Dual Opteron SFF PC Tested

Steve writes "Back in May, IWILL announced the ZMAXdp (slashdot article), a dual Opteron SFF PC. Sept 23rd saw a further press release with more details of this intriguing system. At HEXUS.net, we've had the exclusive chance to get one of these systems in our test lab, obtaining pictures and specs along with our own analysys and benchmarks. The system runs suprisingly quiet and cool considering what's under the hood. This could become the system of choice for high-end workstation users who don't want a huge machine taking up their desk-space, or perhaps the toy of choice for those of us who hunger for so much power in such a small system."

Comments

summary

[pbranes]

Here's the quick summary:

It's disgustingly well engineered and it works incredibly well.

Here's a link to a single page that you don't have to click through.

Coralized Cache

[chickenmonger]

Might as well provide a link just in case the server slows to a crawl...

http://www.hexus.net.nyud.net:8090/content/reviews /review_print.php?dXJsX3Jldmlld19JRD04NzY=

Better Link

[b1ng0]

All on one page for easy reading and printing link

My thoughts about this system

[HoneyBunchesOfGoats]

I've been following this Iwill SFF for some time, as I'm very interested in it. Here are a few of the distinguishing features:

* It has a mini-pci slot on the underside of the motherboard, which is meant for a wireless card, and a removable antenna for said card on top of the case.

* It only has two RAM slots, and lists the maximum RAM as 2GB.

* The RAM is only connected to CPU0, so any data CPU1 requests will have to be requested through CPU0. This does mean there will be a speed hit, but it isn't major.

* The MSRP is $499.

I just hope they offer it in some other color than bright red.

Re:My thoughts about this system

[Anonymous Coward]

According to the manufacturer's page, it looks like the other color is silver. I'm guessing the $499 is the bare machine w/o an processors.

Re:My thoughts about this system

[drsmithy]

However you are correct, Intel's and AMD's latest 32-bit chips (ie the P4 and the AthlonXP) both have 36-bits worth of physical address lines. They can't properly deal with all that memory at once, using rather ugly kludges, but at least they can physically use it.

Just for completeness, intel CPUs have been able to address 36 bits worth of RAM ever since the PPro, way back in 1996.

Re:But...

[Jeff DeMaagd]

I see nothing on that Microsoft link that prohibits this SFF computer from working with the XP-x64 beta.

Re:But...

[jarich]

Does it run Windows?

yes. unlike Intel's Itanium, the 64 bit Opteron is completely backwards compatible... 32 bit applications run natively on them.

I'm running on a dual Opteron w/32 bit Windows XP right now. :)

Re:Cube

[harlows_monkeys]

Although, personally, if I'm looking for power, quiet, and ease of use, I'd just get a dual G5 Mac at this point

Dual G5 Macs aren't quiet. This is a point of much consternation in Mac forums--with Macs seeming to be ideal for audio work, many are puzzled that Apple doesn't build a truly quiet machine for that niche.

For somethine really quiet, it looks like your best bet now is to build something yourself. Start with cases and power supplies and cooling from Zalman. Their external water cooling system looks particularly nice, and easy to install.

Speaking of dual Opteron workstations...

[Fweeky]

Anyone have motherboard recommendations? Here's a few I've seen:

MSI K8T MASTER2-FAR - cheap as chips, but no PCI-X. Anything else it's missing? Someone I spoke to mentioned it lacks NUMA support; is that going to be important when looking at dual core chips next year, or am I likely to want to buy a new motherboard by then anyway?

Gigabyte GA-7A8DW+ - Also relatively cheap. Has a couple of PCI-X and a PCI/33 slot; bit anemic in this area, but has 4x SATA (good for my planned RAID-10 array), and actually has the nifty AMD64 heatsink mounting mechanism.

But then there's this Tyan Thunder K8W and similarly priced/specced friends; where's the AMD64 mounting system gone again? The layout of the board suggests seperate memory interfaces per CPU, which I guess will be important for dual core, but by then I'll probably also want PCI-Express and such too, so..

Suggestions? Plan is to run FreeBSD on it. Oh, a case would be good too.. am I going to need something special for EATX? Anyone spotted a tower case with 4x hot-swap SATA bays? ;)

Re:Speaking of dual Opteron workstations...

[Fweeky]

Yup, that looks perfect, except.. I kinda don't wanna wait several months, and I've not been impressed with the nForce's *ix support so far (although nVidia's FreeBSD GFX driver support seems great; what's the point without stable SATA and network drivers?).

This is a work machine to mirror our dual Opteron servers, which are using these puppies. The Tyan S2885 looks like the closest board to that, and is one of the best I've seen for sale in the UK.

Re:Don't Forget the Apple G5 Macs

[Hoser McMoose]

All Athlon64 and Opteron systems support ECC memory unless the motherboard manufacturer went to great lengths to disable such support. It is that this is the case with this particular system, I couldn't say for sure as IWill doesn't have the specs listed yet. However other IWill Opteron boards do support ECC.

One of the really nice features about pulling the memory controller onto the processor die is that now AMD controls this sort of thing and doesn't need to depend on the motherboard and chipset vendors nearly as much.

Re:Athlon64/Opteron may well be diasterous for Int

[Anonymous Coward]

Argh, Pentium 4M is NOT the same as the Pentium M.

The Pentium M is based on the PPro core, whereas Pentium 4M is a standard Pentium 4 (aka Netburst) with some power management circuits thrown in.

Pentium M-2.0 GHz outperforms a Pentium 4-3.2 GHz in integer calculations, while drawing _significantly_ less power.