AMD Athlon64 Systems -- dual-940 boards with AGP+PCI-X are still costly ...

[Robert L Cochran]

Maybe you can get dual Socket 939 systems next year? Cheaper memory, too.

Bob

Bryan J. Smith wrote:

> On Wed, 2003-10-15 at 22:35, Robert L Cochran wrote:
> 
>>Is anyone using the AMD Athlon64?
> 
> 
> I was hoping I would once a "low-cost" dual-940 mainboard came out.
> 
> Heck, most dual-940 boards don't even have AGP.  Although I'm not a huge
> fan of AGP (especially since PCI-X is more stable, and just as fast),
> all the "commodity" video cards are AGP based (and virtually none are
> PCI-X).
> 
> Only a few, select dual-940 mainboards have both AGP and PCI-X are
> costly.  E.g., the Tyan S2885 "Thunder" K8W is almost $600.
> 
> I though the "holy grail" had arrived with the introduction of the Tyan
> S2875 "Tiger" K8W.  Although I haven't seen any pricing yet, I think I
> can forget about considerign it.  Why?  It's got 0 I/O capability. 
> E.g., they don't come with the AMD-8131 PCI-X I/O Hub.  So _everything_
> runs of the "meager" 32-bit, 33MHz PCI channel of the AMD-8111 --
> _including_ the GbE, SATA, etc...
> 
> Ouch, talk about bus contention!!!
> 
> So I'm back where I started.  I might as well wait until the Opteron
> comes down in price anyway, before investing in a dual-940.
> 
> Maybe someone else will come out with a cheaper HyperTransport
> hub/bridge that has PCI-X and LPC on the same chip, instead of the
> separate AMD 8131 and AMD 8111 "reference" solution, cutting costs. 
> Heck, maybe they'll put it "all-in-one" anyway, including AGP too. 
> They've done that for the single processor systems, especially the more
> "consumer" 754 pin.  But not dual.
> 
> Or maybe "commodity" PCI-X video cards will start making an appearance. 
> Ack, not likely given the marketing power of Intel.  Although I'm
> waiting for ATI or, especially, nVidia (who has AMD-only chipsets) to
> surprise me.
> 
> 

-- 
Bob Cochran
Greenbelt, Maryland, USA
http://greenbeltcomputer.biz/