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DRM? Sorry, i think you're forgetting that the only DRM installed was Windows Media Player 11, the rest is insignificant

WMP is not the only DRM encumbered application. A simple google search can show that Vista's DRM trashed the network performance regardless of playback program. An effect which most people would not consider "insignificant".

Google search

Slashdot article "Playing Music Slows Vista Network Performance?"

User's forum post

Windows 7 isn't going to fix jack, it's Vista rebranded (probably with another layer of DRM cruft since Microsoft are complete sellouts to the entertainment industry).

Thanks for the fix. I don't have vista and I believe your right. Evidence; http://forums.2cpu.com/showthread.php?t=90441 I believe most of the poll voters are running vista x64. Is Vista x32 almost as large as a x64 install (winsxs still as big?)? It's obnoxious that XP's winsucks is less than 30MB and Vista's is multiple Gigs. XP doesn't have a problem with DLL hell, I guess it has to do with the .net framework.

I submitted a bunch of Harpertown reviews to /. yesterday, and the only one you link to is the lame-assed one at Hexus?!? Oh boy! Let's run Sandra and call it a review! Ghey.

I noticed that some sane person posted links to Anandtech and Tech Report, but 2CPU also had a nice write-up with all sorts of benchmarks, and power usage data for each one.

Try the folks over at 2cpu.com I'm sure they list their benchmarking software.

http://www.2cpu.com/

I get a chuckle out of people who pay to beta test products.

The truth is that there are a host of issues.

The best experiences I have heard from anyone is that it is almost as good as XP.

Reviews that tested gaming performance, show Vista slower across the board.
http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTMzNCw2LC xoZW50aHVzaWFzdA==

Testing also revealed that Vista had changed it's driver model to virtualizing Vram into limited user address space, leading to minor things like crashing out in the midst of heated gaming sessions.
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx? i=3044

Vista brings networking to a crawl when playing audio:
http://forums.2cpu.com/showthread.php?t=83112

So we have slower gaming, crashing from memory space exhaustion, and networking reduced to a crawl if you play an audio file, and this is just recently and major headlines.

Basically you are very lucky if it works anywhere near as well as XP. For degraded performance/lower reliability you get what? Aero?

I realize that in a few years most of use will be using Vista, but I never touch a MS OS without at least 1 service pack. Vista is MS most unnecessary upgrade since Millennium.

One thing that seriously blows about nVidia is their (closed-source) drivers are buggy. e.g. the nv4_disp infinite loop bug. This is year sold, affects many generations of cards, and nVidia *still* haven't fixed it. Fixed it? You can't even talk to them about it. They don't answer any tech support questions: Their forums are user-to-user. If this driver was open source, someone would have fixed it by now. It'd be quicker than the black-box game people have played to fix it.

Read it and weep:
http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=4432& st=80
http://www.christopherjason.com/articles/nvidia-nv 4disp-problem/
http://fileforum.betanews.com/review/950852325/1/v iew
http://forums.2cpu.com/archive/index.php/t-10410.h tml
http://www.tech-forums.net/pc/f77/3d-games-kill-my -pc-need-advice-111501/

I'll share my fix for the nVidia nv4_disp infinite loop bug.

1. Shut down windows.
2. Power off PC.
3. Remove nVidia card.
4. Throw in trash.
5. Install ATI card.

Well, this isn't the one for the PC, but apparently they had the same thing for rs6k (google cache) and you can look at this thread which makes mention of them as well: "There are several old S/370, S/390 cards for Microchannel and PCI bus. IBM also released 7437 Mainframe workstation. The cards are slow, but you can run Mainframe OS and applications inside an ordinary PC." I never actually used the card, I'm sure it's slow. :) In particular it uses system services to mimic the hardware functionality for I/O.

Buying pre-built is always costly, which is a lot of the reason why people like me end up going the Windows OS route. You can't by a modern Mac for under $1000

I'd be willing to bet that I could build a quad-core machine out of AMD Opterons that would smoke your Mac.

