Re: deciding on a new amd64 system
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Lennart Sorensen) writes: Personally I would go with spending more on a Core 2 Duo if I was buying one, but I am not at the moment. :) With what motherboard ? And I would get a 7600GT rather than a 7300, EN7600GT SILENT/2DHT/256M ? or EN7600GT/2DHT/256M ? or EN7600GT/HTDI/256M ? and I would go for a silverstone TJ04-B case and probably a silverstone 450W power supply. And I wouldn't go for less than a 20 screen since I hate 1280x1024 screens, while 20 gives you 1600x1200. Any particular screen in mind ? Of course those changes would probably add another $500 to the price. Well, after reading all the comments to my initial post, I reconsidered :) So, I am not buying Dell anymore. I decided to buy the parts and build it myself. -- Most writers regard the truth as their most valuable possession, and therefore are most economical in its use. - Mark Twain (1835-1910) -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: deciding on a new amd64 system
On Sun, Jun 10, 2007 at 11:13:36PM -0700, Alexandru Cardaniuc wrote: With what motherboard ? Well if I was building a really nice game machine I would get the Asus Striker Extreme. But the Asus M2N32-SLI is a bit more sane. If I decided that SLI was never going to be of interest, I would probably just get one of the Asus P5B series with the i965 chipset. EN7600GT SILENT/2DHT/256M ? or EN7600GT/2DHT/256M ? or EN7600GT/HTDI/256M ? I guess it depends on the price, and what type of connectors you need. Silent sounds nice, although even a plain 7600GT is usually rather quiet. It does look like a number of companies are replacing the 7600GT with the 8600GT now. Not sure how they compare. I think nvidia has driver support for the 8xxx series in linux by now, but I am not sure. Any particular screen in mind ? Well the Dell 3007WFP-HC looks nice, but probably the Dell 2007FP or the 2407WFP are more reasonable. My father uses a 2007FP and it is a very nice panel. Well, after reading all the comments to my initial post, I reconsidered :) So, I am not buying Dell anymore. I decided to buy the parts and build it myself. Usually gives the best result. And it's great fun to assemble things yourself. -- Len Sorensen -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: deciding on a new amd64 system
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On Fri, Jun 08, 2007 at 09:51:56AM -0400 Lennart Sorensen said: On Fri, Jun 08, 2007 at 12:05:42AM +, Sam Varghese wrote: The Core 2. I am surprised if an Athlon 64 beat the Core 2 on video encoding. Weird. What codec and encoder program managed that? I'm afraid I don't recall. I had two machines, one Intel and one AMD, doing more or less similar work and the latter was a length ahead. I was using some scripts from the Gentoo wiki to process video, I recall. It's a little fan next to the graphics chip, comes on the motherboard. Once it starts making a racket, you can live with the noise or else get the board replaced. I chose the latter option. Do you mean the south bridge fan? Nothing to do with graphics. Aren't they usually just a 40mm fan? Can't they be replaced? You are right. I have mixed up two boxes here - one which needed attention due to the south bridge fan giving up the ghost and a second which had to be tended to because a fan on a graphics card gave out. You probably can source a replacement fan but if memory serves me right this fan was riveted on to the board. Additionally, it was my own workstation that I need every day so I opted to get a replacement board - though having to put in a Gigabyte model to replace the A8N-SLI wasn't done with any enthusiasm. I was on crutches at the time and only one person could be asked to deliver a mobo at home - my dealer. The Gigabyte board was all she had in stock. My experience has been different so I'll agree to disagree. I have just seen many posts on this list where people ran memtest, found nothing wrong, but eventually swapped out the ram and their problems went away. memtest is good at telling you if you have a problem, but terrible at telling you that you don't have a problem. You are probably right. But so far, whenever I've suspected memory problems on any of the machines I've tended to and run memtest, it has responded positively. Sam - -- (Sam Varghese) http://www.gnubies.com Experiences are savings which a miser puts aside. Wisdom is an inheritance which a wastrel cannot exhaust. My PGP key: http://www.gnubies.com/encryption/sign.txt -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFGbH2RZyXhknb+33gRAqTaAJsFyM4+ss9kzlJxgvzjoZiKQeHLQwCfUerB 68wyZ/M50Kqee1MK+FO/WHw= =lJNK -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: deciding on a new amd64 system
