for the money.

I purchased the Opteron 240 processors and they haven't dropped in price since I purchased them. So I don't feel anything but good about my decision. Anyone that would pay $600-800 for a processor is not thinking straight .

I paid $223 for each of my two retail packaged (included heatsink, fan) Opteron 240 processors. Since Windows 64 will release later this year at earliest buying Opteron 246 cpus is just a waste. I will use my 240s for the next year and when Windows 64 is released and all the bugs worked out THEN I may consider the higher performing Opteron 246s (or higher) processors WHICH will have dropped at least $400 or more by that time.

Buying the latest and greatest is a losing strategy all the way. My own strategy above is by far the wisest route in my opinion when building a custom pc system. You can have an incredibly stable, high performance system and then upgrade the cpus down the road when the prices drop. It just doesn't make sense to do it any other way unless you're B.G.

Best regards,

Tony B.
[email protected]
http://www.concertshooter.com

 
my, my, my.... aren't we special? I have no regrets over purchasing the 246's. I needed the system right away, and wasn't willing to settle for less than dual 2GHz's. It fit my needs, and will continue to do so well into the next couple of years. Why bother spending $200 or $300 a piece now, then doing the same thing again in a year or so? As far as I'm concerned, I got what I needed right the FIRST time. And it's STILL incredibly stable, AND high performance. So if that means I'm not thinking straight , well, I guess I'll live with that.
Concert Shooter said:
jpm121 said:
... don't go check pricing on Opterons this week. The 246 just
dropped by about $200 apiece. Doh!
Click to expand...
Well I am not an early adopter of the fastest hardware available
but the best hardware for the money.

I purchased the Opteron 240 processors and they haven't dropped in
price since I purchased them. So I don't feel anything but good
about my decision. Anyone that would pay $600-800 for a processor
is not thinking straight .

I paid $223 for each of my two retail packaged (included heatsink,
fan) Opteron 240 processors. Since Windows 64 will release later
this year at earliest buying Opteron 246 cpus is just a waste. I
will use my 240s for the next year and when Windows 64 is released
and all the bugs worked out THEN I may consider the higher
performing Opteron 246s (or higher) processors WHICH will have
dropped at least $400 or more by that time.

Buying the latest and greatest is a losing strategy all the way. My
own strategy above is by far the wisest route in my opinion when
building a custom pc system. You can have an incredibly stable,
high performance system and then upgrade the cpus down the road
when the prices drop. It just doesn't make sense to do it any other
way unless you're B.G.

Best regards,

Tony B.
[email protected]
http://www.concertshooter.com

Click to expand...
 
JohnW@VDS said:
my, my, my.... aren't we special? I have no regrets over purchasing
the 246's. I needed the system right away, and wasn't willing to
settle for less than dual 2GHz's. It fit my needs, and will
continue to do so well into the next couple of years. Why bother
spending $200 or $300 a piece now, then doing the same thing again
in a year or so? As far as I'm concerned, I got what I needed right
the FIRST time.
Click to expand...
That's exactly the point in the single vs. dual CPU discussion earlier in this thread. It's about slow twin vs fast single, not fast twin vs fast single per se. Tony still hasn't got it...
JohnW@VDS said:
And it's STILL incredibly stable, AND high
performance. So if that means I'm not thinking straight ,
well, I guess I'll live with that.
Concert Shooter said:
jpm121 said:
... don't go check pricing on Opterons this week. The 246 just
dropped by about $200 apiece. Doh!
Click to expand...
Well I am not an early adopter of the fastest hardware available
but the best hardware for the money.

I purchased the Opteron 240 processors and they haven't dropped in
price since I purchased them. So I don't feel anything but good
about my decision. Anyone that would pay $600-800 for a processor
is not thinking straight .

I paid $223 for each of my two retail packaged (included heatsink,
fan) Opteron 240 processors. Since Windows 64 will release later
this year at earliest buying Opteron 246 cpus is just a waste. I
will use my 240s for the next year and when Windows 64 is released
and all the bugs worked out THEN I may consider the higher
performing Opteron 246s (or higher) processors WHICH will have
dropped at least $400 or more by that time.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
AMD would probably have moved the whole thing to Socket 939 platform by then. There might not be Opteron 246 around you can plug into your current mother board.
JohnW@VDS said:
JohnW@VDS said:
[...]
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
Andy
 
It's similar to the DK8X with the eadditon of AGP, USB 2.0 on the mainboard, and supposedly supports PCI/AGP lock for ease of overclocking. None of the others on the market right now have the specific feature set I'm looking for.
 