If you were used to Windows and not OSX then you'd likely not be making claims like you did.

I have an old dual p3 board DVD266u-RN that needs a few minutes to randomly freeze and/or reboot during varios parts of starting up.

Underclocking seems to do the trick, untill it has been running for half an hour, then the P3's run stable at 1.4Ghz. It was strange explaining to friends at LAN parties that the thing needed to 'warm up'. Come to think of it, I replaced the caps on this thing not too long before it started this behavior.

One of the best internet raid forum:

www.2cpu.com
http://forums.2cpu.com/forumdisplay.php?s=adc26382 dd77124463ea07d336f7fdab&forumid=26

http://www.2cpu.com/

Lots of server components review, and the forums are full of smart cookies when it comes to uptime and performance.

People have been using car radiators to cool their PCs for years... How can this possibly be classed as news? Just because one person has done it on their system for the first time?

Have the people who posted on that thread got the faintest idea about performance cooling? Sheesh. Go and see some decent watercooled beasts at 2cpu forums

the Iwill DK8ES of course

(1)16x PCIe, (1)2x PCIe (possible sli config), dual gigabit ethernet, 3x PCI-X slots, 1 PCI slot, 4x SATA II ports (command queueing, port multiplication, 300mb/s speed, etc), 8 DIMM slots (max 16GB)

HT is not always a win even for multiple clients/threads:
See the following:
page4

page5

HT is not always a win even for multiple clients/threads:
See the following:
page4

page5

...so why are all these big clusters using inefficent, expensive Itaniums, again?

I think the answer is, they're not! They're using only the more recent Itanium 2 codename "fanwood" and "madison DP" CPUs. These CPUs are down around $1000 now, just like (e.g.) an Opteron 848 or 850. But they're more powerful, and can be used in much bigger systems. I found one interesting discussion about Itanium price/performance here:

2cpu.com forums

As for efficiency, just look at the top500 list: Itanium 2 machines are the most efficient on the list, except for vector computers such as the NEC SX-5/6 and Cray's vector machines.

This machine was actually completed over 6 months ago. Yes, it exists, you can track it's progress on the 2CPU.com Forums. Make sure to bookmark the site, once it's back up it will be well worth a visit. I don't think Corrugated will mind the extra attention. For now, you can read the thread HERE and see some of the specs on it (and people's reactions). No pics, as they're linked to the same poor server. The original thread is HERE. It has a handmade aluminum chassis, wing, go-kart wheels (the racing kind) and a working CPU-load tachometer. And lots of chrome!

This machine was actually completed over 6 months ago. Yes, it exists, you can track it's progress on the 2CPU.com Forums. Make sure to bookmark the site, once it's back up it will be well worth a visit. I don't think Corrugated will mind the extra attention. For now, you can read the thread HERE and see some of the specs on it (and people's reactions). No pics, as they're linked to the same poor server. The original thread is HERE. It has a handmade aluminum chassis, wing, go-kart wheels (the racing kind) and a working CPU-load tachometer. And lots of chrome!

This machine was actually completed over 6 months ago. Yes, it exists, you can track it's progress on the 2CPU.com Forums. Make sure to bookmark the site, once it's back up it will be well worth a visit. I don't think Corrugated will mind the extra attention. For now, you can read the thread HERE and see some of the specs on it (and people's reactions). No pics, as they're linked to the same poor server. The original thread is HERE. It has a handmade aluminum chassis, wing, go-kart wheels (the racing kind) and a working CPU-load tachometer. And lots of chrome!

This machine was actually completed over 6 months ago. Yes, it exists, you can track it's progress on the 2CPU.com Forums. Make sure to bookmark the site, once it's back up it will be well worth a visit. I don't think Corrugated will mind the extra attention. For now, you can read the thread HERE and see some of the specs on it (and people's reactions). No pics, as they're linked to the same poor server. The original thread is HERE. It has a handmade aluminum chassis, wing, go-kart wheels (the racing kind) and a working CPU-load tachometer. And lots of chrome!

