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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."
I'll go read the article now.
Old people fall. Young people spring. Rich people summer and winter.
Since these types of motherboards are aimed at people rolling their own servers, as opposed to buying a prebuilt one.
How many people actually build a server from the ground up, and why, other than price, is it advantageous to do so, instead of buying a complete box? Price shaving shouldn't be a huge concern for a server, since so many other factors figure in more.
If your throwing enough money around to afford dual Xeon's then hyperthreading support be included.
More information about it is here and you can have virtual dual cpu's per processor. In theory you can have the performance of 4 cpu's with a dual processor setup.
For databases and ERP this could be a very nice and cheaper alternative to expensive IBM and Sun boxes.
My question is does Linux currently support hyperthreading? If not then it may be wise to put off the purchase or buy dual Athlon MP's which are alot cheaper and offer similiar benefits.
http://saveie6.com/
I would like to see a comparison of Linux 2.4, Linux 2.5, FreeBSD 4.8, and FreeBSD 5.0 on the same hardware. FreeBSD fanatics like to toot their horns, but where are the benchmark results?
btw, LinuxHardware.org is nearly slashdotted, so their Linux server knowledge must not be so great after all..
cpeterso
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.
Before this, someone pointed me to Dell's Finacial Services' page of good deals (and no OS tax!) on lease-return laptops. After that, a friend of mine called to tell me that a Ford dealership nearby is selling a 2002 convertible Mustang GT for below invoice with 0% financing over 4 years. And don't get me started on what I could do with a Fry's or a Best Buy right now... Oh, the agony of being such a consumer whore...
It'll be a kick-ass ring, though. I highly recommend browsing this thread before making decisions on engagement rings -- good info even if, like me, you want to go with a diamond regardless of the fact that you're getting ripped off.
(posting anonymously to avoid my girlfriend seeing this post a la Murphy's Law).
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.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
'Most responsive user experience'? Switch to SCSI. The major bottleneck in any PC is the crappy disk access. I get better app start times on my 400Mhz U2W SCSI system (80MB/sec max) than my Athlon 1400 with ATA-133. The SCSI theoretical speed limit might be lower (in the example above), but real-world performance favors SCSI.
/usr partitions. Put /home on your IDE drive. Get the best of both worlds. When you recover from the investment you can move the whole SCSI deal to the next machine (and it'll STILL kick the next generation PCs ass!).
Go get an Adaptec 29160 and a 36GB 10K Cheetah drive for your / and
"Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie." -Tori Amos on Nine Inch Nails
Linux does support hyperthreading. 2.4.20 recognizes four processors on my dual Xeon servers, without any tweaks. I think it's pretty nice -- I'd say there's between a 5% and 25% pickup in performance, depending on what you're using it for (generic vs. optimized integer code).
According to a geek.com article, Linux was actually the first operating system to officially support hyperthreading, and that was in late 2001.
Most of the time dual CPU's are a waste of money.
:) :)
What makes the difference is how much ram you have and how well tuned your OS is.
For instance for years FTP.cdrom.com was run on a singe PP200 with 1 gig of ram - something like 3600 simultanious ftp connections were being served from it!!
Now lets see you can build a server using a Nforce2 board with dual channel ram - say 1gb (2x 512meg) and a Athlon XP 2500 (barton core). This setup would be ideal - you can get it in microatx format with everything on board. This means you could actualy fit two machines in a 1RU case
Oh and IDE hard drives with 8meg cache on board are now cheap and offer great performance. Or you could use a case like the H340 from Aopen - have two servers - one as a hot backup
Support is an argument for and against buying prebuilt systems ...
.. there are other issues than support, of course, but this is just my two cents. :)
If you're colocating a server, having a pre-built machine with a tight support contract is pretty crucial. For example, Dell offers a 24/7, 2 hour on-site support guarantee for servers almost anywhere in the continental United States. That's pretty darned handy if your servers are spread around.
On the other hand, if you're able to service the machine yourself within a reasonable time frame, I think it's always better to build your own servers because you have:
- Intimate knowledge of every hardware component in the box. You researched every piece, right? Lots of manufacturers put in weird devices and what-not, and you can never really be sure of what's under the hood when you buy from someone else.
- Spare components on hand. If you're spending the cash on some nice servers, having an extra hard drive, DIMMs, and a network card on hand is pretty invaluable.
- Better upgrade path. Feel free to swap out a motherboard, processor, or SCSI system. No worries about proprietary motherboard or case standards.
The PCI-X controller used in almost all of the E750x workstation/server boards is really expensive and adds to the complexity of the board layout and design. It seems that Tyan decided to forgo that chip in order to keep the cost of the board down while making up for it by adding Serial ATA (but no FireWire like it's larger Thunder i7505 brother).
One board that I would like to have seen reviewed is the Supermicro X5DAL (with or without Serial ATA RAID) as it does include PCI-X slots, but it is also a standard ATX-sized motherboard. It only has four memory slots, so that may have changed some of the memory timings and possibly have improved some of the scores by a small amount.
One a side note, FreeBSD 4.8-RELEASE users will also benefit from the newly added support for HyperThreading found in all P4-based Xeons and the 3.06GHz P4. More info can be had here. I'm not sure if that feature is also available in 5.0-CURRENT (I would think it would be MFC).
I'm running Gentoo Linux 1.4rc1. Everything is built from scratch with optimizations so it's as fast as can be on both machines. I'm running kernel 2.4.20 on both machines.
I should note that the SCSI performance boost is still huge in Windows, but less profound than in Linux due to the way Windows aligns frequently used files on the disk.
As for your performance issues, try updating the drivers for your chipset (Intel INF and Intel Application Accelerator / VIA Hyperion 4-in-1) to make sure you're getting the most from your motherboard.
Intel Chipset Driver Matrix
VIA Hyperion Downloads
"Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie." -Tori Amos on Nine Inch Nails
Ok, don't think I'm going off on you, cuz I'm not:
I am so tired of people telling me what I need as opposed to what I want. You know the type. "You don't NEED a SUV, just buy a minivan." "You don't NEED a 500w power supply, 350w is more than enough." "You don't NEED dual procs, a single, faster, proc is more economical."
I have some requirements about my home PC. One of those is that I should never like the machine I use at work more than the machine I use at home. I like the snappiness of dual procs I like the ability to play a game while I rip a DVD. I like it when Gentoo slams through an emerge.
If someone has the money to pick up a Mobo, dual Zeons, and an assload of RAM, either be happy for them or shut the hell up.
I'd rather you do it wrong, than for me to have to do it at all.
I wonder if the soon-to-come Opteron is why the board makers have been ignoring the Athlon MP in the last few months.
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