AMD64- Solutions

[Steve Kargl]

On Thu, Dec 02, 2004 at 08:46:20AM +0000, Jimmy wrote:
> 
> I am interested to know how well the FreeBSD 5.3+ system handles the AMD 
> 64 processors in a dual proc configuration. The project that we are 
> working on currently requires large amounts of RAM (16gb). Because of 
> this we are looking down the AMD road using a dual opteron configuration.

FreeBSD/amd64 works well on a dual opteron Tyan K8S Pro system
with less than 8 GB of memory.  It does not boot if you have
more than 8 GB.  See the FreeBSD-amd64 list over the last week or
2 for detailed emails continaing the panic messages.

> a) how reliable is the AMD 64 port of FreeBSD
> b) how good is the multiprocessing AMD 64?
> c) any advice would be seriously great to have.

If you need 16GB (which I do), I suggest that you 
avoid FreeBSD/amd64 on the Tyan K8S Pro motherboard.  
I have experience with other motherboards, so YMMV.

As a side note, NetBSD/amd64's installation cdrom
boots and finds the 16 GB of memory on my system.
I'll be installing NetBSD later today to see how
it performs.

-- 
Steve