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Category: CPUs

A 2 cpu build

Are there any users that have built a system with two or more cpu's? I'm interested in building a new linux box and would like to experiment with this. I dont know if there is any advantage but it sounds cool. Ive browsed around for some tutorials and articles but have come up dry. Any info from this forum would be appreciated

take a look at http://forums.2cpu.com

Its been highly recommended to me.

It depends on what you are doing. An awful lot of applications are not CPU bound. Most are I/O or memory bound. Things like A/V editing, scientific calculations, modeling, and certain software design/development programs do benefit from dual cpus. Also, the applications and operating system have to be SMT aware. Winxp and most Linux distros have that base covered from the OS side. And thanks to intel's force feeding of HT into the mainstream, have caused a fair number of programs to be updated to use dual cpu's. First figure out what you are using the computer for, what apps you plan to use, and then you can find out if going dually is for you.

2CPU (http://www.2cpu.com), as mentioned above, is a great reference point for info on the subject.

Only time I have used multi processor boxes have been in render farms for 3D studio and Database servers.

Okay, but these are not standard boxes either. I have a quad Alpha 500 system that at the time, the graphics/architecture firm I was working at was throwning away for new 16 processor Blade servers from IBM. So that's a 64-bit system running on True 64 unix.

However rendering is bound to CPU and RAM, as some of those files with 500 million polygons take awhile and can eat up 4 GB of ram real quick. (Yes I have seen us unable to render more than 2 frames at a time, and each frame took 1 quad processor box 6 hours to render.

For a home box, if you really want to play around, try getting an Althon based sytem. its a bit cheaper to build than an Intel based system, just make sure you get a large enough case and fans. They build up heat like no tomorrow.