1 or 2 processors?

[M. Osten]

What problems, what complexity?  I've had 4 smp systems (from a dual
p90 to my current dual p-3 800). SMP systems are great.  True, there
are not many applications that take full advantage of SMP, but linux will
off load processes to diffrent cpu's, greatly increasing the horsepower of
the machine.   

>    I've been running a dual-SMP Linux system for over two years.  I have
> older PII 350 MHz processors.  I would not do SMP again for a
> workstation.  It's just too hard to get things to work together well and
> with an 850 MHz or 1 GHz processor, the complexity of SMP is really not
> worth it and I do a great deal of computationally intense work with
> simulation and analytic models.  I'm currently running 2.2.12 and I
> understand that the 2.4 kernels are much more efficient in SMP mode.  
> My Linux distribution is Caldera's 2.3.
> 
>    My home system is a 750 MHz with 384 Mb memory and a 32 Gb IDE drive
> and it's all I'll ever need.  I'd spend the premium you'd pay for a good
> SMP board on more memory.  If you do decide to get an SMP system, use
> great care in choosing the board.  Some are much better than others.
> Sorry, but I don't have any URL's to pass on but there has been a great
> deal of analysis done about SMP Linux systems and a simple net search on
> SMP Linux should point you in the right direction.  Do your homework
> thoroughly before you buy.
> 
> 
> 
> 					-- Jerry Place
> 					-- CSTP
> 
> 
> On Thu, 7 Dec 2000, Mickey Newman wrote:
> 
> > Have some questions about performance and cpu's.  Any help would be
> > appreciated.
> > 
> > I am getting ready to build a new(er) pc to use at home to
> > completely switch to linux.  Will run RH 7.0.  My question is about
> > cpu and the combinations.  For the price of getting 1 PIII or equiv.
> > I can get a dual PII (450 or so and possibly xeon).  Which would be
> > more efficent or faster?  Dual PII's or single PIII?  I would be
> > buying a board that would support dual PIII's for when the price
> > comes down.
> > 
> > Any help would be appreciated.
> > 
> > Mickey
> > 
> > 
> > 
> 
> 

-- 
---------
Michael Osten, Linux sysadmin
Reefedge Inc., Fort Lee, NJ.
http://louissypher.yi.org
louissypher at atdot.org (personal)
mosten at reefedge.com (work)