Re: CCL:Summary Opteron vs Nocona

Hi Mikael,

The dual core Opterons are pin compatible with current Opterons and only a BIOS update should be necessary.  Given that most OSes in use support multiple processors, no new drivers, kernel patches, etc., are required.  That is, flash your BIOS, install a dual core CPU, boot your OS (with kernel that supports SMP), and you're done.  Because the single and dual core processors are pin compatible, Luigi could order/build his cluster today and swap CPUs for dual core Opterons in 6-12 mos.

Rich

On 5/17/05, Mikael Johansson <mpjohans)at(pcu.helsinki.fi> wrote:

Hello Luigi and All!

On Tue, 17 May 2005, Luigi Cavallo wrote:

> However, there's one point about opterons. AMD just announced dual-core cpus,
> which should perform far better than the single-core shipped now.
> I contacted resellers here in italy, and they say that dual-core cpus will be
> shipped after the summer. If you buy opetrons now they can sell you single-core.
> Is this true ? Any out of there has been able to buy AMD with dual-core cpus as
> the 275 ?

I don't know about AMD's mass shipping schedule, but I do know that there
will always be better and faster chips "after the summer". Or winter or
whatever time period of choice :-) I don't think it in general is worth
waiting for the next family of CPU's. Instead, get what is available when
you need it (if possible, of course). I don't know how much better the
price/performance ratio of dual cores would be, at least in the beginning,
when counting in all the costs of motherboards etc.

Also, after the dual core chips ship, there will be a lag before proper
drivers/kernel patches for Linux appear. It took a year after release
before a general AMD64 system could be considered usable for production
under Linux. OK, the jump to dual core might not be that big, but I would
be quite surprised if it immediately worked optimally.

Have a nice day,
     Mikael J.
     http://www.helsinki.fi/~mpjohans/


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