Fedora SMP dual core, dual AMD 64 processor system

[Richard Emberson]

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 at czarc.net> 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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