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Dual CPUs is only half enough...

Author	Topic
danamania Official 68k Muse Australia 1193 Posts	Posted - 04 Sep 2002 : 21:27:44 eeeee http://www.overclockers.com.au/image.php?pic=images/quadopteron.jpg dana Quadra 605 Obsessions
Trash80toG-4 NIGHT STALKER USA 2899 Posts	Posted - 04 Sep 2002 : 22:09:49 quote: eeeee jt ™. Trash Hauler: call sign: eight-ball C.O. AC-130H SpecOps 68kMLAAF
catsdorule Senior Member Canada 1627 Posts	Posted - 04 Sep 2002 : 22:15:11 -Danny Canadian Sniper Squadron 3 stars. ------------------------------------- My site and web access to service manuals.
Captain Z Mobile Ops Commander USA 637 Posts	Posted - 04 Sep 2002 : 23:43:11 It must be a server motherboard. Nobody in thier right mind would buy a quad processor for a desktop system. Also, there is no AGP slot on this motherboard (which isn't nessecary for a server to begin with) I find it intreging that there are 20 memory banks on this board. The only reason I could see for doing this is to allow each processor full bandwidth to memory. The downside would be that if you needed to add more memory, you probably would have to symmetricly upgrade each set (4 RAM DIMM's each time.), which again isn't economical or practical for home or buisness systems. It must be used in a 3U or larger rackmount case simply because the logicboard is too big, and forces the drives to be placed above the board. Hehe... (look in upper left corner of board, opposite PCI slots)... still supports a floppy drive... ------------------ Captain Z - Mobile Operations Commander 68K Macintosh Liberation Army 23 68K Macs Liberated Visit Captain Z's Starbase of EV Stuff
danamania Official 68k Muse Australia 1193 Posts	Posted - 04 Sep 2002 : 23:47:26 quote: It must be a server motherboard. Nobody in thier right mind would buy a quad processor for a desktop system. Also, there is no AGP slot on this motherboard (which isn't nessecary for a server to begin with) There's talk on overclockers.com.au about whether or not it's a fake - looks like a bit of a development board to me, and if it's a PS job it's been done with multiple photo shots for the purpose of making a fake. dana (wouldn't be surprised if apple went Quad-G4s...) Quadra 605 Obsessions
maclover5 LC Doctor/Hot Rodder Australia 5830 Posts	Posted - 05 Sep 2002 : 00:03:36 Capt. Z just showed me it. I'm thinking that either: Apple may be releasing a server with AMD processors, as Z said, and then they may gradually migrate the Mac over to an x86 architecture. It could just be a good PhotoShop job. -------------------------- "I keep my friends close, but I keep my enemies closer" - Unkown Warrior maclover5 68k Macintosh Liberation Army Number of 68ks Liberated: 6
Captain Z Mobile Ops Commander USA 637 Posts	Posted - 05 Sep 2002 : 00:25:15 quote: There's talk on overclockers.com.au about whether or not it's a fake - looks like a bit of a development board to me, and if it's a PS job it's been done with multiple photo shots for the purpose of making a fake. I don't believe that it is a fake, unlike the ones that are given as examples on that same article on Overclockers. The reason is this: Theory 1: PS Job Look at the 4 fans. Each have a power wire coming off. If it was a PS job, the wires would all look the same, or very simiilar in some way. Here they all look unique. Theory 2: Multiple Shots If it was multiple shots to make each part, then pieced together, then thier would more than likely be evidence of misaligned pictures, improper shots, and color/sharpness varients. The only way this could be achieved is if they had the real thing or they had one hell of a good team working on this picture ------------------ Captain Z - Mobile Operations Commander 68K Macintosh Liberation Army 23 68K Macs Liberated Visit Captain Z's Starbase of EV Stuff
foetoid Full Member USA 554 Posts	Posted - 05 Sep 2002 : 05:31:54 Remember, daystar made genesis, a quad processor computer. ________________ foetoid, that's (fee-toy-d) http://www.foetoid.doesntexist.com
Flash Full Member Australia 637 Posts	Posted - 05 Sep 2002 : 06:16:37 Multiple processor boards have been around for some time now so even if the pic is fake, it is not outside the realms of possibility. However, the real question is: what OS and applications are they running to take full advantage of the four processors I know what I want. A multi processor board that dedicates one processor (1GHz or faster) to the network side of things. You can be running the megadeath computer from hell, Mac or PC, but if one network drive or Appletalk connection disconnects then it goes all pear shaped! Office intranets are the worst offenders! Having your computer 'hang' because someone elses machine has choked on a network laserprinter (coz their machine is a P4 2GHz with only 64 MB RAM) - and not only are all the other print jobs banking up, but every other user who starts a new print job has their machine slowly but surely freeze over, one application after another until their PC craps out and