Pentium Pro upgrade?

[Budd]

ok, we have an old server here, running NT 4 with pentium pro 200's with 512k cache (its a quad board though). we're upgrading to Win 2000 advanced server and we wanted to bump up the machine a little. what would be better upgrade, putting in two more pentium pros, or using some Pentium Pro overdrive chips on the exsisting cpus? are the PPro overdrives worth it? they are about $100 right now, where a PPro is about $50. thanks guys

[SCHTUDE]

Given the choice, and assuming I could find the PPro chips for $50, I would go the 4 proc route in a second.

SCHTUDE

[sticky52]

I would recommend ditching the servers in favor of better performing machines. I ran the same chip with 192MB of RAM with Win2k and it was a dog. It coughed up something fierce when I tried to force Active Directory on the poor thing. It was back to NT4 in a hurry.

[Wayward Clam]

I'd be afraid to trust the PPro overdrives myself.

[Darren Wilson]

I run 2K Pro on a PPro 200 (256K) & 64Mb and it runs fine. Not light speed, but actually very usable.

I have another CPU to go in it, but I don't have another VRM, & I am not paying out more than what the machine is worth for one. So if anyone has a spare that they would like to donate, please let me know.

[cyberhh]

I have a dual ppro-200 w/512MB ram running 2k server with very adaquate performance - web applications and file sharing.

Question is what will you be doing with the server and how much ram can you afford?

[Twisted_Mister]

I would go with the multi processor setup and max out the ram. I hope you don't need the 72 pin ecc simms - they are salty dogs indeed, but with win2k, more ram is ALWAYS better.

I have Win2k advanced server running on a dual pp200 1mb l2 system with 512MB of ecc ram and u2scsi array as an application server, and it is faaaassssssssst! More than adequate for the job!

[tablesalt]

Originally posted by RoccoSiffredi:
I run 2K Pro on a PPro 200 (256K) & 64Mb and it runs fine. Not light speed, but actually very usable.

I have another CPU to go in it, but I don't have another VRM, & I am not paying out more than what the machine is worth for one. So if anyone has a spare that they would like to donate, please let me know.

Darren, I may be able to help you, let me look around work tomorrow and I'll email you with an answer. I know we had a couple of VRM's kicking around at one point.

As for the 2K on the PPro machine... I have a friend running 2K Pro on a dual 200 with 384MB RAM and it runs great, he tried server and it was a dog. I would really recomend going with a newer machine, you can pick up dual P3 mainboards based on the VIA Appollo Pro 133A chipset for very little green now a days. Check out www.asus.com.

[houseisland]

I have a P-Pro 200 with 256K cache in a QDI motherboard with 128MB EDO RAM, and it runs W2K Pro just fine.

I also recently purchased some P-Pro 200 1Mb cache CPUs on EBay in order to do a cheap server upgrade. I think that if you could find a number of the 1Mb cache chips (cheaply) and if you have sufficient RAM, your server would do OK with W2K server installed.

[Snommis69]

We have several Socket8 boxes, some 133 and some 200's, and they run 2K no prob. If $ is an issue, sure, add the extra procs, ensuring the stepping is the same.
http://www.computersurplusoutlet.com has some cheap PPros. Careful, I have never had a problem with them, but I have heard stories.

[tablesalt]

Originally posted by Road Warrior:
We have several Socket8 boxes, some 133 and some 200's.

I never knew that Intel made 133MHz PPro's. Slowest I had ever heard of was 150. I guess you learn something new everyday.

[Darren Wilson]

Originally posted by Compaqman:
I never knew that Intel made 133MHz PPro's. Slowest I had ever heard of was 150. I guess you learn something new everyday.

I thought the same but I let it slide. The only speeds I knew of were 150, 180 & 200Mhz.

[Budd]

Sorry for the delay in my reply, i have been out for awhile. we went with 2 more cpus (now have quad PPros), added 128 megs of ram (512 megs now) and everything is great. thanks for the replies guys. darren you might have a hard time finding those VRMs, we lucked out and found two, but really had to look for em.

[Twisted_Mister]

Originally posted by Compaqman:
<STRONG>

I never knew that Intel made 133MHz PPro's. Slowest I had ever heard of was 150. I guess you learn something new everyday.</STRONG>

New one to me too - methinks someone is confusing pentiums with pentium pros. I have seen many pp systems, all 150, 180, or 200. I could, however, be wrong - it happens as often as not these days...

<IMG SRC="smilies/biggrin.gif" border="0">

[Budd]

i believe Intel produced a few early engineering samples of the PPro that ran at 133 mhz with a 256k cache. there weren't many and there is no mention of them on Intels website.