+> Great response time guys!!
+> Thanks to all of you for the help,
Hold it!
Want another opinion?
I had a dual PPro (overcced to 233 MHz, stable for about 3 years...) and went
in the last months to look for a system wich should give me the next "performance
kick". - So I went and bought me an 650 MHz Athlon.
Installing an running Linux was easy, but you should go for the latest kernels.
I'm happy so far, but there is one little thing that annoys me:
My old dual PPro felt somehow "snappier" under load. I guess this comes simply
from the second CPU. - If you throw some heavy work on a dual system, there will
be at least one CPU, taking most of the load (sure, well written software scales
better,
but still most applications are still single threaded) and the other one is "easier to
access" for new tasks. So on my old system, when I started some hefty job and simply
opened another xterm for me, it was there, almost immediately. On the 650 MHz Athlon,
I have to wait 2-3 seconds (well maybe it's only 1-2 seconds... ;) ) for the new xterm
to come up under heavy load.
The pro of an SMP system is, that if you don't care how long a job needs, you can
start a big job in the background and have virtually no impact on your systems
performance, while a single CPU system may be indeed faster with a big job, but the
system will feel slower to the user during the job.
Don't get me wrong: I'm a BIG fan of the Athlons, but it really depends on what you
intend to do.
For what I read in your mail, a dual CPU-system may be the more interesting choice
for you:
[EMAIL PROTECTED] said:
+> My primary uses for this box will be:
+> 1. GIS and satellite image processing and analysis.
For Image-Processing the Athlon would be a real good choice!
(Brute force)
But if you can wait for the result while you want to work on in the foreground,
take an SMP system!
+> 2. Biological modelling using Objective-C and the Swarm Simulation System
+>(see: http://www.santafe.edu/projects/swarm/)
Same applies here.
+> 3. General programming in C and Objective-C
Ditto.
[..]
+> I understand that Objective-C can make use of 2 processors, and the Swarm
+> developers are aiming for major SMP and Beowulf cluster support in the future.
So in fact you _have_ interest in SMP and clustering!? - How will you do that
without an SMP-box ? ;)
+> Secondary use:
+> My 13 yr old son playing Windows games.
Hmmm... - Allow me the question: Are you buying the system for your son of for
yourself?
Quake or whatever will run almost as well on an SMP box. - OK, he may have 5-10
fps fewer than with the faster Athlon, but: Who cares? - Maybe I have hitted here
a weak spot of your own? - I admit I occasionally do play every now and then on my
machines (that's the only reason for me to keep Win95 on one of my disks...).
Why not? - But you should really take a deep look what you want to do MOST of the
time with that machine. That way you will become more satisfied. It's not always
the best choice to get the lastest technological gimmick!
Of course, my absolute top-favourite would be an SMP (2-way or 4 way) Athlon!
I can't wait for them! But I do guess this will *slightly* be out of my budget...
+> Sounds like the athlon is the way to go. My own reading around the hardware
+> sites on the net was leaning me that way, but not being very SMP savvy I wasn't
Depends on what you REALLY need and want.
+> sure. The athlons sure make my mouth water and I notice the linux 2.3.35 kernel
+> has an athlon choice in the cpu config and 3DNow! kernel support so at least
+> single processor athlon systems are supported.
Yes. And quite nice already. :)
+> My local enquiries so far have not come up with a dual athlon capable mobo,
+> that would be out of my price range anyway, (I can still dream though).
They are supposed to come up in three to six months from now.
+> Does anyone have the good oil on athlon mobos, I was thinking of the ASUS K7M.
+> Any other preferences. That is a bit off topic I guess.
I guess the K7M will be quite nice. - I do have an MCI (like many others, too).
No severe problems at all until now. Just the usual stuff, when you install a
new system.
+>
+> Thanks heaps,
+> matt
+>
HTH
Herbert
"I sense much NT in you. - NT leads to bluescreen, bluescreen leads to downtime,
downtime leads to suffering. NT is the path to the dark side. Powerful UNIX is."
- Jedi SysAdmin
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