2x16x SLI - Dual Opteron Nforce 4 board

[r2d2d3d4d5]

Saw this (http://xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=44016) link on the Inquirer (http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=19216).

They have several pictures of NF4 boards including a picture of a dual Opteron board with 8 memory slots that is reported have two 2x16x PCI-E slots.


http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=8352&stc=1

(spit) :drooling: :drooling: :drooling: :drooling:

[anzak]

:drooling:

[superklye]

:drooling:

:drooling: :drooling: :drooling:

[fivefeet8]

:drooling: :drooling: :drooling:



:drooling: :drooling: :drooling: :drooling: :drooling:

[Bill The Cat]

:bugeyes:

[Sazar]

sweet

:drooling:

and dedicated memory banks too :eek:

:drooling: :drooling:

[retsam]

you know these boards look great but ... they use registered dimms ....what a bummer

[CaptNKILL]

Holy monkey flippin christ... that dual board is huge :wtf:

[MUYA]

yeah normal ppl are drooling imagine what 3D professionals are doing when they see that :D

[CaptNKILL]

yeah normal ppl are drooling imagine what 3D professionals are doing when they see that :D
ewww... I dont know if I want to...

(naw)

[mezkal]

The problem with TYAN MP boards is twofold. One : They force you to use Registered RAM which is prohibitively expensive and overall doesn't return a noticeable reliability (and infact, can add to compat/clock speed issues) over standard RAM. Two : TYAN still don't differentiate the SERVER and DESKTOP GRAPHICS PROFESSIONAL markets. Look at the board, Dual Lan. That's the most obvious sign that this board is like all the other TYAN MP boards; Server oriented, value prohibitive and most probably underperforming.

I'm going to wait until some other AMD nextgen MP boards hit the market. I think also that Dual Core needs to realise first before any more MP boards of EITHER brand are purchased.

Dual Core, SP may well turn out to be a better value for money performer overall for 3D graphics pros.

We'll see.

[nutball]

and most probably underperforming.

Underperforming in what way? (Out of interest). I thought the days were long gone when there was any relevant performance difference between motherboards based on the same chipset?

[mezkal]

Most of the TYAN boards have had a variety of issues that tend to crop in more "real world" scenarios. SCSI, AGP, and RAM performance have been some of areas that a variety of TYAN MP boards have had in the past.

In answer to to your performance differential comment I'm not talking about Chipsets per se. I'm talking about overall Board design. A 3D graphics pro may not need (or want) a NIC at all, let alone two running on machine, eating CPU resources (albiet small)and IRQs. Too me TYAN MP boards always seem to be pretty close to MP reference designs and thus the user is left to make the cost differential because TYAN couldn't design a more streamlined, application specific board.

[retsam]

ummm these are server boards.... if my job is on the line and i had to choose between performance and stability i would choose stability anyday ....

[mezkal]

Well thanks for stating the obvious. LOL. I already mentioned the fact that they were server boards as being part of my issue with them. But thanks for mentioning it.

Now in response to your comments....

I'm not talking about sacrificing stability. What use does an Artist have of two own board nics? Or registered RAM. I think that TYAN needs to develop hardware more specifically geared to the 3D graphics Pro. Either way I don't really think it's a BIG issue. My comments were in response to MUYA's these MP boards potential appeal to that market segment.

[barrettabel]

I use the dual nics for rendering images with cluster of machines i.e simulating a big shared memory system ex: http://www.lam-mpi.org/

It's a whole lot cheaper than alternatives such as myranet, http://www.myri.com/

and If one gig nic is good, two is better. We have a 46 node cluster (Dual opteron, 4gb ram) EACH with 3 nics ( 2 x Gb data and 1 10/100 for NFS/SSH etc..)

Also, doesn't all Opteron (940 pin) systems require ecc/registered mem? Thats a factor of the memory controller on the cpu - right?

I do agree with you, the Tyan boards are not as performant as others.... But you got to love the stability....

[retsam]

I think that TYAN needs to develop hardware more specifically geared to the 3D graphics Pro.

itsnt that market segment called the mac

[mezkal]

itsnt that market segment called the mac

That comment alone shows how ignorant you are with regards to that market segment. The Apple Macintosh only holds ONE exclusive crown these days, Pro Audio, but that is about to change.

Previously Pro Tools (as used by THOUSANDS of professional musicians and producers) was exclusively on Mac hardware. Infact, so far only ONE PC hardware Vendor, Carillon in the UK, has been given the rights to sell Pro Tools PC based machines. Of course it only has to too start with one....

Apple has seen their market share in 3D graphics, Non Linear Vid Editing and Music shrink quite considerably these days while the PC market has become more expansive and less expensive on the whole.

[Lezmaka]

Pixar and DreamWorks don't seem to mind Tyan's dual Xeon and integrated scsi/nic boards.