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VIA K8T800 Chipset Preview - Dual Opteron in Action

Posted by timothy on from the more-than-you-can-shake-a-stick-at dept.

Mr.Tweak writes "It has been a long time coming but we are finally reaching the beginning stages of 64-bit mainstream computing. AMD has been the first to bring a 64-bit processor to the market with any true support in the Opteron. VIA is one of the key chipset companies supporting AMD64 and today TweakTown takes a preview look at their new K8T800 chipset with AMD Opteron 242 and 244 processors. 64-bit computing is boarding - don't miss the train!"

5 of 258 comments (clear)

  1. Well. by JanusFury · · Score: 5, Insightful

    As much as I'd love to board the train, the ticket price is a bit expensive, especially because I don't know exactly where the train goes.

    I'm sure this is true for most other computer users as well. 64-bit on the x86 desktop is not really a 'mature' technology, even though it's been done before with Alpha and Itanium... I for one would hate to spend lots of money moving to an Opteron-based platform, to find out that one of my devices doesn't work or that one of my programs doesn't work. So I suspect that the risk involved (even though it's rather minimal, really) probably is going to keep a lot of people from moving to Opteron and co. for a while.

    --
    using namespace slashdot;
    troll::post();
    1. Re:Well. by Electrode · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Because in 64-bit mode, the size of long is 8 bytes. Some programes have a major problem with that, as I've so painfully discovered...

  2. Readable hardware reviews by Ed+Avis · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Just once, it would be nice to have a link to a motherboard review that wasn't split over 15 different sections.

    'Without dragging on anymore, let's see what VIA's K8T800 chipset is capable of' - well, without dragging on any more than going to the next page after about two paragraphs...

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    -- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
  3. This is great news for us by Rosco+P.+Coltrane · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ... the majority of people who want to pay less for the same computers. Whenever a new super-duper computer comes up, a minority fringe with too much money (that I was once part of) blows ungodly amounts of money to get it, driving down the cost of perfectly serviceable, good, fast, but older computers for the rest of us.

    So I say go AMD64 and go KIA, so I can buy those Athlons 2000+ based-machines I need even cheaper.

    --
    "A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
  4. 64 bit processors running 32 bit software by mkosmul · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Sure, the benchmarks are impressive, but it would be nice to see more benchmarks using 64-bit-optimized software (eg. an optimized gromacs). 32 bit software just doesn't use all the power these chips have.