JohnW@VDS said:
my, my, my.... aren't we special? I have no regrets over purchasing
the 246's. I needed the system right away, and wasn't willing to
settle for less than dual 2GHz's. It fit my needs, and will
continue to do so well into the next couple of years. Why bother
spending $200 or $300 a piece now, then doing the same thing again
in a year or so? As far as I'm concerned, I got what I needed right
the FIRST time. And it's STILL incredibly stable, AND high
performance. So if that means I'm not thinking straight ,
well, I guess I'll live with that.
Click to expand...
I wasn't criticizing you or anyone else. I was only commenting on what I thought about spending too much on the fastest processor on the market at a given time. I'm sorry you took personal offence to my statements. It was not my intent.

That said, I can't think of anything you need to do that couldn't be done with dual Opteron 240s. The 240s running under a 64bit operating system with 64bit graphics or video applications should be more than I would ever need in terms of performance. The ONLY reason I built my new system is that my old motherboard had died. I would still be running dual P3 500s if that hadn't happened.

Current benchmarks between Intel's multi-threading cpus and AMD's (in either single or dual configuration) 64bit cpus running under 32bit operating systems using 32bit applications will be completely irrelevent when Windows 64 releases later this year. No 32bit cpu currently on the market will be able to hold a candle to my dual Opteron 240 system running under Windows 64 with 64bit applications.

I built my system with an eye toward the future performance increase under Windows 64.

Here's hoping we can continue any discussion on these forums in a civil and adult manner. I'll do my part.

Best regards,

Tony B.
[email protected]
http://www.concertshooter.com

 
No offense taken, probably shouldn't respond so late at night. My apologies. I chose the 246's because I needed (okay, wanted) the biggest bang I could get right now for extensive 3D and video production. Since my upgrade cycle is so long, I wanted something that's still gonna pop when the next generation OS's come out, without having to upgrade again. Yes, I'm sure there was some testosterone and chest-beating involved in my decision, but I'm confident in my decision and am sure that it'll serve me well for at least a few years. :)
Concert Shooter said:
JohnW@VDS said:
my, my, my.... aren't we special? I have no regrets over purchasing
the 246's. I needed the system right away, and wasn't willing to
settle for less than dual 2GHz's. It fit my needs, and will
continue to do so well into the next couple of years. Why bother
spending $200 or $300 a piece now, then doing the same thing again
in a year or so? As far as I'm concerned, I got what I needed right
the FIRST time. And it's STILL incredibly stable, AND high
performance. So if that means I'm not thinking straight ,
well, I guess I'll live with that.
Click to expand...
I wasn't criticizing you or anyone else. I was only commenting on
what I thought about spending too much on the fastest processor on
the market at a given time. I'm sorry you took personal offence to
my statements. It was not my intent.

That said, I can't think of anything you need to do that couldn't
be done with dual Opteron 240s. The 240s running under a 64bit
operating system with 64bit graphics or video applications should
be more than I would ever need in terms of performance. The ONLY
reason I built my new system is that my old motherboard had died. I
would still be running dual P3 500s if that hadn't happened.

Current benchmarks between Intel's multi-threading cpus and AMD's
(in either single or dual configuration) 64bit cpus running under
32bit operating systems using 32bit applications will be completely
irrelevent when Windows 64 releases later this year. No 32bit cpu
currently on the market will be able to hold a candle to my dual
Opteron 240 system running under Windows 64 with 64bit
applications.

I built my system with an eye toward the future performance
increase under Windows 64.

Here's hoping we can continue any discussion on these forums in a
civil and adult manner. I'll do my part.

Best regards,

Tony B.
[email protected]
http://www.concertshooter.com

Click to expand...
 
