Re: [gentoo-user] ~gcc-4.7.0

[Michael Mol <mikemol@gmail.com>]

On Tue, May 29, 2012 at 4:30 AM, microcai <microcai@fedoraproject.org> wrote:

> 2012/5/29 Michael Mol <mikemol@gmail.com>

[snip]

>> I'm mostly looking forward to Bulldozer support and RDRAND.
>>
>
> LOL I thought no one buys it

The average decent-quality AMD-supporting motherboard that supports
the level of contemporary features I want costs 100-130 USD, and I
generally go for a CPU in the range of $150-$180. So that's a total
ticket price of about $250-$310 USD. I've been using AMD machines in
my home for five or six years, now; generally, when one box gets
upgraded, parts of it (especially the CPU) get put into a different
box to upgrade that. That hasn't been possible on Intel.

An Intel-supporting motherboard with the level of contemporary
features I want becomes my first hurdle. Just for the base set of
features I'd want (6 current-speed SATA ports, max "supported" RAM of
32GB, LGA1155), I'm looking at $230 and up. For a processor?
$200-$320. And I'd want an i7, not an i5, so we're talking upper
range.

Yes, the early Bulldozers don't measure up to the Phenom II, but
amdfam10 is going away, and Bulldozer will get past that mark. Rather
similar how Intel's early NetBurst cores didn't manage to beat Pentium
IIIs, but later ones did. (Yeah, NetBurst  eventually bit the dust,
and for good reason. I have to think, though, that a lot of what Intel
learned with NetBurst went into preparing them for Sandy Bridge's
incredible overclocking range.)

So, yeah, while I'd love a performance-grade Intel desktop box, it's
going to be hard to justify the price ticket. Even if I don't manage
to get an IvyBridge desktop box, I do want to get my hands on an
IvyBridge i3 motherboard; that RDRAND instruction is going to be sweet
in a network gateway machine, and the power consumption deliciously
low.

-- 
:wq