I've seen submerged mineral oil cpu boards before. Heck, here's one right here at the very top of the Google.

2CPU.com has a Linux kernel comparison of 2.6.4 and 2.4.25 on a SMP system with interesting results.

So, talking about benchmarks, how does that stack up against gcc?

Here's the article

I've been running a pair of unmodified Palomino XP 2000+ in a Tiger MPX for two years. Other non-MP Athlons can be run SMP using pencil bridge tricks. Try 2cpu.com and other sources.

Of course, this AMD motherboard chipset is ancient now -- you might be better off with a low-end Opteron.

I'm not sure I would have choosen that motherboard for this task. There have been quite a few [forums.2cpu.com] people that have actually had the ATX Connector melt and burn out on them. It seems to be related to the fact that the TigerMP (2460) does not have a seperate 5/12v aux. header that most other dual AMD's have. So it ends up pulling all the juice it needs from ATX connector and melts it.
High powered CPU's and PCI cards drawing off the 5v rail cause this most often, and these boards have 2 x 1500 MP's and 3 x 3Ware RAID cards. (The RAID cards should be running at 3.3v though)
I personally have 3 of the TigerMP's and plan on replacing them very soon for this reason.

I have a definite list and surprisingly an order too (anyone else do this compulsively?)

1.) CNN
2.) LinuxToday
3.) OSnews
4.) KernelTrap
5.) Yahoo! Mail - Only including this because it's in my list.
6.) ExtremeTech
7.) AnandTech
8.) Tom's Hardware
9.) 2cpu
10.) Slashdot - Last because it takes the longest.

Hmm, come to think of it I have some wierd habits while surfing too. When I'm traveling my path of websites, I picture them on a 2d plane with distance in between. CNN on the left, linuxtoday in the lower middle, etc. Anyone else do this?

Here is a link to the (very short) discussion thread on 2cpu.com regarding being slashdotted. To quote one post, "Which just goes to prove: the Slashdot effect is negated by competent administration (and SMP of course :-))". Here is a description of their web-server.

Here is a link to the (very short) discussion thread on 2cpu.com regarding being slashdotted. To quote one post, "Which just goes to prove: the Slashdot effect is negated by competent administration (and SMP of course :-))". Here is a description of their web-server.

'Jim'

Gabe

This Might be of interest
first seen at 2cpu.com

Shameless plug for 2cpu team, ranked 25th & rising!

I blew up my prototype, Commodore SX-64. See the damage?

F-U-N.

And heyo, I just learned that ultralong DNSes confuse slashdot. Filter fun friday maybe?

The Iwill MPX2 is another.

Prices and links to Monarch Computers. I was quite surprised with the prices, I thought they'd be in the $125-$150 range. I my dual AMD shopping at Monarch (built a dual MP 1600+ on a tyan tiger mobo in december for a friend), you can hit pricewatch for price comparison, but I've found Monarch to be fairly representative.

The newer 760-MPX chipset (last I heard) still has isses with the southbridge's USB 2.0 and most motherboards ship with an add-in card. I can't recommend it because I'm not sure if the chipset checks for MPs or not.

Hyperthreading is a pretty cool idea, especially for those of us who would like to see SMP move more into the mainstream.

According to this article, though (posted on 2cpu.com), the Windows 2000 scheduler doesn't know how to take advantage of hyperthreading, since it doesn't know how to take advantage of virtual processors. (I suppose Windows XP does?) Go figure. Anyway, this looks like it's probably worth checking into. I'm sure Linux will support it!

Hyperthreading is a pretty cool idea, especially for those of us who would like to see SMP move more into the mainstream.

According to this article, though (posted on 2cpu.com), the Windows 2000 scheduler doesn't know how to take advantage of hyperthreading, since it doesn't know how to take advantage of virtual processors. (I suppose Windows XP does?) Go figure. Anyway, this looks like it's probably worth checking into. I'm sure Linux will support it!

