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8 DIMM slots (4 attached to each CPU, unlike every other workstation board out there) means 8 GB using cheaper 1 GB DIMMs, or 16 GB max. It also means up to 10 or 12 GB/s of total bandwidth :-) No other dually motherboard I have seen offers both AGP and memory connected to each CPU.

Add to that an AGP Pro slot, a few PCI-X slots (100 MHz and 133 MHz), 4-way SATA RAID 0+1, Gigabit LAN (connected to PCI-X), Firewire etc, and you have the most desirable mobo available today - if you can afford it.

GamePC is running a first look of Windows XP 64bit edition for the AMD64 (x86-64) architecture.

GamePC is running a first look of Windows XP 64bit edition for the AMD64 (x86-64) architecture.

I've got a Solarism LM1530, it's a pretty nice 15" LCD monitor and has a fast response LCD (16 ms instead of a more typical 30 ms) for under $300. You can get a 17" version as well, for under $400. It works well with my Shuttle SN41G2. I have the black Shuttle case, and it looks great with the black Solarism monitor.

The reason I mention it to you is that I read some article where someone was speculating about how it might be good for LAN parties, since the monitor stand basically folds up and you can carry it flat. I can't say I've brought my monitor to a LAN party, but it is quite easy to carry around when folded flat.

Check out the review on GamePC for more info. I haven't seen any others yet, since this monitor is fairly new (on the market about a month, I think...). Anyway, I thought it was a great deal, since it runs about $150 less than the Hitachi CML174, and about $250 less than the Planar PX171M, which are also 16 ms response time LCD monitors. The only down side for me is that the Solarism doesn't have DVI, but the picture is still awesome for analog.

I've got a Solarism LM1530, it's a pretty nice 15" LCD monitor and has a fast response LCD (16 ms instead of a more typical 30 ms) for under $300. You can get a 17" version as well, for under $400. It works well with my Shuttle SN41G2. I have the black Shuttle case, and it looks great with the black Solarism monitor.

The reason I mention it to you is that I read some article where someone was speculating about how it might be good for LAN parties, since the monitor stand basically folds up and you can carry it flat. I can't say I've brought my monitor to a LAN party, but it is quite easy to carry around when folded flat.

Check out the review on GamePC for more info. I haven't seen any others yet, since this monitor is fairly new (on the market about a month, I think...). Anyway, I thought it was a great deal, since it runs about $150 less than the Hitachi CML174, and about $250 less than the Planar PX171M, which are also 16 ms response time LCD monitors. The only down side for me is that the Solarism doesn't have DVI, but the picture is still awesome for analog.

If you overclock the Xeons (And newer P4 CPUs) too high...

"Prepare to go to HyperThread."

"Go to HyperThread!"

*WHOOSH*

"My God, they've gone plaid!"

(Just to keep on topic, this is a very informative shootout between HT/non-HT Intel and AMD SMP processors setups here.)

Just couldn't resist the Spaceballs reference, tho!

• Dual Boot : Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional and Windows 98 SE - $290.00
• Dual Boot : Microsoft Windows XP Professional and Windows 98 SE - $300.00
• Dual Boot : Red Hat Linux 8.0 and Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional - $260.00
• Dual Boot : Red Hat Linux 8.0 and Windows 98 SE - $170.00
• Dual Boot : Red Hat Linux 8.0 with Microsoft Windows XP Professional - $270.00
• Microsoft Office XP Professional OEM - $375.00
• Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional OEM - $190.00
• Microsoft Windows 98 Second Edition OEM - $100.00
• Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition OEM - $115.00
• Microsoft Windows XP Professional OEM - $200.00
• Red Hat Linux 8.0 Personal Retail - $50.00
• None - $0.00

(I'm putting QNX on it, for embedded development. QNX, incidentally, has become more friendly to Linux programmers. They now use the GNU toolchain. If you're not doing real-time work, QNX now works a lot like Linux. If you are doing real-time work, it works a lot better than Linux.)

Working link

All from Gamepc but here they are

Pentium 4 Xeon Multi-Processor Under Linux
Prestonia Xeon 2.0 GHz vs. Athlon MP 1900+

All from Gamepc but here they are

Pentium 4 Xeon Multi-Processor Under Linux
Prestonia Xeon 2.0 GHz vs. Athlon MP 1900+

I got my last two computers from a local shop less than two miles from my apartment. They're called GamePC and they're great.

They had a wide range of high-quality components so I could choose my own motherboard and case and stuff. They also burned it in for 48 hours and gave me a good warranty. I also got custom restore discs plus regular Windows CDs. They'll also install RedHat Linux if you want.

My next computer will be from them also. They're not dirt cheap, but high-quality and I don't have to cut myself up trying to put together my own system. :-)

I also like the idea of supporting a local small business.

It looks like Intel has an i850-E based motherboard that has USB 2.0 built-in (I'm guessing that they planted a separate USB 2.0 controller on the motherboard). The model is the D850EMV2L and one can be purchased here .

Why the hell those morons are writing everything with fixed-width small font with horizontally centered lines?! Some people will never learn how to make webpages. And it's so easy, just not changing anything is enough. Morons.

Make sure you use the Printer Friendly view, that way you don't get 12 pages of slashdotted hell! Look here.

And check out the quote from the conclusion:

"In reality, the Northwood Pentium 4 is an amazingly fast processor. It's safe to say that as of right now, the Northwood at 2.0 GHz is a faster gaming processor in comparison to the 1.67 GHz (2000+) Athlon XP."

Now, what makes them say that? In Q3A the Norhtwood usually leads, but in RTCW, which is using the Q3A engine, the XP's consistently lead.

