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

[Conway S. Smith]

On Sat, 10 Nov 2007 18:43:19 +0100
Beso <givemesugarr@×××××.com> wrote:
> 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.

Well, I've been looking at the new Barcelona Opteron 2300 series,
which have 4 cores each & can be used in dual socket motherboards, for
a total of 8 cores in the system.  The 2 or 4 cores in an Athlon X2
system really would be sufficient for my needs, but then my current box
is still pretty much sufficient for my needs.  This new box I'm
planning is more about my wants, and I look at 8 cores & think "I want!"

About registered vs. unbuffered memory, my understanding is that for
systems w/ lots of memory (more than 4 GiB), the registers are a Good
Thing(tm). I don't really understand the electrical engineering behind
how memory & memory controllers work, so I don't claim to really grok
why registered memory is so important in systems w/ lots of RAM, but
since I'm planning on loading it with 8 or 16 GiB, I was planning on
going with registered anyway.

> 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\u20ac. this
> will be my next board. i would also check later some higher level
> mobos if i should have a greater dispo of money.

Interesting, most of what I've heard about Tyan has been really good.
Is there something specific about Tyan that's been a problem for you?
I've also heard good things about Gigabyte, but Tyan really seemed to
stand out as excellent.  The two dual-socket F Gigabyte boards on
NewEgg are cheaper than the Tyans I've been considering, but
unfortunately they don't support the new Barcelona Opterons, and I'd
have to wait for new versions to be released.  But then the Tyan
motherboard I liked best is in the same situation, w/ a new
Barcelona-compatible version expected later this month.  I'll keep the
Gigabytes in mind.

> 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).

I am thinking I'll probably go w/ an ATI video card, since I'm fairly
excited about the driver talk that's been going around.  Although one
thing I happened to find during my research for this box, nVidia is
significantly more energy efficient.
<http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000662.html>

> 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 \u20ac (no os installed) and a higher
> level one could reach also 1200-1300\u20ac depending on how much
> stuff you put inside.
>

RAM I mentioned above.  Hard disk space was actually the main thing
that's prompting this new box, as I'm filling up all my current disks.
I eventually plan on filling the case w/ as many hard disks as it can
fit, probably at least 10+.  This box is going to be my home fileserver
for a long time to come.  But for starters I'm thinking I'll get 3x
1TiB in RAID5, and then grow the RAID as it fills up & drive prices
drop.  This will be my first time setting up RAID, I'm planning on
following the HOWTO_Setup_fully_crypted_Gentoo_on_EVMS in the
gentoo-wiki.

It is going to be quite expensive, but I'm sure my family & friends
won't mind me getting myself a Christmas present instead of them (j/k -
I've been saving for a while, and I can afford it along w/ holiday
gifts).


Thanks for the tips,
Conway S. Smith