Re: [gentoo-user] OT: cheap "make yourself" server: i7-950 or phenom 1100T?

Jarry <mr.jarry@×××××.com> [10-12-15 19:08]:
> Hi,
>
> a friend of mine asked me to prepare a small server for him.
> Unfortunatelly he can not afford to buy brand-name server so
> he asked me to build one for him, from "consumer" components
> (yes, I already warned him about "zero-support" consequences).
> It should be some kind of "multi-purpose" server (web, ftp,
> mail, dns, virtualisation, etc). His budget is ~600-700€ (for
> cpu, mobo, ram), and he wants the best value for the money...
>
> Now, the crucial decision is what cpu (&mobo) I should use:
>
> A: Intel Core i7-950, 4x 3.06GHz (4 cores, + hyper-threading)
> B: AMD Phenom II X6 1100T Black Edition, 6x 3.30GHz (6 cores)
>
> Is it better to use phenom with 6 true cores, or i7 with
> 4 real and 4 "fake" cores (hyper-threading)? Concerning price,
> there is no difference, both of the above mentioned cpus cost
> ~250€ here in Europe.
>
> btw, mobos for phenom have up to 4x dimm, while mobos for
> core-i7 can have up to 6x dimm (that might be a valid point,
> he is going to need a lot of memory).
>
> So what should I pick for him? i7-950, or phenom-1100t?
> Or yet some cheap 4/6-core opteron 4xxx/6xxx?
>
> Jarry
>
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I think the formula "performance/money" is fitted better by AMD 
than by Intel.
If you take "performance" and "forget the money" Intel will be your
friend.

I myself choose an AMD Phenom X6 1090T (which can easily by pushed
to be a 1100T by the way) on a ASUS Crosshair IV Formula. But a few
days agao I heard Gigabyte would be more AMD friendly...

I uses this mainly for rendering -- all cores can be used by Blender
in parallel.

Only my two cent ... you currency may vary.

I DONT WANT to start a flamewar here!
Its only my opinion I wanted to express :)

Best regards,
mcc

PS: If the siftware you will use is not capable to put full load
on the machine you will pay for more hardware than it is used.

PPS: Hyperthreading uses unused parts of a core to run stuff which
does not need the used parts of the same core. When you have 8
identical jobs running, there have to be 8 identical parts in the 
cores available otherwise there is nothing to hypethread. It depends
heavily on the kind and mixture of jobs running on the machine whether
hyperthreading is a win or a marketing joke...
I myself (own opinion) feel better to have six physical cores capable of 
running six identical threads doing six things real parallel, than to
guess, whether 4 of the eight threads Blender is showing me is
/possibly/ waiting for getting access to an unused part of one of the
four cores.
Yes, I am an AMD friend since Intel way of "handling" the P90 floating
point bug for their customers.
And since this 15 (?) years this decision was ok -- at least for me.

;)