Dual Mobo or a fast single mobo

[chil]

I am building a windows 2000 server which will run a bunch of services including exchange. This will only be for use in a small 4 user office. I need to know which is better/faster/reliable. A: the ECS D6VAA Dual Intel 600 CPU's. or B: An AMD 1.2Ghz CPU on any VIA Apollo chipset mobo.
Also, are dual 600mhz CPU's the same or better than one 1.2ghz CPU?

I need to buy one or the other soon.

[AuraEdge]

The Dual 600 will be worse.
If you get dual 600 on the ECS board, you will have 1200 total Mhz, running on a 100/133Mhz bus, which is shared between two CPU's, minus the overhead that the sharing causes, and it would only utilize both CPU's for an app with that app knows how to utilize SMP. Otherwise its one at a time for different programs.
If you get a 1200 on a Via board, you will have 1200 total Mhz, a 200/266Mhz bus dedicated to one CPU, and no sharing overhead. Also, all programs can take full potential of the 1200Mhz.
That makes 1200Mhz Better and faster. More reliable? CPU's are usually, work or dont work. If you cool the 1200 well, you should have no probs with the AMD. Also, If all other things are the same, if you have 2 parts, one is more likely to fail than if you have one part. (Dont know about Athlon vs P3 though)

To top it off, a P3 600EB (133Mhz) FCPGA cost 120 each ($240), and the AMD Athlon Thunderbird 1.2Ghz Socket A (266Mhz) costs about $200. So thats cheaper, faster, and more reliable.

So that makes it cheaper, better, faster, and more reliable. Last ones arguable, but the first 3 are pretty much fact.

[Stan]

Hi,

Running Exchange ?

Definitely go for a dual CPU config. You do not need lots of horse power. You need multitasking and even if AuraEdge is right when he says than an Athlon 1.2GHz will smoke 2 PIII 600, a dual CPU config is more suitable for server based products.

What you need is lots of RAM (min 512MB)

Last thing: the single Athlon might be cheaper, but mony should NOT be your prime concern when building a server.
Your prime concern should be reliabilty and redundancy.
A single Athlon is not better than a dual PIII. Two CPU are always better than one !

Stan

FYI: at work (2 years ago), I have set up an Exchange 5.5 sp3 server for approx 60 users. It is a Dell PE 4300 (dual PIII 450, 1GB RAM, RAID5). Still running fine !


[This message has been edited by Stan (edited 03-29-2001).]

[AuraEdge]

All I was saying is that two chips have twice the chance of frying as one chip under the same conditions. (when u multiply equipment by two, the MTBF for the collective gets divided in half).

If one 600Mhz chip frys out, your server will still run but the other chip will need to be replaced to re-achieve the original's performance.

If availability is more important than raw horsepower, price, and internal speed, than go for the Dually. Server building, redundancy and reliability isnt my field of expertise (Heck I run a RAID0), so I bet Stan has the better idea.

[chil]

Well, I'm not really worried about redundancy. But can you tell me what is the best Mobo for and AMD 850, 200FSB socket A? and will it work with 2k server?