--
Tom

'The opportunity to catch your images and fulfill your visions is today, not tomorrow.' (quote from Bjørn Rørslett)

--------------------------
pbase supporter
 
Maybe need to turn on in BIOS or Set XP for duals???
JohnW@VDS said:
Just finished the build on my monster, after a month or more of
research and agonizing over which parts to use. I ended up with the
following:

MSI/VIA Master-2 FAR K8T800 Dual CPU Mobo
2x AMD Opteron 246 (2GHz ea.) CPU's
4x 512MB Buffalo ECC Registered PC2700 DIMMS
2x Seagate 200GB HDD's (IDE 7200RPM)
Matrox Parhelia 128MB Triple Display 4x AGP
Lite-On Dual Drive 8X DVD+R, 4X DVD+RW, 4X DVD-R, 2X DVD-RW, 40X
CD-R, 24X CD-RW
3x ViewSonic G90fb 19" Monitors

This system is a screamer!! Maya, Photoshop, After Effects, and
Premiere all run like an ape! The only problem I've come across is
getting a few games to work with the Parhelia. I knew going into it
that it's not a gaming card, so it's not that big of a deal. Other
than that, I couldn't be happier!

When I get time, I'll get some pics posted. :)
Click to expand...
 
Tony Boone said:
Finally have my new workstation built, all software installed and
running very well.

Here's the Tyan 2875anrf motherboard mounted on the case pan and
Opterons still in their boxes:





1 GB (2 pcs 512) DDR 400 PC-3200 REG ECC Corsair
(TwinX1024RE-3200LLPT) memory mounted to board:



Opterons mounted on motherboard:



CPUs, memory and all cards mounted to motherboard and ready for the
case:



Workstation built and ready for the operating system:



(Yes it could be prettier with newer round scsi and ide cables but
I can't see spending the money on those since the old ones still
work just fine.)

I used the 3 18.4gig Seagate Barracuda U2W scsi drives that were in
my previous workstation. Also have an IBM Deskstar 120gig drive
that I use for storage and video capture.

Front of workstation with Audigy2 Platinum breakout box and Ye-Data
7in1 floppy drive-card reader:



Used the same DVD drive and burner I had in my old system.

Rear of workstation with various ports:



Operating system on (WinXP) showing Windows Explorer and system
drive configuration (Note the ramdisk which I use for all temp
files):



Windows XP taskmanager. CPUs hardly notice the 36 processes running
at the time this image was taken:



There is an obvious improvement when using various graphics apps
including Photoshop, Nikon View and Nikon Capture. Images open
much, much faster and all processing time is greatly reduced as
would be expected.

Takes less than 2 seconds to open a 10mb .nef (raw) file in Capture
and be ready to edit. The same goes for Photoshop where applying a
filter takes but a second or two depending on the filter used.

I only have my old setup which was a dual Intel P3 500 system with
1.5 gigs of ram with which to compare the new one.

I can assure you all that I am one happy camper and am glad I chose
the dual Opteron configuration over Intel for the new workstation.

If anyone has any questions I'll be happy to answer them if I can.

Best regards,

Tony B.
Click to expand...
 
Count along with us... One CPU, Two CPUs!!!

(we're looking at the graph to the right of the % utilization box - it doesn't show a % box for each CPU.

:)
 
Actually, running a properly written multithreaded app vs a single threaded app can show enormous speed gains. Breezebrowser (single threaded) vs C1DSLR (heavily multithreaded) is a great example. In test I performed while reviewing a Tyan Thunder K8W I go the following results:

10 RAW photos to JPEGs.
WB: As Shot
Contrast: Normal
Saturation: Normal
Post Processing: USM (.3/.7)

Breezebrowser 2.7c
Dual Opteron System**
4 min 34 sec = 27.4 sec/photo

C1DSLR Pro 1.2
Dual Opteron System**
2 min 51 sec = 17.1 sec/photo

Dual Opertron config:
Tyan Thunder K8W motherboard
AMD Opteron 242's (x2)
2 GB PC2700 ECC SDRAM
PNY QuadroFX 2000 video card
LSI Logic MegaRAID 500 w/144MB U320 SCSI RAID 5 Array
bosie said:
of course they are faster, thats not the point. i pay 200$ for a
single cpu+motherboard, almost 700$ for a dualcpu+motherboard. that
would mean i have to gain at least 2,5x faster environemnt, which i
highly doubt (and reviews prove my view of things too)

regards
thomas
Click to expand...
--
Don't anthropomorphize digital cameras. They don't like it.
http://gallery.echenique.com/carlos
Carlos
 
ApostolicFire said:
Tony Boone said:
ApostolicFire said:
I recently built 2 Opteron servers (and I used Tyan S2882
motherboards) for work and they are pretty nice. :) I noticed
something on your setup that is not configured properly. The
Opteron is capable of running with dual channel memory for each
processor, so you'd really need 4 sticks of memory (maybe use 4x256
if you can return that memory). Right now you have it configured in
single-channel. (Each processor has one blue slot and one black
slot) If you just wanted to add two more sticks of RAM (using the
same type of memory of course), put the RAM on the inner blue slot
to the inner black slot since those two sticks are matched RAM.
Then the other two sticks of RAM that you get (if you wanted to do
this option) is put one stick on the inner blue slot and the other
stick on the outer blue slot. Did that make sense?

