I have am currently using a Core2 Duo E6600 with 2G DDR2-667 on a Intel
MoBo with GigE LAN and a nVidia 7600GT video card. I have had it less
than a year and I can't gush enough about it. The costs for everything
have come down. It is a "white box" (thought it's actually black in
color) from Datel. If I was on a lower budget, here is what I would do
differently if I still wanted some performance:
I'd use the new Biostar 945GC motherboard, it's CHEAP and supports 1333
FSB. No GigE, just 100Mbps. I have a few dozen of these and they are
great for the price. They can do adjustable speed fan, although I
haven't done it. I am sure there are other boards that are comparable
that might have a better brand name. The point is 1333 FSB and cheap.
The sweet CPU that will fit this board is a E6750. It's faster and
cheaper than the 6600. If you have to go cheap cheap cheap, then the
"Pentium Dual Core" chips are actually Core2 technology and run very
cool, and are cheap cheap cheap (ie: E2140, and E2160). If you compile
the CentOS 4 kernel with -j8 or so, the E2140 is 51% faster than a P4
3GHz (151% the speed of). The E6600 is 237% the speed of the P4 3GHz.
(Speed tests are my own actual tests with the same disk drive).
The video card is probably much more than needed. But, I am driving
dual 24" widescreens. I do not play games, but have the resolution on
the 24's cranked up.
I am using Ubuntu 7.04 currently. I was not on a terribly tight budget
at the time and was quite frustrated with my last workstation at the
time, so I opted to get two 250G drives and a 3Ware RAID card to mirror
the drives. This is a totally unnecessary addition that you may not opt
for.
If I was on the same budget (not unlimited, but generous) I was on at
the time, and had it to do over again I'd do this:
Go with a Supermicro Mobo, with ability to use 4GB of RAM and room for
8GB or more, GigE Intel LAN, adjustable fan that can be optimized for
low sound. They currently only support 1066MHz FSB, but I am not in need
of more CPU than the E6600. I'd actually get the 4GB of RAM though.
FireFox is a surprising pig on RAM. Same video card (nVidia 7600GT) or
less. I am very happy with the Microsoft wireless mouse and crappy but
old and sturdy keyboard. I'd install the 32-bit version of Ubuntu
instead of the 64-bit version. Unfortunately the 64-bit version has left
me without flash/shockwave. I know there are work-arounds, but that is
me. I can give up the half gig of RAM I won't see out of the 4GB. Since
I am storing most of my critical data on a file server (also with the
3ware RAID card) I'd not spend the $ for the RAID card and second disk
on the local machine and spend those dollars on the more expensive Mobo
and added RAM.
If they ever make Flash available for 64-bit Linux, I'd add more RAM
and install the 64-bit version of Ubuntu.
I am very happy with Ubuntu as a desktop. Up over 130 days, no heroic
attempts to keep it up. Only owned the thing for maybe a month longer
than that 130days. I beat this thing up every day for 12 to 18hrs and it
just works.
YMMV.
Mike
On Fri, 2007-11-09 at 17:47 -0800, Stewart C. Strait wrote:
> I'm looking for a new (or possibly used) desktop machine, probably
> toward the low end of the price spectrum. Does anyone have
> suggestions for hardware or San Diego area retailers? Links or Google
> search ideas are also welcome.
>
> Chips and Memory is advertising machines with Asus M2N-MX SE
> motherboards. Are these desirable or troublesome?
>
> I'll probably be installing Ubuntu or Debian. MS Windows will not be
> present.
>
> It's important for the machine to run fairly quietly in room
> temperatures up to about 90 degrees F (32 degrees C). Highly
> CPU-intensive jobs will be run occasionally, but small speed
> improvements are not worth significant money to me. These jobs
> usually access memory in unpredictable ways, so caching is less
> effective than usual. The existing machine, with a 1.4 GHz Athlon
> processor, is adequate, but I presume much greater speed is available
> cheaply.
>
> Video performance and HD size and performance are especially
> UNimportant.
>
> Thanks
> Stewart Strait
>
>
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