On Mon, Jun 11, 2007 at 08:39:15AM +1000, Sam Varghese wrote: On Fri, Jun 08, 2007 at 09:51:56AM -0400 Lennart Sorensen said: I have just seen many posts on this list where people ran memtest, found nothing wrong, but eventually swapped out the ram and their problems went away. memtest is good at telling you if you have a problem, but terrible at telling you that you don't have a problem. You are probably right. But so far, whenever I've suspected memory problems on any of the machines I've tended to and run memtest, it has responded positively. Since the AMDs are so picky on ram, its too bad that AMD hasn't added a built-in memory tester function to the on-board memory controller. Something that a simple app could poll, or for that matter that the board's BIOS couldn't access during the POST memory test. Doug. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: deciding on a new amd64 system
On Fri, Jun 08, 2007 at 12:05:42AM +, Sam Varghese wrote: The Core 2. I am surprised if an Athlon 64 beat the Core 2 on video encoding. Weird. What codec and encoder program managed that? It's a little fan next to the graphics chip, comes on the motherboard. Once it starts making a racket, you can live with the noise or else get the board replaced. I chose the latter option. Do you mean the south bridge fan? Nothing to do with graphics. Aren't they usually just a 40mm fan? Can't they be replaced? My experience has been different so I'll agree to disagree. I have just seen many posts on this list where people ran memtest, found nothing wrong, but eventually swapped out the ram and their problems went away. memtest is good at telling you if you have a problem, but terrible at telling you that you don't have a problem. -- Len Sorensen -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: deciding on a new amd64 system
On Thu, Jun 07, 2007 at 04:05:24PM -0400, Lennart Sorensen wrote: I don't see anything that would be inherently a no-go with linux but I do know from reading this list that wifi is interesting. make sure its covered. I didn't see wifi on the list. IIRC, the difference between M2N-SLI Deluxe and the M2N32-SLI Deluxe is that the 32 includes wifi onboard. I didn't see a dvd writer either. PX760 is rather nice, and pxfw can update the firmware from linux on it. I've an LG read/burn anything; works fine. Doug. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: deciding on a new amd64 system
On Fri, Jun 08, 2007 at 09:20:35AM -0400, Douglas Allan Tutty wrote: IIRC, the difference between M2N-SLI Deluxe and the M2N32-SLI Deluxe is that the 32 includes wifi onboard. The M2N32-SLI is an nforce 590, while the M2N-SLI is a 570. That means the 32 has dual 16x slots, while the other has dual 8x slots. As for the wifi, I have never found anywhere that says what chipset they use, although I believe it connects by USB, so it is some USB wifi chipset. I guess if lucky it is a ralink and it may in fact work, and other wise who knows what the changes are. I've an LG read/burn anything; works fine. Being able to easily update firmware to support new types of media is quite handy. I don't have windows on my machine. -- Len Sorensen -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: deciding on a new amd64 system
On Thu, Jun 07, 2007 at 06:03:40PM -0400, Robert Isaac wrote: If you go the Dell route be sure to pick the Ubuntu pre-installed choice. It may be Ubuntu, but it is the GNU/Linux sale that counts. That particular offer comes only with xp home (not vista, and xp pro is an add on cost). I think I will wait and buy a properly made machine at some point. -- Len Sorensen -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: deciding on a new amd64 system
On Wed, Jun 06, 2007 at 11:15:06PM +0200, Gilles Sadowski wrote: I'm also inquiring about hardware for a new system. Based on previous posts (with some replacements for parts I didn't readily found in the closest shop), here is my tentative list (with alternative choices): CPU Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 CPU AMD Athlon64 5000 RAM 1024MB DDR2-6400 800Mhz Fan Zalman CNPS9500 Stock fans actually work quite well, are very quiet, and unless you intend to do serious overclocking, I wouldn't bother with a seperate fan. I would pick the Core 2 over the Athlon 64 at this time. The Core 2 is a more modern design and performs better. The Athlon 64 is still nice, but it isn't a match for the Core 2. MB (Intel CPU) Asus P5N32-E SLI + S775 DualX16 FSB1333 FW GbLan MB (Intel CPU) Intel Mbo DP965LT-Skt LGA775/1066/DDR2-800/SATA/IDE/1394 MB (AMD CPU)Asus M2N32-SLI Deluxe-AM2/SATA/Wifi/DDR2-800/G I have only bought Asus boards since 1993 now, and have no intension of changing. The one intel board I have dealt with at a previous job didn't last very long before it died. I was unimpressed. Asus seems to have much more thought out board designs. Nothing wrong with the intel chipset though. I used an Asus P5B in the last machine I built (for my sister) and it just works. HDD WD 320GB SATA HDD WD 160GB SATA HDD Seagate 160GB 8MB SATA-II HDD Seagate 320GB 16MB SATA-II I would certainly go for the WD drives. I have used many WD3200KS