If not, let me do this:

=====================

=====================

=====================

=====================

(your motherboard might have CPU1 as slot 1 and 2 and CPU2 as slot
3 and 4, but either way, having all four slots filled will give you
best performance)
Click to expand...
Shad had pointed out the same thing in an above post also. Thanks
for your explanation.

I repositioned the memory and put them in slots 1 and 3. I've
noticed an incredible difference in making that change.

Yes I'll purchase another 1gig of memory in a month or two but
right now what I have is more than adequate for my needs.

Thanks to the both of your for pointing this configuration error
out to me.

Best regards,

Tony B.
[email protected]
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
the double graph next to the % usage shows the activity of the 2 CPU's ;)
jpm121 said:
jpm121 wrote:
Count along with us... One CPU, Two CPUs!!!

(we're looking at the graph to the right of the % utilization box -
it doesn't show a % box for each CPU.

:)
Click to expand...
 
Michael Klar said:
I've followed this thread with interest and hope someone can answer
the pagefile size question.
Click to expand...
I'm suprised some IT guy lurking here hasn't answered the pagefile question before now :)

The pagefile.sys is a cache of the physical memory. It's purpose is to allow the system to free up RAM by temporally storing data, that is in the memory (RAM) but not currently being used. So in practice...the more apps you have running... the more data gets swapped to the hard drive making your pagefile a busy little demon.

It's safe to assume that your pagefile can be as much as 1.5 times your installed memory. That should be taken into account when managing HD space. If your pagefile were to be configured to a drive that has less space than you have physical memory then you are prone to performance issues.
For example:

You have your pagefile configured to reside on your system partition (let's assume it's "C:" ).
You have 1GB of RAM installed.
Your C: drive has 250MB of free space.

Okay...we're gonna run into perf issues here. The pagefile will want to grow as much as necessary to cache physical memory during memory intensive operations (which is just about everything in Photoshop) or when more than a few programs are running at once. But at the most it can only grow to 250MB (being simple here on purpose). That means at least 750MB of your RAM will be locked down since it has no where to go. That leaves only 250MB of memory that can be free'd up on demand to be utilized by your memory intensive app (Photoshop). This is completely ignoring any other process (we're talking about other programs which also includes the Operating System (e.g. XP) that might need a burst of free memory from time to time.

Idealy...we have a pagefile that is configured bigger than our installed memory (apx 1.5x RAM). Meaning it must reside on a drive that can donate that amount of space to the cause.

So....the $64,000 question: Could the pagefile be configured to reside on a RAMDISk?
Answer: Nope...well maybe, but you wouldn't you receive any benefit.

The RAMDISK resides in physical memory. The pagefile is a temp file for the physical memory. It would be the same thing as just yanking out some mem sticks if you were to do this. e.g. 1GB RAM...500MB RAMDISK...leaving 500MB of RAM left for everybody else to use. That 500MB will be caching itself to itself (the other 500MB you devoted to the RAMDISK) to free up room in the 500MB chunk that all other processes are using. The end result would be as if you were running with only 500MB of total space. Kind of like a dog chasing its tail.

Best practice:

Make sure at the minimum there is enough free space to account for 1.5x RAM (500MB RAM == 1500MB free hd space for pagefile usage).

Put the pagefile on a disk that is on a different bus or different channel from the one where your Operating system is installed if at all possible since the drive with the pagefile will be grinding pretty heavy during memory intensive actions. This cuts down on arbitration issues regarding drive access.

Sorry for the long essay...I hope it helps somebody though.

-Flamestar

P.S.

In the daytime I am a Software Test Engineer...which means I know a heck of a lot more about software than I know about photography unfortunately. But that's why I'm here...to learn from those who know :)
 
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