everybody on your floor is doing the three finger salute which results in 150 people simultaneously rebooting, which is very similar to 150 people on the floor above you flushing the toilet at the same time, which basically means crap everywhere until such time as network connections are fully open or closed and all the computers recognise themselves and all the computers and network connections that they were, or are, connected to! Very f**king annoying! I want a computer that does not hang. No endlessly spinning balls, command prompts and programmers windows to nowhere , and no blue screen of death. Nope, give me a processor dedicated to sorting out the network! The application 'Flash!' has unexpectedly quit. Please hold on to your hats. 68k ParaMedic edited coz I cant speel or tipe Edited by - flash on 05 Sep 2002 06:20:39
Stryder Junior Member USA 382 Posts	Posted - 05 Sep 2002 : 07:48:29 Is it me or do the PCI slots look reversed? "One slip and down the hole we fall"
Trash80toG-4 NIGHT STALKER USA 2899 Posts	Posted - 05 Sep 2002 : 07:49:36 quote: Multiple processor boards have been around for some time now so even if the pic is fake, it is not outside the realms of possibility. However, the real question is: what OS and applications are they running to take full advantage of the four processors With four discrete sets of Banks of System RAM and what looks like two sets of basic I/O chipsets, makes me wonder about the operating system too. My guess is we have a very good (I really can't tellhow good, but nothing in the poxes jumps out as WRONG to me), but not very technically astute artist. The mixtures of symmetrical (identically placed/oriented CPU's) and mirrored (flip-flopped power components in front of two closest CPU's) with rotated components (major chipset components showing Sockets oriented at different angles) and the fact that only one, three letter group (AMD), of all the silk screen layer text is even recognizable as text just doesn't ring true at all to me. I vote fake! jt ™. Trash Hauler: call sign: eight-ball C.O. AC-130H SpecOps 68kMLAAF
catsdorule Senior Member Canada 1627 Posts	Posted - 05 Sep 2002 : 09:57:13 It was definately photoshoped a bit the name spraypainted in the middle. -Danny Canadian Sniper Squadron 3 stars. ------------------------------------- My site and web access to service manuals.
SiliconValleyPirate Junior Member United Kingdom 273 Posts	Posted - 05 Sep 2002 : 16:39:52 It's a bizar looking beast. It's got 4 CPUs, in I must say very logical places, 4 RAM banks for one SDRAM 168 or 4 DDR DIMMs and..... quote: Is it me or do the PCI slots look reversed? .... judging by the ones in my G3, yes they are. the short part of the connector should be in the middle or, on a 32-bit slot (which these ain't) farthest from the back panel. It also has 2 80-way SCA connecetors on the front and a single ATA channel. Th back panel has USB, a serial port, 68-pin micro-SCSI connector, what looks like FibreChannel evternal connectors and probablt a 10/100 (and maybe 1000) LAN connector. My summize is that it's an AMD 4U Rackmount Server board. I think this becasue it has phat U160/320 SCSI, space for stacks of RAM, 4CPUs and FibreChannel for attaching NAS units. The serial port is a dead give-away also as servers generally have a terminal connector for telnet over serial access. It looks to have a Mezzanine style slot in the bottonm right, probably for a GPU card and connector for the backplate. The PCI slots are a mystery. They may not be PCI, I think they probaly are ttough, I know the arrangement found in Macs is not the only way PCI slots can be arranged in terms of where the notches are. They are multiple and vertical, hence why i think it's for a 4U case. FWIW I scrutinised the image and can se no seams, discontinuous tracks or any blidingly obviously duplicated areas. It's a mighty board. If Microsoft Direct X was as good at SMP as Mac OS X maybve it would make a nice games machine with a graphics card in it. -- Mark Benson FlatPackMacs http://fpm.gotdns.com 2nd Lieutenant - 68kMLA, LC Quartermaster Flat Packing Macs for 68k MLA airlift excercises Macs Liberated = 14!
Da Penguin Senior Member USA 1094 Posts	Posted - 05 Sep 2002 : 16:59:34 Am i crazy or does the second processor (lower right) have a crooked heatsink/fan combo? ~The Penguin \| Captain, Intelligence Operations / Space Cowboy \| There is only one path and that is the path that you take, but you can take more than one path. \| 68k.torpedobird.com <-- Official Hotline Server \|
SiliconValleyPirate Junior Member United Kingdom 273 Posts	Posted - 05 Sep 2002 : 17:07:18 quote: Am i crazy or does the second processor (lower right) have a crooked heatsink/fan combo? Your crazy :P I think it's an illusion created by the big fat caps in fron of the CPU. The caps are often on the squif making the CPU appear crooked when it's actually not. -- Mark Benson FlatPackMacs http://fpm.gotdns.com 2nd Lieutenant - 68kMLA, LC Quartermaster Flat Packing Macs for 68k MLA airlift excercises Macs Liberated = 14!