Basically, you are ALWAYS running multiple apps in any modern, pre-emptive multitasking OS. One of them just happens to be the kernel, etc. Of course, this is a highly simplified view.

However I tried to triple boot with Windows 98 so I can use a cheap video grabber card--my advice is DON'T EVEN TRY to install Win98 on this board. Mine installed fine but would not boot Win98.

Placing the heatsink/fans on the CPUs was kind of tricky. I had 2mm of clearance between my heatsink/fan of choice and the single row of capacitors on the board. If the caps didn't wiggle I wouldn't have been able to install the heatsink/fans.

I found humor on the inside cover of the manual. I was pleased to see in print that this motherboard is certified for *both* Win2k and RH 7.1. However that textual note was marked with an asterisk to the effect:

This Tyan board is fully supported by Red Hat 7.1; however Tyan is not responsible if Red Hat no longer continues to support Red Hat 7.1.

Also, a warning. If you choose to install 1 Gb or so of ECC, registered memory, then booting takes a long time. There's some kind of POST that occurs for this kind of memory that delays my boot by like 30 seconds.

Finally, I just want to say that SMP is no magic bullet. For my purposes this board is fabulous. But in fact, some applications run more slowly on a dual CPU system. For example, any given single threaded program (read: first person shooter) will take a hit, say 2-5% of its speed. Your application has to use multiple threads to take advantage of this environment. Of course you can run more processes, that's nice.

You can judge for yourself if this is a good board for you. Look at the reviews for the Tyan Thunder K7, I feel they apply to the Tiger when it comes to processor performance. You can find review for that board here and here

Well, it seem these days, most of the power user just care to get something like 200fps in Quake III. Why ? Beat's me ! I'm not on a quest to get the ultimate frame rate, I just want my box to be quiet as possibly can be.

To help you understand my take on the subject, here is the background :
My PC has the following components :

• A OEM case
• A 235W OEM power supply
• ASUS P3B-F
• Intel Pentium II rated 400Mhz @ 400Mhz
• A cheap OEM SECC2 Heat-Sink made of aluminum
• A 128MB CAS2 no-name DIMM
• Two 32MB CAS3 Samsung DIMM slowing down my memory timing, but preventing the appearance of the all mighty evil SwaP
• A ATI All-In-Wonder Rage128 16MB
• A Creative SoundBlaster Live! Value
• A Realtek 8139 Ethernet NIC
• My beloved USR 56Kbps ISA Real Modem. Sorry but to me a component that uses CPU power to do it's processing instead of taking the load off is not worthy of being in my computer. Not to mention the M$ Win part...
• A Creative 48x CD-ROM drive. It's the loudest damned thing in my computer when it's spinning
• A Quantum Fireball AS PLUS 40GB (7200RPM) in a removable tray
• A Quantum Fireball CX1 10GB (5400RPM) mounted inside the case
• Of course the stupid old 1.44 MB floppy drive only used for booting Tomsbrt in case of emergency

Soon to be :

• A Adaptec 2940UW
• A Diamond Monster 3D II for Glide games

It turn out that the Quantum Fireball AS makes less noise than the Quantum Fireball CX1. I still have to figure it out ...

I use my PC for :

• Running Linux and learning as much as time allows me (Jez I had so much time when I was a student... Think of all the time I wasted in High-School running the evil W monster)
• Doing some gaming i.e. : Diablo II, Unreal, UT, Undying (Although that thing is going to cost me a new box)
• Spending numerous nights filling my brain @ Slashdot, Tomshardware, Anandtech, Arstechnica, StorageReview, Developper.Intel.com, and most importantly, hounding the web for all the case manufacturers and their take at a quiet box.

As I'm writing this post, that is probably going to be the base documentation for my Silent Case Project, you're guessing that my sleepless night of browsing have not yielded the desired result.

I've check out many options such as water cooling, moving the PC to the closet, returning to the forest where a PC is pretty far from your everyday quest for survival. None of them suits me.

