possy_99 Posted May 9, 2009 Share Posted May 9, 2009 I've just picked up an old dell poweredge sc1420 currently packing a single xeon 2.8 with hyperthreading, it has room for another cpu...my main pc is running an athlon dual core 6000+is it worth me splashing out on another cpu for the dell? How would two xeon 2.8 +HT compare against a single athlon dual core 6000+ anyone have any ideas?also, as some of you will no doubt know, my prefered os is XP, I know corp can handle 2 cpu's, but will it handle 2 cpu's with HT and report/use 4 cpus?cheers for any feedback Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kelsenellenelvian Posted May 9, 2009 Share Posted May 9, 2009 (edited) also, as some of you will no doubt know, my prefered os is XP, I know corp can handle 2 cpu's, but will it handle 2 cpu's with HT and report/use 4 cpus?Hyperthreading is WAAY different than dual core m8. Yes XP will handle it fine but it will never see that setup as 4cpus. As for speed what is the actual clock speed of the Athlon 6000+?It also depends on the ram speed and amount in each machine.anyways I just googled the 6000+ and see the base closk speed is 3 gigs. While I personally think a dual cpu setup with hyper threading will beat a Dual-core cpu I honestly think you will get more bang outta the athlon. Edited May 13, 2009 by puntoMX Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
possy_99 Posted May 9, 2009 Author Share Posted May 9, 2009 hi m8the clock speed of the athlon is 3ghz the athlon has 6gb of cheap ddr2-800 ram, the dell has 4gb of ram, can't remember the speed (away from home at the moment too)btw - keep up the good work with wpi, I'm a very happy user Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kelsenellenelvian Posted May 9, 2009 Share Posted May 9, 2009 (edited) Ok then the xeon isn't 64bit compatable either right?Speed wise as long as you tolerate 64bit (I don't really like it much myself) then the Athlon will beat the hell outta the xeon. Remember 32bit (or x86) cannot properly use the ram above 3.15 - 3.5 gigs...Thanks for the compliment ALWAYS glad to see a happy user! Edited May 9, 2009 by Kelsenellenelvian Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
possy_99 Posted May 9, 2009 Author Share Posted May 9, 2009 i just installed xp x64 on to the dell/xeon today, installed fine..I bought the dell server thinking it could be a project, buying the 2nd cpu and maybe upgrading it to 6gb of ram - if its not going to beat my athlon then I may just sell the dell as it is.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kelsenellenelvian Posted May 9, 2009 Share Posted May 9, 2009 Hmm with 6 gigs ram and 64x XP then I dunno...It's pretty close IMO! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
possy_99 Posted May 9, 2009 Author Share Posted May 9, 2009 is it worth spending ~£200/$300 for 2nd cpu and +2gb ram in your opinion? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kelsenellenelvian Posted May 9, 2009 Share Posted May 9, 2009 no.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
possy_99 Posted May 9, 2009 Author Share Posted May 9, 2009 ok m8, thanks for your input Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CoffeeFiend Posted May 9, 2009 Share Posted May 9, 2009 anyways I just googled the 6000+ and see the base closk speed is 3 gigsThat hardly matters. Clock speed by itself means nothing (even less so between server & destop lines of CPUs, from different eras, and from different manufacturers no less), and here 6000+ is a better number to go by (i.e. it'll slaughter any P4 3GHz in any bench but a i7 at 3GHz would also be a LOT faster -- clock speed only means so much).P4-era Xeons aren't that fast. The Athlon64 6000+ cores 1509 in passmark, and a 2.8GHz P4 (same class more or less) scores 400-ish. Not surprisingly, a dual Xeon 2.8 scores a lowly 840 (that's slower than any low-end dual core CPU sold today or even older stuff like the Athlon64 X2 3600+, Sempron Dual Core 2100, Pentium D 3.2, or a Intel E2140!) Hyperthreading is only a ugly hack around their netburst-era pipeline architectural mistake (nothing at all like being a dual core), and it actually slows down some workloads significantly. As for having 2 CPUs, those old CPUs are interconnected by a slow FSB bus (nothing like hypertransport or quickpath) which is also a LOT slower than the bus between both cores on the Athlon64 X2. Also, that slower bus also happens to be shared between CPUs and also going to the memory, thus creating another bottleneck on the already much slower interconnect, to much slower RAM as well. And we're disregarding things like OS/drivers/apps being SMP aware too...It also will cost more money to get another Xeon too (server processors tend to be expensive), and it will suck a lot more power too (about twice as much; translating in a higher power bill - more $ again). And most of the stuff on that board (like storage controllers and what not -- I believe this has an old ICH5R, we're up to ICH10R now) would also be older (often slower and/or more expensive) tech i.e. PATA or SCSI instead of SATA, as well as PCI-X slots instead of PCI-e ones, less USB and so on.The only advantage the dual Xeon has, is having 6 DIMM slots, but then again, that means fancy (more expensive) and slower 400MHz ECC RAM if you want 12GB (many inexpensive AM2+ boards support 16GB anyways, some even 32GB) -- and that's only useful if you need that much RAM in the first place (not that 32 bit XP will use it, and XP 64 bit isn't exactly great IMO -- not that I use XP anymore).If that 6000+ ain't fast enough, your best bet is to get a quad core. Many AM2+ boards will take Phenom II's. A $190 Phenom II X4 940 gets 3796 in passmark, that's 4.5x faster than that dual Xeon and much cheaper too -- and it's a real 64 bit CPU (not an old P4-era 32 bit CPU with EMT64 slapped on top of it). Or even a cheap $75 Phenom 8450 is like twice as fast, or a $90 Phenom 9600 that's about 3x faster. Same with Intel CPUs: a $70 E5200 is twice as fast, a $170 Q8200 is almost 4x faster. Personally, I'd be getting rid of such a Xeon box very quickly... It's slow, very power hungry, expensive and usually loud too (heat = fan noise), likely doesn't have so great power management and so on. If you want something any faster than your existing 6000+ in decent quality and preferably modern-ish server-class hardware, be prepared to pay for it! Just a basic dual socket board (like a tyan or supermicro) will run you $300 and over (more like $500 for something kick-a**), then add the expensive CPUs, the ECC RAM or FB-DIMMs, etc. Getting a decent desktop-class quad core CPU will give you a LOT more bang for your buck in any case.Also, you can find the whole server (1425) with dual 2.8's in it for less than $300 to begin with... I've seen dual 2.8 Xeon servers for as low as $150. A pair of socket 604 Xeon 2.8's goes for like under $30 on ebay, including shipping in the USA (e.g. see item # 320217706535). Everybody's trying to get rid of that old stuff, that's why it's so cheap. People don't want to fill precious rack space with old, slow, power hungry stuff as it just costs too much overall. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kelsenellenelvian Posted May 9, 2009 Share Posted May 9, 2009 Yeah I just researched the model he says he got and see that the ram is most likely ddr 400 also.Its a real boner when you get into the specifics. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
possy_99 Posted May 10, 2009 Author Share Posted May 10, 2009 thanks again guys, appreciate your input Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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