drives, as well as some 250 and 500GB versions. Case Silverstone TJ01-SI (No power supply) Case Antec Atlas (TruePower Trio 550W) Power Fortron Blue Storm 500W 23dB Power Silverstone ST50EF-Plus (recommended) I have lately been very happy with silverstone cases and power supplies. Machine so quiet you have to check the power light to make sure you actually turned it on. I really like the TJ04-B and the TJ09 (for a large system). Silverstone power supplies use very large fans which make almost no sound. Very high build quality too. GraphicsAsus Extreme N7600GT Silencer 256MB 7600GT is a very nice card. Good performance for the money. Screen Samsung 205BW Screen Samsung SyncMaster 226BW (recommended) I never did like samsung screens. Screen ViewSonic VG2230wm Viewsonic has usually done well for me. Headset Plantronics 340 Microphone Plantronics Audio 15 I have no idea on those. I use a 10 year old set of rather nice sony head phones, and I have a pair of JBL Multimedia Pro speakers that sound amazing and cost $10 (Didn't make much sense to me). KeyboardCherry Cymotion Expert G86 Black USB Mouse Logitech MX40 Laser I tend to stick with some logitech mouse and keyboard. Sometimes a wireless combo like the mx3200 or similar. Is there some reason to avoid some of the above HW (e.g. no linux support, bad components,...)? I think everything on your list has linux support. What would be the preferred choice (for CPU, MB, HDD, case, screen, power supply, fans)? Is it safe to assume that currently, an AMD CPU performance is equivalent to an Intel CPU at about the same price? No I wouldn't assume that. And remember the cost you pay is for a whole system, not just the cpu. After all if $100 extra gives you double the performance, and the whole system costs $1000, is the extra $100 worth it? I would think it is, but for some people that don't need the extra performance, it might not be. Of course you can get a stupid little Athlon 64 X2 3600+ system from dell for $399CDN at the moment. Hard to beat that price/performance ratio. Of course it is a Dell, so who knows... :) -- Len Sorensen -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: deciding on a new amd64 system
On Wed, Jun 06, 2007 at 08:21:53PM -0500, Jaime Ochoa Malag?n wrote: The RAM is very important take care of this... True. So far I have been happy with Corsair, and OCZ. Certainly go for a well known name brand. -- Len Sorensen -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: deciding on a new amd64 system
On Thu, Jun 07, 2007 at 06:02:02AM +, Sam Varghese wrote: I have used both Intel and AMD dual-core and find AMD better for my work; I'm basing this on one thing, the speed of processing video files. Which intel? The P4 was a piece of [EMAIL PROTECTED] design wise. The Core 2 is nothing like it. The Core 2 seems to beat the Athlon 64 X2 on everything. The P4/Pentium D hardly ever beat the X2 on anything. I had an ASUS A8N-SLI motherboard but the graphics cooler died and I could only get a GA-K8NF-9 as replacement. Graphics cooler? What does that have to do with A8N-SLI? I've found the smaller WD drives to be flaky; the bigger SATA ones are as good or as bad as Seagate. You won't find drives of the quality of the Quantum Fireball anymore. I was so annoyed when Quentum moved the HD business to maxtor. :( First thing after building, boot from a Knoppix live CD and run memtest to pick up any memory errors. I agree about Kingston. The experience of many people (at least on Athlon 64 systems and Opterons) is that memtest will not catch a lot of problems caused by ram that isn't quite compatible with the amd memory controller. Perhaps it is ram that isn't quite up to the spec it claims to be. The AMD memory controller seems to expect things to do what they claim and drives them to the limit (good for perforamnce after all). Best way to find out if ram is causing a problem is to swap it out with something else and see if the problem goes away in that case. -- Len Sorensen -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: deciding on a new amd64 system
Of course you can get a stupid little Athlon 64 X2 3600+ system from dell for $399CDN at the moment. Hard to beat that price/performance ratio. Of course it is a Dell, so who knows... :) -- Len Sorensen If you go the Dell route be sure to pick the Ubuntu pre-installed choice. It may be Ubuntu, but it is the GNU/Linux sale that counts. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: deciding on a new amd64 system