The objective of my project is to build a case that meets the following criteria :

• A silent as possible
• Accessible
• Provides sufficient ventilation to maintain all the components running within thermal specs
• Be light enough to be easily transportable (Let's not forget the Lan parties ;-)

To attain those goals I have to :

• Read all I can about noise, sound, aerodynamics, PC specs
• Find suitable materials : A case is not just a protection against unwanted fingers and dust ; it must provide EMI shielding, proper grounding, resist to impacts, and fit into my conception of the king of object you want in your bedroom (If you were thinking about plywood and a box of rusted leftover nails, forget it)
• Find the tools or the companies or individuals with the means to work the materials I choose to build the casing

For the sound isolation I was thinking about some kind of foam. Mineral lint would be affective but that takes too much space and it's not the kind of thing I want beside my bed. Form the casing itself, metal is almost inevitable if you want EMI shielding and grounding. And as for you who wonder why I have not mentioned water cooling yet, the greatest source of noise is not my CPU cooler and your just moving the problem out of the case (Nice ; you have water heating up but unless your reservoir is like a bathtub or something you will have to transfer the heat for the water to the air).

That about as far as I am. If you have any idea that might help me, please fell free to send me some bits forming ASCII characters at Prozzaks@operamail.com

To finish up, here is a list of thing that might help people wanting to achieve similar goals :

• http://www.formfactors.org/ You should be able to find all the documents regarding the ATX form factor and thermal design guides. A must if you want to build a quiet PC.
• http://developer.intel.com/ Intel has contributed a great deal to the ATX definition ; here you will find many relevant documents including thermal design guides for all Intel processors.
• Etract from my favorite's :
  
  

  Hardware\cases PC CASE
  Fong Kai
  PowerOn
  Enlight Corporation
  dir.yahoo Enclosures Manufacturers
  procase
  YY Computer
  Psi
  IN WIN
  Amtrade
  American Suntek
  Addtronics
  A-Top Technology, Inc
  Nikao
  Palo Alto Products
  Antec
  Lian-Li
  amaquest
  Koolance
  Quietpc
  PC Power & Cooling
  
  
  

  Hardware\Heat Sinks ALPHA
  Cooler Master
  AVC
  ekl
  GlobalWIN
  globefan
  RDJD
  Foxconn
  Spring Spread
  Sanyo Denki
  TITAN
  TaiSol
  ChipCoolers
  Orb a
  ElanVital
  
  
  

  Hardware\Info\Form Factor Platform Development Support
  SSI
  WTX
  
  
  

  Hardware\Info\Standards Fibre Channel Industry Association
  PCI SIG
  RAB
  serialata
  SPEC
  
  
  

  Hardware\Info\Storage RAID.edu
  
  
  

  Hardware\Info\Cours CS 252 - Graduate Computer Architecture
  
  
  

  Hardware\Info The PC Guide!
  Hardware Bible
  FullOn3D
  developer.intel.com
  HwB The Hardware Book
  United Overclockers
  Ars Technica
  Tech-Junkie
  HardwarePub
  Webopedia
  Illustrated Guide to the PC Hardware
  SysOpt
  2CPU
  Ace's Hardware
  Technical Support - RaidHelp v1.0 - Free RAID Technology Guide
  Computer Architecture
  OPENCORES.ORG
  TechFest
  MidWest Micro Support
  
  
  

  Hardware\Resalers GeekTek!
  Micro-Bytes
  ALCO
  ABC Micro
  2CoolTek
  Plycon Computers
  TCWO
  ABC Micro - Lprix
  Case Outlet
  The Chip Merchant, Inc
  Cimsys
  OrdiGros
  ALIENWARE
  SHENTECH
  FireStorm
  Hyper Microsystems
  TWEAKBOX
  
  
  

  Hardware\Reviews Tom's Hardware Guide
  Sharky Extreme
  StorageReview
  HardOCP
  AnandTech
  SystemLogic
  x-bit labs
  Active-Hardware
  FiringSquad
  SocketA
  Overclockers Australia
  HEXUS
  dansdata
  SysReview
  
