[wellylug] Choice of chip for Linux box

[Centurion Computer Technology Ltd]

On Tue, 2003-08-19 at 22:46, David McNab wrote:
> On Tue, 2003-08-19 at 22:30, Colin & Josephine Lewis 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.
> 
> This question skirts close to the precipice of 'CPU Religion'.
> 
> As far as physical differences go, Intel CPUs run cooler, can take
> quieter fans, but for a given processing throughput are much more
> expensive. Conversely, AMD chips run pretty hot, often need noisier
> fans, but give much more processing bang for the buck.

This is actually incorrect for the latest round of chips, with AMD
Barton core chips (2500+ & 2800+ and up) maintaining a heat output of
about 85w, where as the Intel P4 3G and 3.06G are putting out about 135
watts.
> 
> Then there's the philosophical differences - Intel being to processor
> chips what Windows is to operating systems - the dominant over-priced
> slickly-marketed near-monopolist, with AMD as the better-value underdog.

This is also not entirely true as the latest Athlon 3200XP+ is slightly
higher priced than the P4 3.06GHz, while the P4 benchmarks about 15%
faster in most areas.

> Personally, I haven't used Intel chips for 3 years, and have no plans of
> going back, especially since their coming 64-bit models are 32-bit
> compatible, while Intel's 64-bit chips are not.
> 
True, but AMD are struggling to get the Opteron to perform as fast as
the latest round of athlons in 32 bit mode.  That being said, and Linux
being the only OS to have a distro out that runs 64 bit natively at the
moment (Windows XP has a beta version, tho rumours are M$ won't do a
full release for it but are waiting to do it for Longhorn instead).

The beauty of the Opteron is that once AMD get some decent
hyper-transport bus speeds, and start utilising the latest high speed
DDR ram (now getting upto speeds of 500MHz and beyond that it will
become a very powerful processor indeed.
> 
> Cheers
> David
> 
> 
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-- 
	Daniel Reurich
	Centurion Computer Technolgy Limited
	
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