Well, I'm thinking of going to a dual system on my test box. I've been reading up, but I'm still a bit off on all of it. Mainly I'm concered with the stepping. I've heard the Abit VP6 has to have both cpu's as the exact same stepping. Does this apply to all dual cpu mobo's or not, cuz I'd kinda like to keep my P3 667 if possible.
I'm considering these motherboards: Abit VP6, MSI 694D-Pro, Tyan Tiger 230. I want a stable, and realtively cheap setup, and any words of wisdom. If the VP6 is cheap enough, I'll go that route, but if not, I'll skip it. The MSI 694D-Pro is a strong contender, because I can get it locally for about $150-170, plus it's got some good options. But I'd like to make this a good setup in the end.
BTW, I've heard the PIII 700 is a good overclocker; can anybody confirm this?

The P3-700 Is a good overclocker. Before I got my P3-1ghz@1125 I had my 700's overclocked to 933.

My 700's both had a stepping of CB0 and overclocked fine to 933. My P3 1ghz have a stepping of CC0 and overclock to 1125.

If you mix a CB0 with a CC0 your voltage will drop below 1.65 (I forgot how low) on the VP6. Just order a P3 1g. There are only P3 1ghz with a stepping of CC0. Anyways most websites list the stepping.

Check out the www.2cpu.com forum or the www.vp6-board.com forum for more details.

My VP6 is a swwwwwwwwweeeeeettt board (for a P3). But for duallies the is our only choice until the AMD Athlons come out in full force and the P4 duallies.

I have a Abit VP6 running duel 1 gigs this board is the best duel board I have owned and I had a few ! I have not tried to overclock the proccessors as it is fast enough but this board is very capable of doing so. Also this is one of the only duel boards I know that can take the retail boxed 1gig fans and they are massive but at least if you want to over clock there is no problem getting large fans on to cool the beast as dosfreak said try vp6-board web site there is a lot of info about overclocking there.

Regards Badboy

My main machine is also a VP6 and it rules. Remember to dump the non-SMP friendly SBLive if you move dual (I put mine in my secondary system). I put a Santa Cruz sound card and 512mb RAM on the VP6 and I am one happy camper.

Boy do I feel dated. I'm still running my BP6 with dual 533's. It still does every thing I need to do, except quench that strong urge to upgrade to a VP6 with dual 1g's. I think the urge will win.

Ge0ph

I'm beginning to lean hard toward the MSI board, just because of some of the tweaks, like voltage and cpu FSB for each CPU. Plus, I can get it cheaper than the VP6. Plus, even with different versions with extra goodies (Firewire, on-board sound--->lol!). Not to say the VP6 is out yet, but MSI has some very impressive boards from what I've read. Not to diss Abit, but MSI seems to be a good board for what it's worth.
Can't afford the two cpu's though, unless I can find the exact same stepping for it as my current P3 667, I will have to. But I'm gonna try to sell this cheap little system that I haven't done jack with first... *sigh*.
Thanks for all the info so far. Boy, there's a ton of stuff I still need to research yet on dual cpu's...

Done some more research on the MSI board, and it seems to be on the money for me. Now I just have to track down a 667MHz P3 with either cB0 or cC0 stepping, hopefully cB0, but according to that Intel spec sheet (thanx DosFreak!) the cC0 cpus will work just fine. Hard OCP and Club Overclocker both gave it good reviews and it seems to be exactly what I want.

Now just a little question with the stepping: Im assuming that the order of stepping, from oldest to newest, goes like this: cA2, cB0, cC0, right?

Thats correct. I believe there is now a cD0 stepping available.. or will be too.

--Cynan.

Well, now I need to get either a cB0 stepping or cC0 stepping, because I really don't want to have to buy two new P3's. Does anyone know where I can track down a place that will give me the exact stepping I want/need? I need a P3 667.

BTW, go the MSI board today...boots up, and then I left it at that for the time being, no reason to get ****ed this soon.