WTF gives? Anyone got an answer?

Here's a printer-friendly version of the article, which is easier on the viewer and the server.

The only differance between the Nvidia NForce Xbox chipset & the new Nvidia K7 PC mainboard chipset is that Xbox version is designed for the GTL+ bus, while the K7 PC version is designed for the EV6 bus, other than that they are exactly the same.

Consequently once one has worked out how to master/hack the Xbox BIOS & the propietry MS Xbox file system (to load a PC OS compatible FS), there's no reason why one couldn't load any X86 PC OS on it (the chipset drivers for both versions of the NForce are, or should be the same).

Now if your talking about playing XBox games on a PC, why would you want to? MS is selling them so cheap that they are losing $100 a pop on them, so the big saving would be in utilising the Xbox as a PC, rather than the other way arround.

Maybe you could load Linux on & turn the Xbox into a xbox.

Check out the November '01 archives at www.3dnow.net for many reviews of KT266A mainboards and some nForce stuff.

Some links from 3DNOW that I will highlight:

VIA KT-266A Motherboard 3-Way Shootout


VIA KT266A Initial Roundup - October 2001

According to this article those sheets don't do too much on PCs. Foam would be better, if you can fit it in your case (or make a seperate rack like you mentioned) and keep your PC from overheating.

Link to GamePC article

GamePC Story on the subject

I'm a little confused by this. I don't know what the issue is here, but I do know that there are companies that sell dual boot systems. GamePC is one of them. I can get a system that boots Red Hat 7.1 and/or one of the current Windows flavors (ME, 98SE, or 2000).

btw: How come I don't see many touting that the 1.2 Ghz Athlon is some how lacking in ability when compared to the 1.8 Ghz Pentium 4?

Because the 1.2GHz Athlon4+DDR is as fast, if not faster, in most real world applications* than the 1.8GHz Pentium4+RDRAM. No one touts that it's lacking because it's not.

Here are some Linux benchmarks (do some sniffing around for some Win32 benchmarks, they're everywhere) that illustrate my point:

http://www.gamepc.com/reviews/hardware_review.as p? review=p4xlsmp&page=1&mscssid=&tp=

* The P4 platform has more memory bandwidth, but contemporary apps don't need it. The only thing that consistently runs faster on the Pentium 4 is Q3A. :-)

"Unfortunately, after doing a some testing and analyzing the results, it appears that SMP Quake3 under linux isn't running at 100%. And when I say that, I mean it doesn't run at all. After trying to enable it with a "r_smp 1" command and a restart, I noticed this error message in the console log: "Trying SMP acceleration... failed". Not good. So, off to Google Groups I go to see if anyone else has had any success. After browsing through what seemed like hundreds of message board posts and pages, we were not able to find anyone who had this working successfully If someone knows how to get this working, we'd love to hear about it!"

You were not able to turn on SMP in Quake III Arena linux .. simply because it is not available yet. Id has never released a linux binary of Quake III Arena with SMP support. That's why you get the "trying SMP acceleration .. failed" message. We have in-house binaries though, and it's on the TODO list ... "when it's done"

TTimo

--

Linux Quake III Arena / Quake III: Team Arena

Id software

I don't know about a specific site, but I will tell you a good card - Voodoo3. I have PPro 200 with 64MB RAM and no AGP slot. I bought a PCI Voodoo3 2000, and I was able to run Quake3Arena with mid-quality graphics (i.e. not on 'fast' or 'fastest' settings) at between 20 and 40 fps. Not what some people consider acceptable, but I found this remarkable considering the min. hardware requirements (according to the box) involves a P266. Depending on whether or not you have an AGP slot, I would say either a Voodoo3 or GeForceMX is going to give you the most bang for your buck. More info can be found here and here.

I don't know about a specific site, but I will tell you a good card - Voodoo3. I have PPro 200 with 64MB RAM and no AGP slot. I bought a PCI Voodoo3 2000, and I was able to run Quake3Arena with mid-quality graphics (i.e. not on 'fast' or 'fastest' settings) at between 20 and 40 fps. Not what some people consider acceptable, but I found this remarkable considering the min. hardware requirements (according to the box) involves a P266. Depending on whether or not you have an AGP slot, I would say either a Voodoo3 or GeForceMX is going to give you the most bang for your buck. More info can be found here and here.

http://www.g amepc.com/reviews/hardware_review.asp?review=ka710 0&page=1

They have a review of the KA7 with the ATA/100 support. It also, apparently has support on the controller for IDE RAID.


Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!

The Abit KA7-100 KX133 board, interestingly enough an Athlon mobo, comes with ATA-100 built in, and is available right now at GamePC.com among other places: GamePC's mobo page

-------------
The following sentence is true.

In this gamepc.com review, they seem to think that "Intel has finally caught on and fully disabled SMP with this particular Celeron family", but I can't work out whether they're just being stupid (i.e., putting FC-PGA Celerons in a PPGA board and expecting them to 'just work'). Do you happen to have definitive information that the new Celerons can be run dual?

thanks,
Hamish

His claims are far from outrageous. That you look to Sharky for technical insight doesn't rack up any points for your team, either.

If you like benchmarks, you should look here, here, here, or maybe even here.

The Coppermine has a few technical advantages over the Athlon, and even outperforms it on most platforms. The Athlon still suffers from a selection of mostly sub-par motherboards, and Intel's 820 is a dud. There are no great chipsets available to the motherboard manufacturers right now (though Via's KX133 is off to a good start) -- a "wait and see" attitude is probably the best thing for us about now. Poot.