[KLUG Members] Re: Dual proc Mobos

[Bryan J. Smith]

On Sat, 2002-05-25 at 11:24, Adam Williams wrote:
> I tried running servers on AMD K6 & K6-2 hardware on a couple of
> occasions and I'd strongly disagree,  but since that is pretty old stuff
> at this point it doesn't much matter. 

You just _blew_past_ my point!  If anything, you _agreed_ with me.

Because _Intel_ controlled the GTL (Socket-7) platform, AMD had a lot of
issues.  Once AMD moved to it's own Alpha EV6 platform with the Athlon,
the issues were removed.  This continues with x86-64/Opteron and the new
HyperTransport interconnect.

Both the Athlon's Alpha EV6 and new Opteron's HyperTransport is
_far_superior_ to Intel GTL+ P3 and even P4 SMP when it comes to
multiprocessor.  EV6 allows upto 16 independent nodes (CPUs, memory,
I/O) in a cross-bar (like a switch) whereas Intel SMP uses a simple bus
(like a hub).  Opteron HyperTransport moves the northbridge (memory and
interconnect) into the chip, although it's over 900 pins (long story).

Intel is going to continue to have difficulty matching the cumulative
brainpower of AMD and API.  Heck, the Digital team (who is now API
Networks) designed most of Intel's interconnects and bridges -- let
alone their StrongARM microcontroller!

> We had to raise the core voltage beyond the rated value in order to get
> uptime of more than 48 hours,

Are you sure you weren't supposed to be running at 2.9 or 3.2V in the
first place???  I know a _lot_ of people who ran K6 systems and thought
they used the same 2.8V as the Pentium MMX.  This was NOT the case.  You
needed 2.9-3.2V for the early AMD K6 processors -- but most people
didn't know this.

> we had memory corruption (seg faults) on multiple machines, etc...

Wouldn't surprise me if you weren't supplying enough voltage to the
chips.  I ran into this all the time

> Dropping in Intel chips solved the problems.

Again, GTL as designed for Intel, NOT AMD.  It wasn't until late in the
K6 series that OEMs finally started designing the "Super-7" mainboard
they were supposed to.  By then, AMD had already chucked GTL and gone
Alpha EV6.

> Competition is good, that is an Open Source motto.
> I wonder what ever became of Cyrix?

They are owned by ViA and have released GTL+ (Socket-370) processors. 
You haven't heard of them lately because they continue to live in
Intel's shadow.

Again, AMD finally "wised up" and got out from under it.

> The presence of KDE just gives incentive for GNOME to get better
> and better. :)

Agreed.

-- Bryan

-- 
The US government could be 100x more effective, and 1/100th the
Constitutional worry, if it dictated its policy to Microsoft as
THE MAJOR CUSTOMER it is, and not THE REGULATOR it fails to be.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Bryan J. Smith, SmithConcepts, Inc.   mailto:b.j.smith@ieee.org
Engineers and IT Professionals     http://www.SmithConcepts.com