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On Thu, Jun 07, 2007 at 04:09:22PM -0400 Lennart Sorensen said: On Thu, Jun 07, 2007 at 06:02:02AM +, Sam Varghese wrote: I have used both Intel and AMD dual-core and find AMD better for my work; I'm basing this on one thing, the speed of processing video files. Which intel? The P4 was a piece of [EMAIL PROTECTED] design wise. The Core 2 is nothing like it. The Core 2 seems to beat the Athlon 64 X2 on everything. The P4/Pentium D hardly ever beat the X2 on anything. The Core 2. I had an ASUS A8N-SLI motherboard but the graphics cooler died and I could only get a GA-K8NF-9 as replacement. Graphics cooler? What does that have to do with A8N-SLI? It's a little fan next to the graphics chip, comes on the motherboard. Once it starts making a racket, you can live with the noise or else get the board replaced. I chose the latter option. I've found the smaller WD drives to be flaky; the bigger SATA ones are as good or as bad as Seagate. You won't find drives of the quality of the Quantum Fireball anymore. I was so annoyed when Quentum moved the HD business to maxtor. :( First thing after building, boot from a Knoppix live CD and run memtest to pick up any memory errors. I agree about Kingston. The experience of many people (at least on Athlon 64 systems and Opterons) is that memtest will not catch a lot of problems caused by ram that isn't quite compatible with the amd memory controller. Perhaps it is ram that isn't quite up to the spec it claims to be. The AMD memory controller seems to expect things to do what they claim and drives them to the limit (good for perforamnce after all). Best way to find out if ram is causing a problem is to swap it out with something else and see if the problem goes away in that case. My experience has been different so I'll agree to disagree. Sam - -- (Sam Varghese) http://www.gnubies.com In Genesis, it says that it is not good for a man to be alone; but sometimes it is a great relief. My PGP key: http://www.gnubies.com/encryption/sign.txt -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFGaJ1UZyXhknb+33gRAj11AJ92e0aORu7jlQ30xzJ9FsliI5L1RQCgi0Nv SNqj4eUry15Nq0RB1+wnk4o= =Hd4c -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: deciding on a new amd64 system
Hello. I'm also inquiring about hardware for a new system. Based on previous posts (with some replacements for parts I didn't readily found in the closest shop), here is my tentative list (with alternative choices): CPU Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 CPU AMD Athlon64 5000 RAM 1024MB DDR2-6400 800Mhz Fan Zalman CNPS9500 MB (Intel CPU) Asus P5N32-E SLI + S775 DualX16 FSB1333 FW GbLan MB (Intel CPU) Intel Mbo DP965LT-Skt LGA775/1066/DDR2-800/SATA/IDE/1394 MB (AMD CPU)Asus M2N32-SLI Deluxe-AM2/SATA/Wifi/DDR2-800/G HDD WD 320GB SATA HDD WD 160GB SATA HDD Seagate 160GB 8MB SATA-II HDD Seagate 320GB 16MB SATA-II CaseSilverstone TJ01-SI (No power supply) CaseAntec Atlas (TruePower Trio 550W) Power Fortron Blue Storm 500W 23dB Power Silverstone ST50EF-Plus (recommended) GraphicsAsus Extreme N7600GT Silencer 256MB Screen Samsung 205BW Screen Samsung SyncMaster 226BW (recommended) Screen ViewSonic VG2230wm Headset Plantronics 340 Microphone Plantronics Audio 15 KeyboardCherry Cymotion Expert G86 Black USB Mouse Logitech MX40 Laser Is there some reason to avoid some of the above HW (e.g. no linux support, bad components,...)? What would be the preferred choice (for CPU, MB, HDD, case, screen, power supply, fans)? Is it safe to assume that currently, an AMD CPU performance is equivalent to an Intel CPU at about the same price? Best regards. Gilles -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: deciding on a new amd64 system
Alexandru Cardaniuc wrote: I googled and found that Dell offers Dimension n Series E521. http://www.dell.com/content/topics/segtopic.aspx/e510_nseries?c=uscs=19l=ens=dhs~ck=mn It comes with no Windows OS preinstalled. And Dell claims that it is ready to work under linux. Does anybody here have this machine? Are there any compatibility issues? I plan to use it with Debian Etch. Etch comes with linux kernel 2.6.18 Googling I found out about a problem with USB freezing mice and keyboards, but it seems that this problem was solved with BIOS update that Dell issued in January, 2007. Google doesn't show any more problems with it... I have this one, running Lenny currently. I had some trouble getting the sound card to work initially, but has been working fine for months now (since before etch was released). Other than that, no problems and no complaints. Haven't had any of the USB issues either. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: deciding on a new amd64 system
