[wellylug] Choice of chip for Linux box

[Wood Brent]

--- Colin & Josephine Lewis <cjlewis at amcom.co.nz> wrote:
> A friend has asked whether any one computer chip - AMD, Intel etc. are
> better than any other for a system being designed to run Linux.  As this
> is way outside my area of knowledge, I was hoping someone else might be
> able to help out.

For Linux it is pretty much irrelevant. Intel, AMD & VIA cpu's all work fine,
though Via is an unlikely solution for a std system.

AMD tend to be cheaper, historically they have required more power than Intel,
tho this is not so much the case now. The increased power useage meant hotter
chips with bigger, noisier fans, but personally I haven't noticed a big
difference in fan noise simply by cpu. The system & power supply fans tend to
be noisier anyway, & the various 3rd party fan manufacturors have a wide range
of noise levels.

Value: AMD are cheaper cpus for comparable performance & AMD motherboards are
cheaper also.

Compatability. AMD boards tend to give you more options, more chipsets, more
chipset vendors, greate range, esp at the budget end. Intel are not the world's
most proactive Linux supporter, so their IDE (hard drive) and integrated
graphics driver support can lag behind a bit. Most chipsets for AMD cpu's are
pretty well supported under Linux.

Performance. AMD tend to give better raw cpu grunt & floating point (complex
math) performance. Intel have better memory I/O for a given rating. Note an AMD
Athlon 2600XP has a performance comparable to an Intel P42600Mhz cpu, but
actually runs somewhere under 2000Mhz. The difference in design is that AMD do
more per cycle, Intel do less per cycle but run faster.

Reliability. Comparable. AMD's are reputed to have a higher failure rate, but I
believe that is generally due to poor installation. With appropriate cooling
the reliability of both is pretty similar. CPU's are one of the more reliable
(touch wood) components generally.

Philosophically. AMD are the only real competition Intel have in the x86 cpu
market, so to avoid a monopoly, support AMD.


If you do go AMD, I suggest a motherboard based on the nForce2 chipset from
nVidia. All the major manufacturors have them (except Intel obviously, as
nVidia don't make an Intel compatible chipset) and it offers features the other
chipset manufacturors are still trying to catch up to. They tend to be a few
extra $$, but generally worth it. 


Recommendation. I build almost entirely AMD based systems. The odd Intel for
users who want them. 
It's always the customers decision, but I'd say the choice of motherboard
manufacturor is more important than who made the cpu. You may not need a BMW
board, but a Toyota is better than a Lada. I know pc builders tend to have
their own preferences on what is best, but we generally agree on what to avoid
:-)


If you want to see what is around, the www.bdt.co.nz wbsite is useful. BDT sell
Gigabyte boards & a range of other components, with RRP. (Gigabyte are about
teh 4th largest manufactureor in Taiwan, so they are BIG, and pretty reasonable
quality. You can peruse specs & prices pretty well for motherboards, cpus,
graphics cards, etc. They are an importer, so you can't buy directly from them,
however. 
 

Cheers

  Brent