SMP & 64 bit CPUs
 

I bought a 64 bit AMD Athlon a couple weeks ago. Since then I have been able to non-destructively re-partition my 200 GB harddrive with QTparted to move WinXP onto a 15 GB partition and then I installed FC4-x86_64. I pretty much have all working ok...all but the integrated video card which is ATI Radeon 128 MB setup (the screen goes bonkers when I open SuperTux). I've found that FC4 sees my new pc as a symmetric processing unit (SMP) as I've had to use a special smp kernel to get the video to work on console and use the noapic grub command on boot to disable SMP so that my clock doesn't move twice as fast as it should.

As far as I know, there is only 1 CPU chip under the fan. Why does FC4 think I have more than 1 chip (that's what I thought SMP was)? Does it say each chip is 32 bit, so therefore I must have 2 CPUs to have a 64 bit chip?

Have a read of this

http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NzY2

Looks like I should've waited! I have an Athlon 3200+.....maybe AMD was experimenting with the dual core technology on there previous to 4200 chips? Am I wishing?

I don't think you have wasted money as you can always upgrade in a few years time to the X2 chip when the price comes down. You will have a system that is set up to take the chip. I am waiting for a few years until I can afford it then I will switch to Athlon. Then I will have to reinstall my distro, as I have a P4 SMP Intel chip now.

The X2 I think will give intel a run for it's money, and as time goes on, the chips, hardware, distros and support for these chips will all improve. I wish I had your setup now!! ;)

I got a really good buy ($430 for an Athlon 64 3200+/512 MB RAM/integrated everything/200 GB harddrive/DVD writer & CD writer). I think I got such a good deal because it came installed with a 32 bit OS...WinXP-Home. M$ is working on Vista and doesn't have time to go back to their Home Edition (money isn't there like their 64 bit Pro Ed.). Anyway the only way to get max performance out of this machine is with 64 bit software...in comes Linux!

Nice - ;)

Man - I think living in the USA would come in handy here. Prices for computer bits are so low even taking into account the exchange rate. Well bought!!

I tend to build my boxes now. The problem is you always want that "little bit extra" when choosing a cpu. I know a guy who blew $10G on a computer and it runs like a drunk crocodile. If you have a read of that web site, they review a heap of hardware. You can plan for an "ideal" system in the future, and change anything needed when the bank account is getting too full :)

sounds good-I'll upgrade the RAM then too. 512 MB RAM is good for now...the pc never has to use swap.