Re: Fedora SMP dual core, dual AMD 64 processor system

[Richard Emberson <remberson@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Bryan, your article was very interesting. Before one buys a motherboard 
one would
like to see its the system component interconnect architecture diagram 
(as appears
in your article) just to make sure they are not cutting corners, etc.

Can I assume that Figure 7 in the article is the Tyan S2895? The system
component interconnect architecture shown in Figure 7 looks like just what I
want.

Thanks

Richard


Bryan J. Smith wrote:

> Gene Czarcinski <gene@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>  
>
> > I purchased a Athlon64 X2 4400+ and an ABIT AN8 SLI
> > motherboard from http://www.monarchcomputer.com/
> > 1. their prices are not unreasonable
> > 2. they seem to have a good handle on what motherboards
> > work with the X2 processors
> >    
>
> Monarch Computer is AMD's #1 Tier-2/Whitebox OEM.  They get
> stuff before other people, and they know how to build boxen
> well -- at least for what is available in retail mainboards.
>
> For servers, I/O is the key.  You have to be careful with
> many mainboards because vendors cut I/O for cost in traces,
> etc...  E.g.,
>  http://www.samag.com/documents/sam0411b/0411b_f6.htm  
> [ Full article with 7 diagrams of PC design, including
> Opteron:  http://www.samag.com/documents/sam0411b/ ]
>
> The nForce4 chipset, like in the new crop of Socket-939
> solutions, are clearly desktop/workstation.  The nForce Pro
> 2200 and, optional, 2050 (2200+2050) are more
> workstation/server designed, and found in even the single
> Socket-940 Foxconn mainboard I posted.  But even then, all
> versions of the nForce series lacks PCI-X, which is a problem
> for servers right now.
>
> Because if you want server I/O, you want PCI-X right now. 
> There are very few (if any?) mainboards with a single
> Socket-940 that has a AMD8131/8132 IC for dual-channel PCI-X
> 1.0/2.0.  And even some dual-Socket-940 mainboards lack one.
>
> I was hopeful the new Broadcom/ServerWorks HT1000 chipset
> would take off.  It's a low-cost, single IC chipset with a
> single PCI-X channel -- ideal for delivering a single
> Socket-940 with decent server I/O for <$200.  Unfortunately,
> I've only seen it implemented with the HT2000
> (HT2000+HT1000), which is its optional bigger brother with
> PCIe channels on dual Socket-940 for $500+.  I might as well
> go with a nForce Pro 2200+2050 + AMD8131 like the Tyan S2895
> instead for the same price.
>
> Although PCIe is definitely good for storage and other I/O as
> well as video, the only "intelligent" RAID storage controller
> I know of for PCIe is the LSI Logic MegaRaid 320-2E
> (2-channel U320, PCIe x8 card).  It's actually using the
> IOP332 which is a "hack" of the IOP331 with a PCI-X to PCIe
> bridge (not ideal).
>
> Now there are some PCIe cards "in the works."  A new series
> of RAID cards should show up using the Broadcom BCM8603 soon.
> It's an 8-channel SAS (8m, 300MBps Serial Attached SCSI,
> also naturally capable of 1m, 300MBps SATA-IO**) hardware
> RAID controller that can arbitrate _directly_ to either PCI-X
> or PCIe x8 (and can even bridge between the two for more
> embedded solutions) and up to 768MB of DRAM.  It's not like
> Broadcom's current "software" driver RAIDCore PCI-X cards,
> it's a true, intelligent IC for $60 in quantity (meaning
> boards should be ~$300+).  And it's universal SAS/SATA and
> PCI-X/PCIe support makes it an "universal solution" for all
> to use.
>
> So the question is what I/O do you need now?  The Foxconn can
> definitely handle a lot of I/O, but it's only PCIe.  That's
> good for getting new PCIe x4 server NICs, but the PCIe x8
> storage NICs are virtually non-existant right now.  I'm
> hoping that changes soon with the BCM8603 IC being adopted,
> but I haven't heard a thing yet.
>
> Which means that PCI-X is probably your best bet for servers.
> The good news is that Monarch Computer _does_ have some
> older dual Socket-940 Tyan mainboards with the AMD8131 for as
> little as $300.  But whether they support the new x2
> processors, I don't know, and they probably don't.  So you're
> going to spend a bit more for them -- at least until someone
> releases a good, low-cost, single Socket-940 with the
> Broadcom HT1000 (if ever).
>
>
>  


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