Fedora SMP dual core, dual AMD 64 processor system

[Bryan J. Smith]

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).


-- 
Bryan J. Smith                | Sent from Yahoo Mail
mailto:b.j.smith at ieee.org     |  (please excuse any
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