Very Computer

by **Jeff Shanno** » Fri, 20 Jun 1997 04:00:00

I've been thinking about buying one of those Tyan Tomcat III dual Pentium
motherboards for my Linux machine. I guess the only reason I want to do it
is because I can. Anyway, will I see a benefit from having dual CPU's when
I do simple tasks such as compiling a few thousand lines of C.

Is anyone running on the motherboard I mentioned? I'm really curious on
what kind of performance I should expect and if I'll encounter any problems
along the way with Linux running in a multiprocessor environment.

Jeff Shannon

by **Alan Co** » Fri, 20 Jun 1997 04:00:00

> I've been thinking about buying one of those Tyan Tomcat III dual Pentium
> motherboards for my Linux machine. I guess the only reason I want to do it
> is because I can. Anyway, will I see a benefit from having dual CPU's when
> I do simple tasks such as compiling a few thousand lines of C.

> Is anyone running on the motherboard I mentioned? I'm really curious on
> what kind of performance I should expect and if I'll encounter any problems
> along the way with Linux running in a multiprocessor environment.

A single PPro or PentiumII will outperform all the dual pentium
boards I've ever seen - even in perfectly ideal cpu intensive
processing jobs that split neatly. Single PPro 150's also seem to
be quite cheap now

Alan

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by **Kenneth R. Kinde** » Fri, 20 Jun 1997 04:00:00

Well, double chipped systems aren't used much for everyday computer.
Some programs that are made to use them in suedo root mode will run
better, but that's about it.

If I were you, I'd look at the new AMD K chip series, or Cyrix's chips.
They're faster than Intel's anyway. On the other hand, if you don't need
an x86, you could go with a Dec machine, and run Linux on it! Decs,
especailly Alphas will WAY outperform much else in the desktop area.

> I've been thinking about buying one of those Tyan Tomcat III dual Pentium
> motherboards for my Linux machine. I guess the only reason I want to do it
> is because I can. Anyway, will I see a benefit from having dual CPU's when
> I do simple tasks such as compiling a few thousand lines of C.

> Is anyone running on the motherboard I mentioned? I'm really curious on
> what kind of performance I should expect and if I'll encounter any problems
> along the way with Linux running in a multiprocessor environment.

> Jeff Shannon

by **Peter Suetterl** » Sat, 21 Jun 1997 04:00:00

Quote:> Well, double chipped systems aren't used much for everyday computer.

But shure for heavy computing.

Quote:> Some programs that are made to use them in suedo root mode will run
> better, but that's about it.

As soon as more than two jobs are running, there's a huge benefit.
Imagine playing quake without performance loss while compiling wine
or something alike.

Quote:> If I were you, I'd look at the new AMD K chip series, or Cyrix's chips.
> They're faster than Intel's anyway.

Floating performance? Shure?

Quote:> On the other hand, if you don't need
> an x86, you could go with a Dec machine, and run Linux on it! Decs,
> especailly Alphas will WAY outperform much else in the desktop area.

And have their price.
What does a dual board with two P133 cost today? A nothing, merely.
And that is a computer that in many respects can outperform a Dual
Sparc20.

>> I've been thinking about buying one of those Tyan Tomcat III dual
>> Pentium motherboards for my Linux machine. I guess the only reason I
>> want to do it is because I can. Anyway, will I see a benefit from
>> having dual CPU's when I do simple tasks such as compiling a few
>> thousand lines of C.

You will have to use the -j switch for make, so that more than one gcc
runs will be started at a time. For a 2-processor machine, that
(nearly, maybe 1.9) doubles the speed.
For one single application - no, sorry. No improvement.

Quote:>> Is anyone running on the motherboard I mentioned? I'm really curious
>> on what kind of performance I should expect and if I'll encounter any
>> problems along the way with Linux running in a multiprocessor
>> environment.

No, we are using the Gigabyte Board, but I wouldn't expect too many
problems, if at all.

Peter

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Peter "Pit" Suetterlin http://www.uni-sw.gwdg.de/~pit
Universitaets-Sternwarte Goettingen

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by **Colin Mai** » Mon, 23 Jun 1997 04:00:00

Quote:>I've been thinking about buying one of those Tyan Tomcat III dual Pentium
>motherboards for my Linux machine. I guess the only reason I want to do it
>is because I can. Anyway, will I see a benefit from having dual CPU's when
>I do simple tasks such as compiling a few thousand lines of C.

>Is anyone running on the motherboard I mentioned? I'm really curious on
>what kind of performance I should expect and if I'll encounter any problems
>along the way with Linux running in a multiprocessor environment.

>Jeff Shannon

Remember that a multi-processor system (of this nature) can not run a
single process any faster - it can only run on one of those CPUs at a
time. It WILL mean that you can do other things on the system at the
same time will only minimal degredation in performance.

I have had some experience of twin pentium CPU systems running SCO
(hmm...) & about 20 users, and I only gained an estimated 20-40%
throughput. Although I'm not a great fan of SCO (I switched from SCO
curses to ncurses & got about 50% less line traffic!!!) I believe that
the real problem is that the pentium was never really designed to be
used in a multi-processor system. I gather the P-pro is a LOT better -
check it out.

Colin Main

(I can't think of anything funny to put here - C.Main, 1997)

by **Robert E. Bowle** » Wed, 25 Jun 1997 04:00:00

Do it.
Just remember to uncomment the 'SMP = 1' line.

> I've been thinking about buying one of those Tyan Tomcat III dual Pentium
> motherboards for my Linux machine. I guess the only reason I want to do it
> is because I can. Anyway, will I see a benefit from having dual CPU's when
> I do simple tasks such as compiling a few thousand lines of C.

Also set MAKEFLAGS to '-j2' or '-j4' or such.

Quote:> Is anyone running on the motherboard I mentioned? I'm really curious on
> what kind of performance I should expect and if I'll encounter any problems
> along the way with Linux running in a multiprocessor environment.

> Jeff Shannon

I can't guarantee you won't encounter any problems,
but I haven't had even one. No system hangs, no data loss, etc.
Check the bug reports anyhow...

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