Linux SMP Round-Up

Dual Minds writes "LinuxHardware.org is at it again and this time they cover three of the finest boards on the market. This review covers three dual processor Xeon boards and they are the only site that ever does Linux reviews (at least on a regular basis). Here's a peak: "First thing is that all E7505-based boards are basically the same on the surface due to the basic features of the chipset. They all have dual processor support, support for dual channel DDR, and support for PCI-X up to 133MHz (to name a few). Once a manufacturer gets their hands on the board though, features can be added or it can simply be left as is." Very in depth and some sweet hardware."

Comments

How is it a Linux Review without the Distro?

[dWhisper]

An actual comment on the story...

When reading through the review, I noticed that they only list standard benchmarks, and then a kernal compile benchmark. They never list the actual distribution of Linux used for testing the system. In my experience, the actual performance of a system is dependant on that. I know I had a system that just dragged running Mandrake, but loved Debian to no end. I'm not sure if it's just the kernal base of the system, but most of the actual distributions have some sort of performance optimization (I think) for the overall system performance. I mean, kernal complilation time is great, but what I'm more curious about is the day-to-day operation.

I guess I've just read too many reviews over the years that focused on benchmark numbers and didn't give any information about performance under everyday use. If this is something geared for Linux, I'd be more curious about numbers like Networking performance, data-access numbers and things like that.

My other curious question is how accurately does UT2k3 and Quake 3 show the power of a Dual Processor Xeon system? Quake 3 supports MP systems, but it has never been shown to make much difference except on large server environments. They give us video-benchmarks, and for Quake in particular, there's a limit that was hit long before these processors and chipsets that was somewhere next to overkill.

I guess I'm just being nit-picky, but I think a Linux Review for a system should concentrate on strengths, and not benchmarks that would be similar on a Windows system made to run games.

The Sun Dilemma

[Gothmolly]

If you need hardware like this, then you need Support. That's what attracts people to Sun (and now Dell, for instance). And if you need support, you'll take whatever board your System Integrator uses in their boxes.
To wit:
If you need this, you'll buy it from someone.
If you buy it from someone, you have no choice of HW.
Thus, this review is useless.