budget dual cpu rendering system

[nosnarb]

I'm pretty set on using athlon mp processors...so I need a basic no frills, stable, motherboard. Not too interested in overclocking at this time but the potential is certainly there.

 

Im looking at the Gigabyte GA-7DPXDW-P motherboard

somewhere in the neighborhood of 1GB of DDR RAM

(2) Athlon MP 2400+ processors

and a codegen atx mini server case with 400W power supply.

 

Items that I already have that will/could be used complete the package:

I currently have the following 4x AGP cards in my stockpile:

 

SGI NVIDIA Quadro 64mb

ATI Fire GL 2 64mb

ATI Radeon 7000 64mb

 

I have a pair of IBM Deskstar 46.1GB 7200RPM hard drives and a ABIT Hotrod 100 pci card

 

I'll tie this together with my main desktop using a kvm switch and networked through my linksys wireless router.

 

Any thoughts/comments on the gigabyte MOBO? Any other comments/suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

I will either run win2k pro or winxp pro as the os and I do my modeling in ACAD 2005 rendering in VIZ 4 or 5

 

Thanks!

[mtutaj]

If you are set on using AMD MP processor's, you might as well get the 2800mp, since their is no upgrade for them, and the 2800's are the last model they made..

 

Greg Hess has mentioned this a couple of times on these forums

 

Mike

[nosnarb]

Sorry....bit of a noob post. at the time I was putting this together I was looking at the most bang for the buck and the 2800's didnt quite fit the bill ($'s/Ghz)

[Greg Hess]

Note that the Dual Athlon MP's are done with. There will be no chipset revisions, no processor upgrade path, no new changes.

 

The platform has been replaced with Dual Opterons. If your really caught by budget...do you really need a dual processor system? A single athlon 64 would give you much more upgradability, as well as supporting new standards like USB2, AGP 8x, etc etc.

[nosnarb]

whats the difference between the opteron, the athlon 64, and the athlon 64 fx? for a dual processor machine that will primarily be used for rendering with Viz, which of these would be ideal?

 

Thanks!!

[Greg Hess]

Athlon 64 has an onboard single DDR memory controller.

Athlon 64 FX has an onboard dual channel DDR memory controller.

Opteron has an onboard dual channel DDR memory controller, and is single, dual, and quad capable (depending on number 149, 249, 449)

[nosnarb]

And which one do you suppose AMD will support the longest? For my uses it looks like I will get the best performance/flexibility/and longevity out of an opteron.

 

Thanks for the help!!

 

Suppose I should add a new video card to my list as well?