Considering an upgrade to a dually...
 

I think it is about time to upgrade to a dually setup, but im short of cash. I have a FTP server going 24/7 and always have a ton of stuff running simultaneously, and sometimes my mobile Barton has problems keeping up. Even when running at 2.7, it tends to lag. Here is my proposed setup:

Asus PC-DL Deluxe, 875P chipset, quite overclockable
Dual 1.6 Low Voltage Hyperthreading Xeons, can be overclocked to 2.8-3.0 quite easily and I think they are multi unlocked, although I'm not certain.
Dual MCW6002s

The cost of the dual xeons should be $100 for the pair, the motherboard will vary depending on what is on ebay. I'm probably looking at 220-250 total, which is acceptable. The waterblocks will be 80, which isnt too bad.

I can still use the PC4000 Adata Vitesta ram that I have because the board is not limited to ECC registered ram only, so this is a big bonus.

I will need to get a SATA PCI card or two because the PC-DL only has 2 onboard and some people say it cant overclock with SATA drives :shrug:

I'm almost certain that I will take a performance gaming hit with evertyhing else turned off, but with the FTP server and everything else running behind it I should improve, correct?

Another possible solution is to simply get a second machine to run the FTP server from. This will allow you to use your gaming box for gaming, without having to make any compromises, and would also give you another system (who doesnt want that)

Well, I'm limited with space being in a dorm, and would like all my stuff on one computer. I have already considered buying a cheapy P3 server or something, but i'd rather have all my eggs in one basket :D

You're in a dorm? Dude you have free AC, power and internet. Get more computers. I had 5 running headless in my dorm managed via RDP. Much harder for them to track my bandwidth usage when I had that many IP addresses.

Plus I didn't have to worry about my main machine lagging during games.

Lol, the only free AC I get is an open window in the window. I'm probably already overloading the wiring in my room with all my crap.

I could have started using all my pelt crap that I have, but I was afraid that drawing that much amperage would probably blow out the wall socket. I already have my computer, tv, speaker system, laptop, window fan, and all my peripherals plugged into one dual socket, and the building was made in the 60's so I don't know how good the wiring is.

I also only have 2 network ports, and one is reserved for the laptop or if I get a roommate next semester.

Also, I dont think they give a shit about bandwidth: I routinely upload 30gb/day with my FTP. They have never said anything to me, it is probably tough to keep track of 20k kids all downloading and uploading stuff

Would a dually really spread the load like that? I thought you had to have a multi thread capable software for that? Been a while since I thought about a dually but there was a reason I didn't go that route.

30gigs a day? Must have one fat pipe. My ISP would (Comcast Cable) shut me down for that. Not that I have the upload speed to acheive it anyway.

I dont think they spread the load within a program, but I'm fairly certain each processor runs different programs simultaneously (I dont think one idles while the other does the work).

More machines aren't really going to stress your power. Headless machines use very little power. My Dual 800 P3s w/ 10k RAID only draw 65w typical according to my meter. Most of the power use in a system is the monitor.

Besides my dorm was built in the 50s. It still had 15 amps / fuse which is more then enough for a room. You'd probably start to cook yourself before you actually burned out a fuse.

If you want a dual box, go for it. Mines a lot of fun, particularly when my roommates all need to use RDP at once. I'm just pointing out that there are cheaper and more effective solutions.

I am fairly sure the program needs to have dual CPU support and you need a Dual CPU support OS. Quick google search came to a THG article. http://www.tomshardware.com/motherbo...1/dual-08.html

Not the best source but it goes with everything else I read in the past. Try www.2cpu.com forums also.

I don't push quite that much with my server at MIT, but they so far haven't bothered me about it, and it's been up for about 2 months now. I think I average around 8 Gig or so of bandwidth usage a day. They tell us right away that they don't meter or rate limit us in any way. About the only limit is the gigabit pipe to the dorm, and the dual OC-3's that they use to connect everyone (there are also dual OC-12's to the Internet2). I'm sure there are different policies at other schools, but that's my experience here.
:)

What the hell do you guys transfer? I can't think of anything legal that would require such a huge amount of bandwidth ;).

I host about 24 domains that are all legitimate. The largest of those has around 50 subdomains, and a lot of the sites hosted are game modifications, which usually have very large file sizes.
;)

I see. Can't do that with any normal ISP connection. They don't allow servers. :cry:

With a dual CPU system, if you are running multiple programs, the OS is smart enough to spread out the different processes amongst the different CPUs. So, say you are running a game, it might max out one CPU, but the other CPU would still be free to run the FTP server, or whatever the case might be.

killernoodle: you should definitely run TECs in your dorm room. When you have free electricity is really the most practical time to do it. I sure used to ;).

Yep, you can have your game running on Processor 0 and the FTP server running on Processor 1, but unless you have a much more expensive board which has separate RAM banks for each processor, and the RAM to fill both sets of DIMMs, and the FTP files on a HDD on a different controller than the HDD that the game is on, you're going to run into slowdowns when one wants to access something the other is using, and even if you do go out of your way to address these issues, you aren't going to be able to beat two systems for performance in this case. (power efficiency is another matter, but you don't care about that :D )

You can throw money and faster components in, minimizing the drain that the FTPing places on your system, but you can't fully eliminate the issue unless you move it to a separate box.

Well, I finally bit the bullet.

I got an Asus PC-DL from dumpinggoods.com for $135, and am about to buy dual xeons on ebay for about 110.

I still need to get waterblocks.. probably 2 mcw6002s.. but I would like to get black faceplates on them. Oh well, I guess there is always spray paint.

I am aiming at 3.2ghz, which should be easy with the volt mods that people are doing to the pc-dl and the particular chips I am getting, so that should be plenty fast for my gaming needs ect.

kn - good luck with the setup. I was planning on the same setup but my A64 rig just died:( You must be lurking at 2cpu also

no longer lurking, put up my first couple posts today I think

If you want dual CPU power for cheap, still going with an MPX chipset and mod'd 3200+ bartons are the way to go.

I run dual 2Ghz Bartons in my MP chipset board (still the first gen first batch Tyan Thunder K7 that I reviewed almost 3 years ago - running like a champ!) and the machine just owns all in anything heavy duty on the CPU, such as video compression. Ive messed with a dual Xeon 3.06Ghz and it didnt seem as punchy as my Dual barton 2Ghz both using U320 SCSI drives.

if I were to get another dually it would be an Opteron.

Opterons are way outta my league.

I could go with a dually amd setup, but the available motherboards seem outdated. I have matching 2500+ mobile bartons that would make excellent candidates for MP modding, but I cant justify buying a ancient board to get them to run on. SCSI would be nice, but a good Raptor would be better in my case.

The 3.06 xeons didnt do so well in tests, but the 800fsb chips perform much better.

I still need waterblocks, and the swiftech website is somewhat confusing. Do MCW-6002-P's support the socket 604 when using the stock intel hold down thingy and the PX supports the 604 socket using threaded rods and springs? I'm not entirely sure what I need exactly.