On Tue, May 22, 2007 at 03:00:01PM -0400, Lennart Sorensen wrote: On Tue, May 22, 2007 at 12:37:41PM -0500, Neil Gunton wrote: Are we talking about desktop workstations here? Forgive my ignorance, but what on earth requires that much RAM? Video processing? I have 1 GB in my desktop at the moment, and that's useful for when I'm running VMWare, but that's about it. Most of the time, it's just being used for disk cache. Ram is cheap, firefox leaks memory (or wastes it) like crazy. KDE doesn't seem much better. Until people start taking code quality seriously, it is simpler to throw more ram at it. I think I must have gone to sleep for a couple of years. When I was last looking at Intel vs AMD, they were saying that AMD's architecture was much better than Intel's, because (I think this is right) for communication between cores, the AMD doesn't have to go off-chip, but Intel's architecture requires use of the external bus, and AMD's design just plain scaled better. Or something. Then fast forward to today, where apparently Intel's Core 2 Duo is apparently kicking the pants off AMD... how did this happen? Is Intel really all that much better? The Core 2 Duo has an internal connection between the two cores (they are a single die) just as the Athlon 64 X2 does. The Core 2 Quad has two Core 2 Duo dies attached together using the front side bus. So for a quad design, the Core 2 is similar to the dual core design intel did with the Pentium 4 (aka Pentium D). The Core 2 is based on the Pentium-M core which goes back to the PPro (it is derived from the P6 core). The pipeline is in the low to mid teens, unlike the netburst which managed to go past 30 stages (great for clock frequency, bad for dealing with conditional branches). So in terms of design, the Core 2 has a lot more similarity with the Athlon than the Pentium 4, except it is a bit more modern and has some clever tricks, which makes it able to run faster than the Athlon 64 at the same clock speed. Hopefully those improvements AMD is promising in the next version of the Athlon 64 will in fact give them the same or hopefully better performance per clock than the Core 2 Duo. Also, I only really hear comparisons between the Core 2 Duo and Athlon. How about Opteron? Is the Opteron still a good choice for servers? Or has Xeon leapt ahead there too? The Opteron is an Athlon 64, except it (usually) uses registered memory (allows more banks of memory in the server, at a slight speed penalty). Current Xeon's are Core 2 Duo or Core 2 Quads, with a different bus speed (I believe they tend to run 1333MHz effective bus rather than the 1066MHz of the Core 2 desktop chips). Xeon's also usually have more cache. Of course the opteron has the fast hypertransport link between cpus, and per cpu memory controllers, so the memory bandwidth is better on the opteron with lower latency, which is why the opteron still scales better than the xeon. For single or dual cpu the xeon is usually fastest, but for 4 or more cpus the opteron is better off since the xeon still has to share a single bus to the chipset for all the cpus while the opteron has the hypertransport links between cpus instead for memory accesses and only has to use the link to the chipset for accessing devices. Adding opterons and memory gives more overall memory bandwidth. Adding cpus to a xeon system doesn't add bandwidth, just processing power. Until intel some day gets an on chip memory controller. Sorry for the ignorance. I don't pay much attention to hardware stuff in between computer purchases. Last time I really looked was in 2005 or so. Lots has happened. It is nice to have some competition between AMD and intel to keep them both going, although I like to root for AMD being the underdog. I think it is very much horse for courses, I have seen intel dual quad cores perform really well with some applications and I have seen AMD x2 outperform intel quad cores. The one that really stick to my mind is some testing done by a rendering house, the amd x2 outperformed the intel single, dual and quad core chips. -- Len Sorensen -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: deciding on a new amd64 system
Alexandru: I use to buy the components and assemble what I need. There is guidance on internet, just choose a reliable guidance. If you go through a reliable European internet dealer you can save money and have just what you need (and the latest - albeit latest on European standard - components, which is never sure on buying a commercial box). francesco --- Alexandru Cardaniuc [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi All! I've been using HP Pavilion zv5260 as a desktop replacement for a while and now decided to get a real desktop. I am not sure if I should build a new box myself or buy a pre-built one. I need a home workstation that is going to be used primarily for writing and debugging code, browsing internet, occasionally watching dvds. I don't edit video and don't play video games. So, I figured that I don't need that powerful and expensive computer. In this case does it make sense to build one myself? I googled and found that Dell offers Dimension n Series E521. http://www.dell.com/content/topics/segtopic.aspx/e510_nseries?c=uscs=19l=ens=dhs~ck=mn It comes with no Windows OS preinstalled. And Dell claims that it is ready to work under linux. Does anybody here have this machine? Are there any compatibility issues? I plan to use it with Debian Etch. Etch comes with linux kernel 2.6.18 Googling I found out about a problem with USB freezing mice and keyboards, but it seems that this problem was solved with BIOS update that Dell issued in January, 2007. Google