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Not only could you overclock the Celeron 300A, with the right motherboard you could run two of them in a dual CPU configuration.[0] This was my first high perfo
by simondotau 4y ago
Not only could you overclock the Celeron 300A, with the right motherboard you could run two of them in a dual CPU configuration.[0] This was my first high performance computer! Initially I dual booted Windows NT 4 and Windows 98, but soon enough Windows 2000 was released and allowed me to make practical everyday use of the two cores. It was an extremely satisfying computer to own.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ABIT_BP6 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ABIT_BP6
- bombcar 4y agoThe ABIT BP6 was a legend; and it was kind of amazing that Intel hadn't done their "licensing" or whatever such that it was impossible to make; good thing clones were around. Of course now every CPU is its own multiprocessor machine, but back then it was a real screamer, and unless you could get multi-CPU Windows it was a real reason to poke around with Linux.
- sidewndr46 4y agoHow does the memory work on that board? Is there a single northbridge with a single memory controller that both CPUs can somehow utilize?
- fredoralive 4y agoThe 440BX chipset supports two CPUs, so it is organised so that the northbridge is shared between the CPUs[1]. I found a datasheet[2] and from a skim and it looks like the front side bus is also shared between the CPUs. [1] This is from the era before the memory controller / northbridge was integrated with the CPU. [2] https://datasheet.octopart.com/FW82443BX-Intel-datasheet-5334749.pdf https://datasheet.octopart.com/FW82443BX-Intel-datasheet-533... - page 12 has the basic system diagram
- bombcar 4y agoIt was similar to other dual-processor boards out at the time; those were just very expensive and for very expensive "server" CPUs. I remember having an older Pentium Pro motherboard with dual sockets.
- krylon 4y agoI remember drooling over the price list of a local computer store back in the day. A dual-socket board for a Pentium Pro cost DM 2,000, and a Pentium Pro 200MHZ cost about as much, so just the board and two CPUs were DM 6,000 (roughly € 3,000, not adjusted for inflation).
- lizknope 4y agoI had one of those with dual Celeron 366's running at 533 It worked great from about 1999-2002 when I upgraded to an Athlon 1700, then an Athlon 64. I finally had 2 CPU cores again with the Athlon 64 X2 around 2005.
- tracker1 4y agoA friend had that setup... was definitely fast for the price at the time... I ran an OC'd duron to 1.1ghz about a year later iirc (2000 era)... also ran Win2000, switched from OS/2 Warp and never really looked back. Win2k was very nice, and mostly stuck with it until Win7, the couple times I tried XP sucked, though MCE2005 was very ice, shame MS and cablecard pretty much killed it.