Three days have passed since AMD Opteron processor was announced, and a number of mainboard manufacturers unveiled their new products to support this processor. You will not necessary see all of them in retail, but it is still interesting to take a look at what various mainboard makers offer to their customers.
 | TYAN Thunder K8S S2880 Supports two Socket 940 AMD Opteron processors; AMD 8131 and 8111 I/O tunnels; 6 DIMM slots for up to 12GB of registered PC1600, PC2100 or PC2700 DDR SDRAM memory; 1 PCI (32-bit/33MHz) slots, 4 PCI-X (64-bit/100MHz) slots; ATI Rage XL integrated graphics controller with 8MB of SDRAM memory; 2 Ultra320 SCSI ports 2-channel ATA-133/100/66/33 integrated controller; 2 Serial ATA-150 ports and 1 Parallel ATA port; Single 64-bit 10/100/1000Mb/s Ethernet from Broadcom; 4 USB 2.0 ports; 2 PS/2 ports, 1 Parallel and 1 Serial ports; Server Management (IPMI 1.5); E-ATX Form Factor; Approximate price: $580-$665.
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 | MSI K8D Master Supports two Socket 940 AMD Opteron processors; AMD 8131 and 8111 I/O tunnels; 6 DIMM slots for up to 12GB of registered PC1600, PC2100 or PC2700 DDR SDRAM memory; 2 PCI (32-bit/33MHz) slots, 3 PCI-X (64-bit/100MHz) slots, 1 miniPCI slot; ATI Rage XL integrated graphics controller with 8MB of SDRAM memory; 2-channel ATA-133/100/66/33 integrated controller; Dual 64-bit 10/100/1000Mb/s Ethernet from Broadcom; 4 USB 2.0 ports; 2 PS/2 ports, 1 Parallel and 1 Serial ports; Server Management (IPMI 1.5): NS mBMC on board with MSI Management Suite (MMS); E-ATX Form Factor (30.48cm x 33.02cm).
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 | RioWorks HDAMA Supports two Socket 940 AMD Opteron processors; AMD 8131 and 8111 I/O tunnels; 8 DIMM slots for up to 16GB of registered PC1600, PC2100 or PC2700 DDR SDRAM memory; 2 PCI (32bit/33MHz) slots, 2 PCI-X (64bit/100MHz) slots, 2 PCI (64bit/66MHz) slots; ATI Rage XL integrated graphics controller with 8MB of SDRAM memory; 2-channel ATA-133/100/66/33 integrated controller; 4 Serial ATA-150 ports with RAID support; Dual 64-bit 10/100/1000Mb/s Ethernet from Broadcom; 4 USB 1.1 ports; 2 PS/2 ports; Rioworks SmartWatch server management software. Approximate price: $730.
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 | Gigabyte K8DPXDW Supports two Socket 940 AMD Opteron processors; AMD 8151, 8131 and 8111 I/O tunnels; 4 DIMM slots for up to 8GB of registered PC1600, PC2100 or PC2700 DDR SDRAM memory; 1x AGP 8x Pro; 1 PCI (32bit/33MHz) slots, 1 PCI-X (64bit/100MHz) slots, 1 PCI (64bit/66MHz) slots; 2-channel ATA-133/100/66/33 integrated controller; 4 Serial ATA-150 ports with RAID support; 4 USB ports; 2 PS/2 ports 1 Parallel and 1 Serial ports; Server Management (IPMI 1.5);
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 | ASUS NVIDIA nForce3 Pro 150 Reference Mainboard Supports one Socket 940 AMD Opteron processor; NVIDIA nForce3 Pro 150 chipset; 4 DIMM slots for up to 8GB of registered PC1600, PC2100 or PC2700 DDR SDRAM memory; AGP 8x; 5 PCI (32bit/33MHz) slots; 2-channel ATA-133/100/66/33 integrated controller; 2 Serial ATA-150 ports and 1 Parallel ATA port; Single 10/100Mb/s Ethernet; 4 USB 2.0 ports; ATX.
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Pictures and details of the mainboards were published by PC Watch and PCWeb Japanese web-sites.
The first three mainboards are definitely intended for various servers, while the devices from Gigabyte and ASUS are more suitable for workstations given that there is an AGP slot on each of them. Since single-chip solution nForce3 Pro from NVIDIA and ASUS does not seem to be too expensive, we can hope that AMD Opteron-based workstations will not be overpriced. However, given today's low core-clocks of Opteron processors, I would doubt that this processor is a really good option for workstations. On the other hand, AMD is definitely interested in selling the processors in the workstation segment as well because software makers in this case will start to optimise their software and customers will be able to evaluate all the pros and cons of AMD's x86-64 architecture.
Anyway, it is great that Opteron is not only supported by big server companies like TYAN or RioWorks, but also by mainboard makers we better know for their consumer-oriented products.
Comments currently: 1
Discussion started: 04/26/03 03:44:32 AM
Latest comment: 04/26/03 03:44:32 AM
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I think there is a typo, the nForce3 Pro Board from Asus only supports one Opteron, not two (there is only one socket).
holodoktor
[Posted by: holodoktor | Date: 04/26/03 03:44:32 AM]
[1-1]
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