Dual p3 coppermines

I built a system with dual p3 800mhz coppermines a while back, and everything has been running fine under W2kPro with 512mb RAM.

While I was surfing through Ebay looking for good deals on processors, I noticed where folks were advertising matched processors to build a dual processor machine.

I was not aware of processors having to be 'matched'. I purchased mine separately, so if they do match, it would be pure luck.

My questions are: What does 'matched processors' mean? Will it cause any problems if mine are not matched? How can I tell if they are?



Thanks in advance for any help ya'll can offer.

 

Are these slot one's or socket 370's?

 

Thanks for replying!

These are 370s

 

Did you by chance save the boxes or the box lids from the processors? I will do some checking today because I can't remember what number indicates wether they are compatible as a pair.
If I remember corectly (which is highly unlikely) the stepping had to match.

 

Yes and no. I have the box for the new one, but not the old.

I originally bought the system with a single 800. But there was problems with the board where 2000Pro would puke during install (kept giving me a blue screen halfway through install, saying I had a hardware error to call the vendor ???), so I bought a new dual processor board, plugged the 800 in, loaded 2000, then later bought another p3-800, plugged it in, and everything was fine.

I made sure I got another coppermine, but that was it.

I have had no problems to speak of and it is a very fast machine. When I saw the matching processors auctions however, it just concerned me that I missed that, and wondering what the benefit of matching processors would be.

Im hoping that the machine is not suppose to work without matching processors, because that will mean I am okay.


Thanks again!
Jimmy

 

Matched

Matched as in tested and paired for performance benchmarks or just matched as in two of the same rev/steppng/speed etc.

The phrase is often overused and often just an excuse to play on peoples fears and hike the profit a bit. Most of these will go to be servers and people get very worried when it comes to having a reliable server and tend to fork out much higher sums if they think the gear is so to speak, bespoke.

As long as theyre the same model/revision etc thats usually good enough unless ones really out of whack from the other.

I'm going on recent experience of building many dual 1000's with an awesome spec. and these things go everywhere from deserts to oil rigs.