Amd Opteron 250

[Elliot]

Hello,

 

To all of you following my saga on the new computer. It is fast.....! I have spent the entire weekend loading programs and doing un-scientific tests, it is definitely fast.

 

Premier and Photoshop love this new processor. I have not installed Viz. I ran the Mark (the old Mad Onion test) and the results were medium when compared to the gamer machines. I am not too sure of how to use the testing software.

 

The bottom line.... The computer is fast.....

 

Elliot

[Elliot]

Hello

 

It's a week since the computer was finished. I have now discovered that in order to fully use the Opterons you have to activate a switch on Microsoft called PAE. Activating this switch will allow the use of NUMA instructions to address the use of the memory. I really don't understand the full meaning of all these terminology, but the SiSoft Sandra and the 3DMarch benchmark results have gone up quite considerably since I activated the PAE / NUMA. Espcially the use of memory.

 

Those of you using the Opterons on Tyan K8W (S2885) motherboard, make sure you are using the motherboard Beta Bios 2.2b by Tyan. They have been in Beta stage since last June. These BIOS address the use of memory.

 

According to the benchmarks..... After the tweaking, the computer is comparable to Xeons using 3.8ghz on the use of memory. Higher than Xeons on the co-math arithmetic instructions, Lower than Xeons 3.8ghz on Multimedia..... (Games and 3d Max)

 

The machine is very fast. However, I would stick to Xeons rather than Opterons for two reasons. Intel is not really supporting these high end AMD cpu's and the motherboard manufacturers are not going after the Opterons. This may change.... but, presently it gives me the feeling of using an underdog CPU/motherboard configuration. Once again, the machine is fast... perhaps faster than what I thought it was going to be. The computer geeks trying out the Windows 64 bit beta OS are reporting some incredible speed gains. In two or three weeks I will finish the Xeon box and will the use the AMD for testing with the 64bit windows.

 

Those of you using the Tyan K8W should read the following forum:

 

http://www.abxzone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=79190&page=1&pp=15

 

One last thing, I upgraded to Windows XP Pro SP2 against the recomendations of everybody..... The Opterons are running better on SP2. No problems with any of the software. The benchmark results went higher. SP2 got rid of some anoying problems that Spy Sweeper caused to my machine when looking on web sites. I got rid of Spy Sweeper and now I am only using Ad-Aware Pro.

 

Good Luck

Elliot

[voltaire_ira]

I too installed windows xp sp2 and so far im not having any problems witrh my sogtwares esp 3ds max..internet browsing is mre relaxed since i believe the security is far better than sp1. though, i still have spy sweeper installed.im not using i. explorer thugh to browse the net, i use firefox.

 

i'm curious, will max 7 be 64 bit capable, im thinking if i'd go for amd 64's or stick with dual xeons when i upgrade later?as fars reviews are concerned, intel xeons still dominate the max users.correct me if i'm wrong about that.

[blaz]

i am using the dual opteron at the moment and have a dual xeon 2.8 aswell,

i just upgrade the opteron RAM to 1G, haven't got a change to test yet, but, compare to my dual xeon with 2G ram and my dual opteron with 512 ram. the AMD run much much faster, especially with vray and final render.

i can see alot of different in term of speed, ex; same scene take about 4 hours in xeon , and it only took 2.5 hours using the AMD.

 

so far, i love this AMD machine. my concern is, very expensive ram.

 

i havent read through the article about the BIOS on tyan yet, since i used tyan for the MB, but if it makes the even faster, that would be good.

 

cheers,

[Elliot]

John and Wimpy,

 

This Opteron machines has been easy to put together. It is certainly fast. However, I think the Xeons have an advantage. Everybody supports them. If you look at just motherboards, every board manufacturer makes several Xeon boards. The manufacturers make only one Opteron board.

 

Some of the computer geeks on the technical forums are testing some new board with PCI Express at some amazing speeds. If what is being rumored is true.... this chip may perform faster.

 

I have done all the benchmarks I could get my hands too, the Opteron 250 with at least 2gb of ram is similar in performance to the new Xeon 3.8ghz. This is only in certain parts of the test. Apparently in graphics the Xeon is supposed to be better. If it is better, then go with Xeon......!

 

Thanks

Elliot

[slawnick]

what is the difference between Xeons & regular P4 cpu's? Would a 2.8 ghz Xeon outperform the 2.8 P4?

[Elliot]

Steve,

 

I understand that Xeons will outperform the regular P4's.

 

ELliot

[fateshammer]

what is the difference between Xeons & regular P4 cpu's? Would a 2.8 ghz Xeon outperform the 2.8 P4?

They are basically one and the same creature. Same architecture, same core logic. Its just that only the Xeon is certified for multiprocessor solutions. DP Xeons for dual processor setups and MP Xeons for 4-way and above configurations.