Brandon wrote:
> Hello you brilliant minds,
> I am in need of some (probably basic) information
concerning
> CentOS and the new dual core 64 bit systems. I realize
that
> Linux was inherently built for multiple processor systems,
as
> well as 64 bit systems. My first question is AMD doing
> anything special with doing all of the above on one chip
> that I need to know about before installing CentOS on my
> newest system?
Both AMD and Intel do their best to "hide" any hardware
changes that are not compatible with legacy GTL+ through
various support chips, and those interface appear "standard"
in the APIC registers.
In the case of AMD, they virtualized the GTL+ "bus" back with
the adoption of the Alpha EV6 architecture/interconnect
"switch" with the original Athlon. They have gone to a true,
"partial mesh" in the Athlon64/Opteron, but it all still
appears as a GTL+ "bus" from the standpoint of Linux
(although the Linux kernel does have some modifications for
better efficiency of the architecture).
The AMD dual-cores are actually interconnect almost the
_exact_same_ as if they were two seprate sockets, from an
electrical/logic standpoint. There are only a few
performance considerations (both pro and con) of the
dual-core v. two sockets.
In the case of Intel, still using the GTL+ "bus," so they
have had to add a _lot_ of bridging in the new dual-cores.
There's a lot of commentary on this, because Intel is
releasing a better dual-core this year (mid-2006). But the
underlying architecture is radically different for Intel
separate cores v. dual or multicore. Intel is close to
introducing multiple front-side busses for its server chips
with a switching interconnect -- much like old Alpha EV6
(which 32-bit Athlon used).
> Also, my motherboard being a a8n32-sli has SATA II
Which is largely a marketing term:
http://thebs413.blogspot.com/serial_storage_is_future.html
SATA-IO is what you want, otherwise, SATA-II without SATA-IO
is kinda like USB 2.0 without EHCI. Most of the benchmarks
have no clue, because the drives can't break 150MBps yet --
so they can only give artificial numbers of what the chip is
actually capable of when the signal has to traverse cabling
only designed for 1.5GHz. ;->
> and RAID
FRAID (Fake RAID). Disable it.
> capabilities. Is there anything special about the SATA II
> that I need to set up to use the full capabilities of this
> hardware and CentOS. Any information would be better than
> what I have at the moment.
I haven't seen anything on SATA-IO developments so, again,
SATA-II is rather a lot of marketing baloney at this point.
The SATA-II chip is allegedly capable of 3GHz. The SATA-II
drive is allegedly capable of 3GHz. But I've seen nothing to
the 3GHz SATA-IO standard as specified by the ATA committees.
--
Bryan J. Smith Professional, Technical Annoyance b.j.smith@xxxxxxxx http://thebs413.blogspot.com
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*** Speed doesn't kill, difference in speed does ***