candyPunk Full Member USA 856 Posts	Posted - 06 Sep 2002 : 09:11:53 Looked crooked to me too, but I don't think it is. Look at the left side of that cpu. 75% of it sticks out slightly more, and you can tell that that part is lined up perfectly with the one to the left. The shadow cast by the part that sticks out casts a shadow that makes it look crooked. SiliconValleyPirate brought up a bunch of technical stuff that points to an AMD server. This addresses a question I was about to pose to maclover5: who said it's a mac? I hope Apple isn't moving to AMD chips! I don't want PPC to be the next 68k...OS XI better run on G4. Really, there's no reason not to stick with PPC, is there? I mean, motorolla isn't having troubles advancing their techonology, at least none that we know of (and if we don't know it, apple probably hasn't known about it long enough to make a prototype AMD board), and it would leave every one of their current machines out in the cold. PPC can emulate 68k, but what sort of speed would you get out of a 1.5 GHz athlon trying to be a G4? You think it's a pain that your favorite apps aren't carbonized? What if they never got rewritten for the new chips? Windoze XP is easy enough to use...if apple ditched me like that, I'd buy a peecee that cost half as much. I really don't think they would try to pull this { candyPunk } { Captain of Observation, 68k MLA } { 68k Macs liberated: 3} { My baby: Q660av }
SiliconValleyPirate Junior Member United Kingdom 273 Posts	Posted - 06 Sep 2002 : 12:26:20 I have just read an article on macrumors.com that as near as can be expected confirms that Apple have rejected the IBM Power4 CPU as a replacement for the aging PowerPC. The problem is also compounded by the fact that Motorola are having increasing difficulty advancing the PowerPC architecture to meet the demands of people like Apple and as such are subtly trying to ditch it in favour of a new 128-bit CPU family. This leaves Apple little option in the area of wether to keep the PPC. The fact is it no longer stands up to x86 CPUs for non-Altivec tasks and it needs 2 CPUs to keep Apple's PowerMacs competetive leaves then stuck. another .25GHz is not going to do them many favours, even dualed up. The fact is one new 128-bit CPU that runs at 3 or 4GHz will soundly beat the hell out of the old PPC. As far as compatibility is concerned Apple have demonstrated on several occasions that a certain level of backwards compatibility is a good thing and so if a new CPU is introduced to the PowerMac range (if it's still called that!) in the next 2 to 3 years then it most likely will support legacy PPC code becuase that is the way it's been done before with the switch betweeen 68k and PPC and the switch from Classic to OS X. Apple's handling of this issue will be critical to their very survival. The last time they did this the company nearly went uner for good. -- Mark Benson FlatPackMacs http://fpm.gotdns.com 2nd Lieutenant - 68kMLA, LC Quartermaster Flat Packing Macs for 68k MLA airlift excercises Macs Liberated = 14!
maclover5 LC Doctor/Hot Rodder Australia 5830 Posts	Posted - 06 Sep 2002 : 15:21:06 quote: Looked crooked to me too, but I don't think it is. Look at the left side of that cpu. 75% of it sticks out slightly more, and you can tell that that part is lined up perfectly with the one to the left. The shadow cast by the part that sticks out casts a shadow that makes it look crooked. SiliconValleyPirate brought up a bunch of technical stuff that points to an AMD server. This addresses a question I was about to pose to maclover5: who said it's a mac? I hope Apple isn't moving to AMD chips! I don't want PPC to be the next 68k...OS XI better run on G4. Really, there's no reason not to stick with PPC, is there? I mean, motorolla isn't having troubles advancing their techonology, at least none that we know of (and if we don't know it, apple probably hasn't known about it long enough to make a prototype AMD board), and it would leave every one of their current machines out in the cold. PPC can emulate 68k, but what sort of speed would you get out of a 1.5 GHz athlon trying to be a G4? You think it's a pain that your favorite apps aren't carbonized? What if they never got rewritten for the new chips? Windoze XP is easy enough to use...if apple ditched me like that, I'd buy a peecee that cost half as much. I really don't think they would try to pull this { candyPunk } { Captain of Observation, 68k MLA } { 68k Macs liberated: 3} { My baby: Q660av } The reason why I said it could be a Mac is because that mobo doesn't look like an ATX form factor mobo. Plus, with the positioning of some of the ports n stuff, it looks like it could be for a G4 tower case or an Xserve. -------------------------- "I keep my friends close, but I keep my enemies closer" - Unkown Warrior maclover5 68k Macintosh Liberation Army Number of 68ks Liberated: 6
SiliconValleyPirate Junior Member United Kingdom 273 Posts	Posted - 06 Sep 2002 : 17:06:13 The reason it looks like an XServe is because it is a Rack-mount server board. AS such it is therefore in the sam style case, although this one is a 4U so not uite as cramped but you get the idea.... The socking great AMD logo is a bit of a give away. Apple also have made a big thing out of ATA drives in servers and this has 80-pin SCA SCSI. It'd be nice to think it's a Mac - or would it considering it's an AMD board?? - but tpo my mind it's an AMD server board. Sorry if that sounded nasty harsh or some such - I'm not sober! -- Mark Benson FlatPackMacs http://fpm.gotdns.com 2nd Lieutenant - 68kMLA, LC Quartermaster Flat Packing Macs for 68k MLA airlift excercises Macs Liberated = 14!
MacMoose Junior Member USA 176 Posts	Posted - 06 Sep 2002 : 20:30:48 My one real question about this board is...where the f--- do you plug in the power supply? ------------------ MacMoose Benevolent Genius, 68k MLA Total 68K Macs liberated: 22 and counting ------------------

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