AMD MP or XP

[Anonymous]

Whats the difference between AMD MP proc and XP proc?
is XP better?

[Darthtanion]

Basically, they are one and the same. The main difference is that the Athlon MP has been tested and guaranteed to work in a multi-processor environment. The Athlon XP processors will normally work as well, but there has been an estimated 5% that don't play well in a dual processor system.

What it all boils down to is that you're paying a premium price for a guarantee. Which route you decide to use is up to you.

[JediAgent]

I was once told that in the process of guaranteeing an MP for multi-use, the core is tested to conform more to its speed. i.e. a 1600 core for an MP is tested to be within a close percent to work exactly at 1600 (er 1.4GHz) rather than leaving a possibility to be taken higher because that possibility also creates the possibility of not working in Mulit. I think it was because Multi procs need to run within 1%(or something like that) of the same FSB (like 133.2 and 132.9, stuff like that) Im not sure if this is true and i dont particularly understand how the core determines the FSB rather than the board, but...

It all came down to the fact that OCing an MP is different because the core is tested to be closer to that speed (i.e. 1600) than an XP is. XP's are tested to work at the sold speed, and some steppings are used for several speeds, so that core can be taken higher.

But like i said, i heard this somewhere, dont remember where, and it might be false, but you can take it however you want. I believe it for some reason.

[Anonymous]

Cool...
this is the specs for the system Im working on.. that processor info is all I needed to finish it:
antec 1040 case 400watt psu
asus A7N 266E MoBo
AMD athlon 1700xp
512 meg DDR
maxtor 7200rpm 40gig HDD
using the onboard Nforce sound and graphics
hopefully be a decent system, considering Im only spending $1000 on it

[JediAgent]

Think of this:
MP=Multi Processor server
XP=eXtra Powerful desktop

An MP should never have been an option for you as a single proc desktop, but its always good to ask questions.