PT Performance - Davec I & Davec II Tests

[3JDamon]

Anyone considering any dual-core system should take a hard look at getting the Asus K8N-DL dual socket 940 board and starting with one Opteron 265 (dual-core 1.8GHz). It should cost very close to a high-end Athlon X2, outperform it, and has the option of a second Opteron 265 down the road. A single 265 should score 180-200 D-Verbs based on my results with two 270's.

Something I never asked Shane - Are you using ECC ram? I am, and under heavy CPU loads that could represent a substantial difference since the error correction is done on the ram instead of by the CPU. This frees up CPU *and* allows faster access to data so the CPU isn't left waiting. Maybe that's the ticket. (email sent)

[JonnyGinese]

hmm... thats a good point 3J... do you happen to have non-ECC ram that you can test your theory with? Although Crucial says that ECC decreases performance by 2%... But if PTLE acctually corrects the errors using the CPU then maybe... especially if all the calculations made are 1 bit errors that ECC ram corrects on the fly with no delay... And with out ECC the CPU has to do the calculation AND the corretion... i dunno... we need to test your system with non-ecc to see if it makes a difference. It might just be the mobo you have thats so much better then Shanes...

[Matt P]

I hate to burst your bubble but all registered memory is ECC.
And you have to use registered memory on all server Motherboards except one that I know of and that is this:
ASUS NCCH-DL Dual Socket 603/604 Intel 875P ATX Server Motherboard

This the memory that Shane is using:
CORSAIR XMS 2GB (2 x 1GB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM ECC Registered DDR 400 (PC 3200) Dual Channel Kit System Memory - Retail

Also remember that Shane's Motherboard or one of his CPU's may have been damaged from that wrong firewire header that Tyan gave him with the board. (remeber he lost his 002R and a lacie hard drive from this.)
We'll know more shortly.
Hope this clears this up.

Matt

[Shan]

Yep, mine is ECC registered ram just as Matt mentioned.

I also agree with you 3J. I think now is the time to go Quad even if you only start out with one CPU you should get a real good performance out of it.

And I'm still waiting on Tyan to resolve my issue. We did come to an agreement and we are just finalizing everything. The will look at my mother board just in case something happened.

Shane

[Shan]

Johnny, it's time for you to make the leap bro-ski. 16 cores on that Tyan board will be plenty for you. And it's still cheaper than an HD rig.

Shane

[JonnyGinese]

lol... well.. If i can get between 350 and 400 d-verbs with dual 265's and 2gb's of ECC ram I'll be very happy... Because thats about 10 times faster them my 3700+... Do you think I'll get those kinda results?

[Shan]

Just wanted to report back that Matt P helped me get some system tests going to see if any of my CPUs or Ram etc were damaged and all seems to be in top notch condition. We had 4 Prime95 torture tests running all night without any probs. My next step is to get Tyan to check out my board. They got back to me yesterday.

And it looks like the Quads are almost the same price as a dual-core system. I just quoted up a price for a dual-core and a quad-core for a friend and the price difference was only $200 Canadian. This system should be under $1000 usd in a few months.

Johnny, I havent got the Asus board to test yet but I can assure you I'll jump on it as soon as I can.

Shane

[Shan]

To everyone who has recently sent me emails regarding quad systems etc. I wont be able to answer those for a few days. I have about 2 hours of work in emails to respond to.

Shane

[JonnyGinese]

hmmm... i wonder whats with you system then... according to 3J's results you should be getting like 400dverbs... And your test scored around 140 or something.... Granted thats still about the same speed as an HD3 system.. but in comparison to the score a system with only 200mhz per core in addition to your system... your are scoring about 1/3 his score.. try to get taht Asus board bro. lol

[dude2]

Hey Jonny, slightly off topic but noticed you're using AMD 3700+ rig w/6.4. I'm usin P4 3.4E, 875PBZ, 2 gigs 3200@ 2-2-2-6. Always had unresolveable redraw issues on 6.4: empty spaces when scrolling up or down edit window or just movin things around in general. Now usin 6.9 with much improvement in this area but things still get boggy as far as meters and window edges blurring in sessions w/only 8 tracks and 10 plugs.

Thinking of doin the Allenstien thing and just wondering how AMD rigs perform in this area. I've heard alot of good things about AMD, integrated memory controller, instructions per clock, etc. While my setup is perfectly functional for the most part, am I missin any improvement to these issues that an AMD setup could offer?

Thanks a lot