Re: [gentoo-amd64] Planning a new box - AMD Opteron or Intel Xeon?

[Beso <givemesugarr@gmail.com>]

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why not using the athlon x2 on am2 socket?  they work also with the non
registered memory (which is needed for opterons and is not an optional as it
is for athlons), which has a higher cost when compared to the non registered
one. the athlons have a smaller l2 cache, but the newer models (the be ones)
seem to have a better power consumption than opterons and old generation
athlons. in my vision, if you want to buy an opteron you might want to get
instead an athlon with increased speed and with more ram than in the opteron
case.
and i personally don't really like tyan. i prefer gigabyte. i hadn't used a
gigabyte product (video boards, mobos, wireless boards) that didn't worked
wery well with linux. and the new gigabyte hw is based on the coolpipe2
system which is very-very good and very silent. for what i've seen around a
good middle ranged gigabyte mobo supports dual channel ddr3 (1333) and ddr2,
am2 sockets till athlons quad and opterons dual, has 6 sata-II of 350mb/s,
and is around 70€. this will be my next board. i would also check later some
higher level mobos if i should have a greater dispo of money.
for video boards i'd suggest a gigabyte radeon hd2600pro 512 ddr2 or
gigabyte radeon hd2600xt 256 ddr3 for a middle ranged system or the gigabyte
radeon hd2900 xt 512 ddr3 for a high level system. the new fglrx works well
with these boards and there'll be an opensource driver soon (they're working
on the documentation that amd released recently).
for the system ram i'd choose ocz's 2gb - 2x1gb kit, for middle ranged
system or an 8gb ocz kit for high range desktop.
as for the disk i'd choose 2x400gb sata-II 8mb buffer with software raid and
lvm2 for middle range sytem or 2x360gb sata-II 16mb buffer in software raid
and lvm2 for higher level one.
at last i'd install a dual fan thermaltake cpu cooler instead a normal one
to keep the cpu temp lower than a normal fan would do. also the coolermaster
fans and dissipators work welly well.
the other components could be of any brand since they're not so important
and depend on what their cost is. a middle ranged desktop would so be around
500-600 € (no os installed) and a higher level one could reach also
1200-1300€ depending on how much stuff you put inside.

2007/11/10, Conway S. Smith <beolach@comcast.net>:
>
> On Sat, 10 Nov 2007 16:28:01 +0000 (UTC)
> "Kris Kersey (Augustus)" <augustus@linuxhardware.org> wrote:
> > Conway,
> >
> > While it doesn't include Barcelona, you probably would find my review
> > on LinuxHardware.org very useful in your decision making process.  It
> > included the latest Xeon and Opteron processors using Tyan boards.
> > Here's the link:
> > http://www.linuxhardware.org/article.pl?sid=07/04/05/1414204&mode=thread
> >
> > If you have any other questions, I'll be happy to help.
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Kris Kersey (Augustus)
> > LinuxHardware.org Site Manager
> > augustus@linuxhardware.org
> > Gentoo Linux AMD64 Developer
> > augustus@gentoo.org
> > AIM: Augustus22
> >
>
> Nice article, thanks Kris!  I'm about to hit the sack (I work nights),
> so I've mostly just skimmed the performance section, and I'm rather
> pleasantly surprised.
>
> The Opterons are looking a lot better there than some of the other
> reviews I've been reading.  The impression I've had was that in terms
> of performance, Intel's had a significant lead since the Conroe came
> out; although AMD's Barcelona is starting to close the gap (although I
> had the impression Intel's Clovertown still leads).
>
>
> Thanks,
> Conway S. Smith
>
>


-- 
dott. ing. beso

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