Cheap dual-proc mobo's

[Cheese Weasel 0]

Anyone know of any cheap-but-good dual-processor motherboards? The Abit BP6 is pretty much unavailable at this point, so that's out. I saw a cheapo BX-based Slot-1 board made by Pine somewhere, but I have no idea where to get one, or something cheap like it. I'm not looking for onboard SCSI, NIC, or anything like that, just something to tinker with SMP. Anyone have any ideas? Thanks.

[Down8 0]

I'd like to know this too.

 

Although, I was thinking about grabbing a new board, and another chip, later in the year, I think I heard that my chip [PIII 500E] is like one of three that doesn't support SMP. Can someone verify this?

[wind 0]

Gigabyte 6BXD. This is a dual slot1 motherboard that has 'no thrills' but comes as a high recomendation from me. It supports dual slot 1 p3-850+ with a bios update / undocumented multiplyers, 4 ram slots, 5 pci, 2 isa slots, 2x agp, usb, etc. I've been using this board since december 99 with windows 2000 and I havent had any problems to do with the board at all, nor my system. This is probably the best motherboard ive ever owned and im extremely happy with it - it will take dual fc-pga cpu's with 2 compatible SMP slockets also, just as long as they're 100MHZ bus.

[wind 0]

Oh, btw, heres a link to info about the motherboard - to my knowledge they still sell all over the place and are fairly decently priced. http://www.giga-byte.com/gigabyte-web/products/ga6bxd.htm

[Cheese Weasel 0]

Thanks, wind. I appreciate the info!

 

After doing a little more research, I came across two boards from Tyan: the BX-based Tiger 100 and the Via 133A-based Tiger 133. Anyone have experience with either of these?

[EM 0]

Go to www.2cpu.com and read the forum there about motherboards. A lot of people are using the Tyan boards and there experiance varies with the user.

 

Ed

[Ge0ph 0]

This will not help you now but check this site out http://www.pcscoop.com/HARDWARE/motherboards/ABIT/SA6andmore.asp

 

It looks like the new ABIT VP6 is what you are looking for.

[Cheese Weasel 0]

Many thanks to wind, EM and GeOph! Just the kind of info I was looking for!

[wind 0]

I havent heard anything good about the tyan tiger 133 yet - I wouldnt go near a via chipset with a P3 due to poor memory performance. If you really need to step outside the 100mhz bus barrier, I would suggest the Tyan Thunder 2500. However, this is not a cheap option and is one of the best dual cpu motherboards ive seen out there. With support of 133mhz bus, pc133 ram, 8 64bit pci slots, onboard scsi and 8 ram slots, you really cant go wrong if you have the money

 

You can get nearly all p3's in 100mhz bus form at the moment anyway, and due to the lack of good dual p3-133mhz bus motherboards, I wouldnt bother with them for awhile to come.

[Behemoth 0]

Yeah I've been looking into getting a dual CPU m/b, but right now I can't afford to, so I'm scuk with my GA 6BXC, if I do og the dual CPU route I'll get the GA 6BXD. But right now the 6 BXC run Win 2K just nicely.

 

I've heard that the Micro Star boards are pretty good.

 

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My Computer

 

Pentium II 350

Gigabyte 6BXC M/B

16 meg Voodoo 3 2000 AGP

128 Meg of RAM

18 gig Western Digital Expert HDD UDMA 66

Sound Blaster Live ! 256

56k Modula Tech V90 USB modem

4 x SCSI writer

Advansys Host SCSI controller

[Igor 0]

I'm sure yu can find ppl trying to upgrade their Bp6. Like me

E-mail if interested.