doesn't show any more problems with it... I am thinking about choosing these parts: - Dell Dimension E521N AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core 4000+ Operating System: FreeDOS included in the box, ready to install Memory1GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz- 2DIMMs Dell USB Keyboard and Dell Optical USB Mouse 19 inch SP1908FP Silver Flat Panel Monitor TrueLife (Glossy Screen) 256MB NVIDIA Geforce 7300LE TurboCache Hard Drive 250GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM) w/DataBurst Cache No Floppy Drive Included Integrated 10/100 Ethernet Modem 56K PCI Data Fax Modem CD ROM/DVD ROM16x DVD+/-RW Drive Integrated 7.1 Channel Audio Speakers Dell AS501 10W Flat Panel Attached Spkrs for UltraSharp Flat Panels Limited Warranty, Services and Support Options 1Yr In-Home Service, Parts + Labor - Next Business Day* FREE GROUND SHIPPING! Total Price (taxes included) $757.30 - It seems like the price is right. Before I always built computers myself, but now would I actually be able to build a box myself for this price ? Well, I don't necessarily want cheap, I just don't need a very powerful machine for what I am using it... Any advices or suggestions will be very appreciated! Thanks in advance... -- Registered Linux user number 402184. Get counted! http://counter.li.org -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] Take the Internet to Go: Yahoo!Go puts the Internet in your pocket: mail, news, photos more. http://mobile.yahoo.com/go?refer=1GNXIC -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: deciding on a new amd64 system
On Mon, May 21, 2007 at 11:24:11PM -0700, Alexandru Cardaniuc wrote: Hi All! I've been using HP Pavilion zv5260 as a desktop replacement for a while and now decided to get a real desktop. I am not sure if I should build a new box myself or buy a pre-built one. I need a home workstation that is going to be used primarily for writing and debugging code, browsing internet, occasionally watching dvds. I don't edit video and don't play video games. So, I figured that I don't need that powerful and expensive computer. In this case does it make sense to build one myself? I googled and found that Dell offers Dimension n Series E521. http://www.dell.com/content/topics/segtopic.aspx/e510_nseries?c=uscs=19l=ens=dhs~ck=mn It comes with no Windows OS preinstalled. And Dell claims that it is ready to work under linux. Does anybody here have this machine? Are there any compatibility issues? I plan to use it with Debian Etch. Etch comes with linux kernel 2.6.18 Googling I found out about a problem with USB freezing mice and keyboards, but it seems that this problem was solved with BIOS update that Dell issued in January, 2007. Google doesn't show any more problems with it... I am thinking about choosing these parts: - Dell Dimension E521N AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core 4000+ Personally at this time I would buy a Core 2 Duo instead. Faster and more efficient. Oh and it's a Dell, so the pwoer supply and mainboard and possibly other things are probably proprietary and never replaceable. And the power supply is probably only barely large enough to handle the system, so upgrades could be tricky. At least that is how Dell Dimension PCs were in the past. Operating System: FreeDOS included in the box, ready to install Memory1GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz- 2DIMMs Why does Dell (and other rip of the clueless consumer name brands) insist on putting slow ram in machines with fast CPUs? 800MHz ram doesn't cost that much more. I guess they figure their customers only care about price. Dell USB Keyboard and Dell Optical USB Mouse 19 inch SP1908FP Silver Flat Panel Monitor TrueLife (Glossy Screen) 256MB NVIDIA Geforce 7300LE TurboCache And then they slow down the ram some more by making the video card borrow from it. Hard Drive 250GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM) w/DataBurst Cache No Floppy Drive Included Integrated 10/100 Ethernet Modem 56K PCI Data Fax Modem CD ROM/DVD ROM16x DVD+/-RW Drive Integrated 7.1 Channel Audio Speakers Dell AS501 10W Flat Panel Attached Spkrs for UltraSharp Flat Panels Well all that stuff is probably typical. Limited Warranty, Services and Support Options 1Yr In-Home Service, Parts + Labor - Next Business Day* FREE GROUND SHIPPING! Total Price (taxes included) $757.30 - It seems like the price is right. Before I always built computers myself, but now would I actually be able to build a box myself for this price ? Well, I don't necessarily want cheap, I just don't need a very powerful machine for what I am using it... The difficult part in getting a price like Dells is that most people building a computer aren't willing to cut the corners Dell likes to cut. Let us try though: Athlon 64 X2 4000 $122 2 x 512MB DDR2-6400 800MHz OCZ platinum ram $80 Asus M2V mainboard (10/100/1000 ethernet, 5.1 audio) $90 WD 250GB SATA $79 LG 18x DVD+-RW $38 Antec SLK1650 (case with 350W PS) $70 USB mouse/keyboard $30 7300 video card $63 19 LCD screen $200 Total: $772 (canadian) which is about $730 US. Significantly higher quality components than the Dell, but you would have to buy and assemble parts yourself, and you don't get tech support and warrenty (well warrenty on the parts not the system). But overall, Dells price is just OK, not great. Remember the Dell is full of cheap junk which helps them keep the price down. Modem (if you actually need one) which is actually a hardware modem that works with linux is probably $75 or so. Haven't bought one in years. I tend to assume most people don't need it so I will ignore it. I would be surprised if dell included anything other than a winmodem in their system. Personally I would go with spending more on a Core 2 Duo if I was buying one, but I am not at the moment. :) And I would get a 7600GT rather than a 7300, and I would go for a silverstone TJ04-B case and probably a silverstone 450W power supply. And I wouldn't go for less than a 20 screen since I hate 1280x1024 screens, while 20 gives you 1600x1200. Of course those changes would probably add another $500 to the price. -- Len Sorensen -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: deciding on a new amd64 system
Alexandru Cardaniuc wrote: Hi All! I've been using HP Pavilion zv5260 as a desktop replacement for a while and now decided to get a real desktop. I am not sure if I should build a new box myself or buy a pre-built one. I need a home workstation that is going to be used primarily for writing and debugging code, browsing internet, occasionally watching dvds. I don't edit video and don't play video games. So, I figured that I don't need that powerful and expensive computer. In this case does it make sense to build one myself? I googled and found that Dell offers Dimension n Series E521. http://www.dell.com/content/topics/segtopic.aspx/e510_nseries?c=uscs=19l=ens=dhs~ck=mn It comes with no Windows OS preinstalled. And Dell claims that it is ready to work under linux. Does anybody here have this machine? Are there any compatibility issues? I plan to use it with Debian Etch. Etch comes with linux kernel 2.6.18 Googling I found out about a problem with USB freezing mice and keyboards, but it seems that this problem was solved with BIOS update that Dell issued in January, 2007. Google doesn't show any more problems with it... I am thinking about choosing these parts: - Dell Dimension E521NAMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core 4000+ Operating System: FreeDOS included in the box, ready to install Memory 1GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz- 2DIMMs Dell USB Keyboard and Dell Optical USB Mouse 19 inch SP1908FP Silver Flat Panel Monitor TrueLife (Glossy Screen) 256MB NVIDIA Geforce 7300LE TurboCache Hard Drive 250GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM) w/DataBurst Cache No Floppy Drive Included Integrated 10/100 Ethernet Modem 56K PCI Data Fax Modem CD ROM/DVD ROM 16x DVD+/-RW Drive Integrated 7.1 Channel Audio Speakers Dell AS501 10W Flat Panel Attached Spkrs for UltraSharp Flat Panels Limited Warranty, Services and Support Options 1Yr In-Home Service, Parts + Labor - Next Business Day* FREE GROUND SHIPPING! Total Price (taxes included)$757.30 - It seems like the price is right. Before I always built computers myself, but now would I actually be able to build a box myself for this price ? Well, I don't necessarily want cheap, I just don't need a very powerful machine for what I am using it... Any advices or suggestions will be very appreciated! Thanks in advance... I just had a box built at CompUSA. It took me a while to get it up, but it's happily running Linux now. I looked at the Dell Linux-ready systems but ended up with a custom system mostly because 1. I didn't want to wait. 2. The Dell AMD systems didn't include the option to remove the monitor. The Intel systems did, but I wanted AMD. 3. The Dell memory prices were too high. So I ended up with a 4 GB Athlon64 X2 4200+ If you already have a monitor, you could get the low-end Dell Intel Linux-ready system without one and save about $150US, IIRC. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: deciding on a new amd64 system
