Re: [gentoo-user] PCIe x1 or PCIe x4 SATA controller card

[Dale <rdalek1967@gmail.com>]

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Mark Knecht wrote:
>
>
> On Mon, Mar 13, 2023 at 7:35 AM Dale <rdalek1967@gmail.com
> <mailto:rdalek1967@gmail.com>> wrote:
> <SNIP>
> > Another question.  My rig is getting a bit aged.  I have a AMD FX-8350 8
> > core CPU running at 4GHz.  I also have 32GBs of memory.  I've read that
> > Intel currently has the best bang for buck on CPUs nowadays.  I'm open
> > to the idea of switching.  As far as speed goes, if I built a new rig
> > that is using a reasonably cost CPU and memory, would I see any real
> > improvements?
>
> I think it all depends on what you're going to use the machine for and
> whether you really use all your CPU for extended periods of time. 
>
> For all the hours my machines run they are mostly idle, in the sense
> that even if I'm keeping the machine busy watching a movie, doing 
> backups, browsing the web, even on my older machines none of those 
> use more than 10-15% of my older machines. The only two things I do
> which drove the purchase of my new machine were:
>
> 1) Studio level audio recording using Mixbus32C (the for-pay version
> of the Open Source project called Ardour)
>
> 2) Astrophotography photo processing using the for-pay program
> called PixInsight.
>
> Mixbus32C issues are more based around real-time performance
> and use of both the Linux and Windows versions, and being able
> to transfer projects back and forth between both platforms. I've
> never heard you talk about using Windows, nor doing anything 
> that takes real-time capabilities so that probably doesn't apply.
>
> PixInsight is the processor hog. It can use all my 32GB memory
> (and more) and it can run for hours using 100% of my CPU so
> it's the one that drove my eventual purchase of a Ryzen 9 5950X.
>
> PixInsight has a benchmark program built in and all the results
> are open to look at:
>
> https://pixinsight.com/benchmark/index.php?sort=cpu&os=all
>
> Interestingly I didn't find your processor even on the list and
> the top says it covers about 3000 CPU models. You might
> take a look at this when you boil your processor choices down
> to 2 or 3.
>
> Note that for the specific processor type you can open up the
> group and look at individual machines. Most/many include what
> motherboard they were running so that can assist you making 
> choices also.
>
> Hope this helps,
> Mark


One of my concerns isn't just speed, it's the age of things like caps
and such on the mobo.  This mobo is around a decade old.  While it is
supposed to be a top of the line board, it's still got caps which tend
to be a weak spot.  I seem to recall looking when I bought this mobo
that it does have Japanese caps which are the best.  Thing is, even they
go bad sometimes.  While this machine is old, it is still pretty fast. 
I really wish I knew the life expectancy of a Gigabyte mobo like this. 
It claims to be 'ultra durable' and given it is in a Cooler Master
HAF-932 case with those large fans, it does run pretty cool, heat tends
to age caps and make the stink get out. 

The other reason, I'm just curious if I build a new rig if I should be
looking to really upgrade by a lot or just get parts that are newer and
less likely to fail due to age.  When I went from previous rig which was
single core to current rig which originally had a 4 core CPU, it was
about 6 to 7 times faster.  When I upgraded to a 8 core, it speed up
some more.  It was a noticeable improvement both times over original
single core rig.  Thing is, it seems CPU frequencies have pretty much
maxed out.  I think pushing above 4.5GHz or so is difficult to do. 
Dang, that is fast.  Over twice the frequency of a microwave oven for
goodness sake.  They seem to be making them more efficient, adding
cores/threads and such as that.  We had a long thread several years back
talking about reaching the max on frequency of CPUs and such.  It's
almost like we need a whole new technology now to make things faster as
far as the CPU frequencies go. 

In the past, I used a list on Tom's Hardware to pick CPUs.  I usually
started about 4 or 5 CPUs down the list, from fastest to slowest, and
started checking prices.  Sometimes a CPU that costs $500 can only be
just a fraction faster than a $200 CPU.  Given that my rig, as you point
out, sits here and waits on me to do something most of the time, that's
a lot of money for something I won't see much time savings on.  I might
add tho, I do sometimes convert videos from 1080p to 720p.  That makes
the CPU max out pretty good.  Compiling Libreoffice, Firefox etc also
maxes out the CPU but those are what, once a month or so???

I was also wondering what a mobo/CPU/memory combo would cost nowadays. 
Maybe someone who recently built a decent rig recalls how much they paid
for those three.  I don't go cheap on power supply but I don't require a
lot for a video card or anything.  Some spend half their money on a
video card alone but I just don't need anything that fancy.  I got a
Nvidia GeForce GTX 650 that drives both my monitor and my TVs through a
splitter and it does just fine.  Heck, the video card fan is pretty much
at idle and the temps cool most all the time so I can't be pushing it to
hard.  Usually, mobo and CPU is the main part of my cost.  Power supply
right behind that.

This is some good info tho.  Maybe someone who built a rig recently can
chime in on costs, US dollar would be nice.  ;-)

Thanks.

Dale

:-)  :-) 

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