Re: [gentoo-amd64] Is there any difference with 4 core?

[Bob Sanders <rsanders@sgi.com>]

P.V.Anthony, mused, then expounded:
> 
> When is Barcelona coming out? Would it be expensive because it is new 
> and a true 4 core chip?
>

Initial ship in about two months.  It'll cost more, but get the Socket F
aka 1207 pin socket if you go AMD.
 
> From reading the posts, it seems that memory is very very important. 
> Wondering if it is better going with a 2 core cpu and put the savings on 
> more ram. Originally thinking of 4g. Maybe the ram should go to 8g.
>

Probably best just to start with 4 G.  More memory can be added later.
On the Intel plaform, get 4 dimms, on the AMD platform 2 dimms is fine.
Whichever you get, pay attention to the bios release notes and memory
RAS features.  You might wany to implement mirroring (doubling the number
of dimms) if uptime is important.
 
> Plus it is paranoia. Just afraid that something on the Pentium 4 might 
> fail. Since it is already two years old.
>

Typically, hard drives - IDE, then SATA, then SAS, and FC, fail first in the
described order from most likely to least likely.
 
> P.V.Anthony
> 
> PS: going with tyan because from this list, it seems that tyan has good 
> support for linux.
>

Tyan makes a very good stable product.  But there will be issues.  There are
always issues.  I've worked a lot with Intel and SuperMicro recently, and both
have strengths and weaknesses.  Personally, I'd stick with Tyan or SuperMicro.

And if you're going to need remote console access make sure you can return the
product if the BMC (Baseband Management Controller) doesn't work well.  You'll
have to pay for a decent BMC.  But one that works is worth every penny.  I haven't
had the opertunity to work with Tyan's BMC, so I really can't comment on them,
but all the others I've used have had issues that needed to be worked out with
the vendor, so the fixes are coming along with updated BMC firmware.

Bob 
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