Questions about Xeon cpu's

[Jukkat]

Im thinking of geting a Xeon system, and i have a few questions about it.

1. I can find diffrent versions of xeon, and dont know what theese are:
Dp, Mp, Active, Passive and U1

ex. What is the diffrence between these ???
Intel Xeon DP 2,8GHz 800/1M 1U BOX
Intel Xeon DP 2,8GHz 800/1M Active BOX
Intel Xeon DP 2,8GHz 800/1M Passive BOX

I think, Mp is for 4 cpu (multi processor), Dp is for 2 cpu (dual processor). But what is Passive, Active and U1 ?

2. Can i run Xeons whit regular Ram (333 or 400). Or do i need special Ecc ram to be able to run / or be stable ?

3. Im currentley running a p4 3.2Ghz (800buss) with 3 gig ram, will i benefit of geting a Dual 2.8 or 3.0 Xeon system ? (so its worth it)

4. Or does a dual Opteron 242 or 244 give better gains for me (over my single 3.2ghz)?

I would appritiate all answers i can get

/cheers !

[ihavenofish]

if i am not mistaken:
dp = dual processor
mp = multi processor meaning anything more than 3 (4, 8...)
1u means it has a compact heatsink for 1u rack mount cases
active means it has a standard heatsink with a fan
passive means it has a heatsink with no fan and makes use of chassis cooling options. (ducting and such)

sounds about right...

[guilhermerc]

do not throw your money out...
buy a Pentium 4 Extreme Edition 3.4 (or the 3.8 that intel say that exists but i never saw it) and you will have similar performance...

i have a dual xeon 2.4 that has a little bit more performance than my toshiba notebook that is 3.2 ghz...

one thing that i have not tested yet is the Xeon with speed bigger than 3 ghz.... it support 64bit memmory addressing... (u have to use the buggy win xp 64).

hugs

Guilherme