What Happened to AMD Multiprocessing? 10
TWX_the_Linux_Zealot asks: "Recently I realized that I hadn't heard anything new regarding AMD processors and SMP, which had occasionally been mentioned on various tech news sites. There is no mention of such chipsets on AMD's Website, or on any of the motherboard manufacturers that I would have expected at least a press release from, such as ASUS, Gigabyte, or Abit Does anyone know what's going on?"
Re:just saw an article on this (Score:2)
And of course, we've all waited long enough for dual athlon systems -- I dunno if I can hold out for the second chipset release.
just saw an article on this (Score:4)
From http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/#987261890 [xbitlabs.com]
check out anadtech (Score:1)
Re:just saw an article on this (Score:1)
Re:Be AMAZED! 2X AMD 2Ghz Tyan Motherboard Benchma (Score:2)
You obviously haven't been paying much attention.. (Score:1)
Summer? (Score:5)
Moving along to the link section... 2cpu [2cpu.com] had a story and linked to this [pcstats.com] article at PCStats a few months ago about a prototype Tyan board. I believe it was even posted on /. 2cpu also linked to another article [tecchannel.com] (sorry I couldn't find and english version) about a dual AMD unit from, of all people, VA Linux!!! Guess that one slipped through the slashbots, huh?
AMD is looking to bump out Intel in one of it's most valued markets, servers. I don't doubt for a second that they are working as hard as they can with the aftermarkets to put out a dual board. It will happen, and all indications point to it happening soon.
What about Intel? (Score:1)
It's comming (Score:5)
This means that Tyan is the first, and for now, the only one that produces such boards. And they will not come cheap
First boards should start shipping to the big OEM's (Compaq, Fujitsu-Siemens, IBM) in June.
It's also difficult to implement dual Athlon processors, since the EV6 protocol used with the Athlons is a point to point bus, meaning every processor will get full access to the Front Side Bus (the opposite of the GTL+ bus of Intel, where every processor must share the same FSB). Ofcourse, this gives you MUCH higher performance, but at the same time, the tracecount rises dramaticly. Therefore, all dual-CPU Athlon boards will come on an 8-layer PCB. That's way higher than the 4-layer PCB found on most motherboards now.
There are rumours though that it'll also be possible to implement the 760MP chip on a 6-layer design, but face it, due to the added traces, boards will be exponentially more expensive than the current Dual Processor boards (based on Via Apollo Pro and BX chipsets) for Intel CPU's right now...
So, to answer your question, first boards should be shipping in June, but they are not meant for the average Joe, and I think that near the end of the year, we will see 'affordable' Dual-CPU Ahtlon motherboards.
This is a bit off-topic, but I do want to tell you that I recently read on aceshardware, that AMD does NOT advice you to use the current ThunderBird and Duron processors with the 760MP chipset. It might work, but then again, it might not. Palomino is the only CPU supported by AMD to do multiprocessing on the 760MP chipset...
Be AMAZED! 2X AMD 2Ghz Tyan Motherboard Benchmarks (Score:2)