  
  

  Hardware\Manufacturers AMD
  ASUS
  Belkin
  MassMultiples
  Promise
  StarTech
  VIA Technologies, Inc
  ABIT Computer Corp
  Comcase
  Micron Semiconductor
  ECS
  
  
  

  Hardware Freeboxen
  

I just saw this on Stomped. 2cpu.com put up a Sandra screenshot yesterday of a 1.99 GHz dual Palamino. I'm skeptical about the accuracy of the picture but if the scores are true then Intel has a lot to worry about.

Moving along to the link section... 2cpu had a story and linked to this article at PCStats a few months ago about a prototype Tyan board. I believe it was even posted on /. 2cpu also linked to another article (sorry I couldn't find and english version) about a dual AMD unit from, of all people, VA Linux!!! Guess that one slipped through the slashbots, huh?

AMD is looking to bump out Intel in one of it's most valued markets, servers. I don't doubt for a second that they are working as hard as they can with the aftermarkets to put out a dual board. It will happen, and all indications point to it happening soon.

Soon, soon my friend. in light of tom's acomplishment this dual T-Bird (760MP chipset) sisoft sandra benchmark may not be too far from reality. I for one am saving my pennies.

What I am interested in is some info on some older multi processor boards, just so that I can get the last bit of milage from some older cpus I have kicking around.

But then I remember advice I used to give some retail customers, half in jest:

Remember, if you can buy it here at (mass market store), technically it is obsolete already.

But then, some people love living on the trailing edge of technology.

According to The Register, 2cpu.com's benchmarks of the PentiumIV aka Williamette have been "Satlinised" (or is it Apple'd?;-)

If this lends credence to the benchmarks, which were btw on screenshots as : Drhystone 1262 ; Whetstone 242 ; Eight Queens 2477 . . . . yada yadda but *this is what interests me* : ALU mem bandwidth 1408mb/s, FPU mem bwdth 1520mb/s, then that 400mhz bus really does kick butt and I'm prepared to live with buying a new mobo

I suppose if some daredevil cared to mirror the pages I might email them, but I'm otherwise scaredy today :-(

Idle random thoughts only, you can look the other way now

On the SMP tip, the Duron according to this news post at 2cpu.com will support SMP. This shouldn't come as a big surprise since it's built on the Athlon core. The SMP-ability would have to be specifically disabled, which is likely more trouble than it's worth. Later this year, AMD will be releasing the AMD 760MP chipset which will have ATA100, DDR SDRAM support, and SMP support. I'd love to see a board that I could start on dual Durons and kick up to dual Thunderbirds later on.

HTH

On the SMP tip, the Duron according to this news post at 2cpu.com will support SMP. This shouldn't come as a big surprise since it's built on the Athlon core. The SMP-ability would have to be specifically disabled, which is likely more trouble than it's worth. Later this year, AMD will be releasing the AMD 760MP chipset which will have ATA100, DDR SDRAM support, and SMP support. I'd love to see a board that I could start on dual Durons and kick up to dual Thunderbirds later on.

HTH

Celerons are SMP capable. I don't know if Intel has completely disabled it in the new Celerons that they just announced.

Everything I hear indicates Intel didn't bond the SMP pin to the die -- I can't find the original statement, but here's a quotation of an example. That's what I was referring to; AFAIK the Celerons up through 533MHz are fine with SMP, but the "Coppermine 128" Celerons are crippled.

Intel appears to have done something similar with the early FC-PGA Coppermines, too -- I've not heard reliable reports of anyone managing to get good SMP out of them. The SECC-2 versions are fully SMP-enabled, though.

I have heard that there are some stability problems with the Abit BP-6 that can take some effort to iron out.

I've heard the same -- people tell me they're fine for gaming, but not so good for workstation use. I have no direct experience... but I do believe that you get what you pay for.

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