Lennart Sorensen wrote: On Mon, May 21, 2007 at 11:24:11PM -0700, Alexandru Cardaniuc wrote: Hi All! I've been using HP Pavilion zv5260 as a desktop replacement for a while and now decided to get a real desktop. I am not sure if I should build a new box myself or buy a pre-built one. I need a home workstation that is going to be used primarily for writing and debugging code, browsing internet, occasionally watching dvds. I don't edit video and don't play video games. So, I figured that I don't need that powerful and expensive computer. In this case does it make sense to build one myself? I googled and found that Dell offers Dimension n Series E521. http://www.dell.com/content/topics/segtopic.aspx/e510_nseries?c=uscs=19l=ens=dhs~ck=mn It comes with no Windows OS preinstalled. And Dell claims that it is ready to work under linux. Does anybody here have this machine? Are there any compatibility issues? I plan to use it with Debian Etch. Etch comes with linux kernel 2.6.18 Googling I found out about a problem with USB freezing mice and keyboards, but it seems that this problem was solved with BIOS update that Dell issued in January, 2007. Google doesn't show any more problems with it... I am thinking about choosing these parts: - Dell Dimension E521NAMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core 4000+ Personally at this time I would buy a Core 2 Duo instead. Faster and more efficient. Oh and it's a Dell, so the pwoer supply and mainboard and possibly other things are probably proprietary and never replaceable. And the power supply is probably only barely large enough to handle the system, so upgrades could be tricky. At least that is how Dell Dimension PCs were in the past. Operating System: FreeDOS included in the box, ready to install Memory 1GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz- 2DIMMs Why does Dell (and other rip of the clueless consumer name brands) insist on putting slow ram in machines with fast CPUs? 800MHz ram doesn't cost that much more. I guess they figure their customers only care about price. Dell USB Keyboard and Dell Optical USB Mouse 19 inch SP1908FP Silver Flat Panel Monitor TrueLife (Glossy Screen) 256MB NVIDIA Geforce 7300LE TurboCache And then they slow down the ram some more by making the video card borrow from it. Hard Drive 250GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM) w/DataBurst Cache No Floppy Drive Included Integrated 10/100 Ethernet Modem 56K PCI Data Fax Modem CD ROM/DVD ROM 16x DVD+/-RW Drive Integrated 7.1 Channel Audio Speakers Dell AS501 10W Flat Panel Attached Spkrs for UltraSharp Flat Panels Well all that stuff is probably typical. Limited Warranty, Services and Support Options 1Yr In-Home Service, Parts + Labor - Next Business Day* FREE GROUND SHIPPING! Total Price (taxes included)$757.30 - It seems like the price is right. Before I always built computers myself, but now would I actually be able to build a box myself for this price ? Well, I don't necessarily want cheap, I just don't need a very powerful machine for what I am using it... The difficult part in getting a price like Dells is that most people building a computer aren't willing to cut the corners Dell likes to cut. Let us try though: Athlon 64 X2 4000 $122 2 x 512MB DDR2-6400 800MHz OCZ platinum ram $80 Asus M2V mainboard (10/100/1000 ethernet, 5.1 audio) $90 WD 250GB SATA $79 LG 18x DVD+-RW $38 Antec SLK1650 (case with 350W PS) $70 USB mouse/keyboard $30 7300 video card $63 19 LCD screen $200 Total: $772 (canadian) which is about $730 US. Significantly higher quality components than the Dell, but you would have to buy and assemble parts yourself, and you don't get tech support and warrenty (well warrenty on the parts not the system). But overall, Dells price is just OK, not great. Remember the Dell is full of cheap junk which helps them keep the price down. Modem (if you actually need one) which is actually a hardware modem that works with linux is probably $75 or so. Haven't bought one in years. I tend to assume most people don't need it so I will ignore it. I would be surprised if dell included anything other than a winmodem in their system. Personally I would go with spending more on a Core 2 Duo if I was buying one, but I am not at the moment. :) And I would get a 7600GT rather than a 7300, and I would go for a silverstone TJ04-B case and probably a silverstone 450W power supply. And I wouldn't go for less than a 20 screen since I hate 1280x1024 screens, while 20 gives you 1600x1200. Of course those changes would probably add another $500 to the price. -- Len Sorensen Well ... I don't want to get into Intel vs. AMD (until the AMD Quad Cores are out, anyhow) :). But I can't conceive of running a processor that fast in Linux with only a GB of RAM, and I can't conceive of
Re: deciding on a new amd64 system
On Tue, May 22, 2007 at 08:24:07AM -0700, M. Edward (Ed) Borasky wrote: Well ... I don't want to get into Intel vs. AMD (until the AMD Quad Cores are out, anyhow) :). But I can't conceive of running a processor that fast in Linux with only a GB of RAM, and I can't conceive of getting only 5.1 sound and not 7.1. But I do a lot of scientific and audio computing, so the RAM isn't wasted. :) Well I would certainly prefer 2 or 4GB ram on a new system. As for AMD, well when they come out with the quad, assuming it does what they claim it will do, then they will probably be back on my list of recommended parts. Lots of boards have 7.1 audio, I just tried to show that making a PC from quality parts that matched the Dell price was trivial. I was surprised that it didn't even need going to generic ram to beat Dell's price. -- Len Sorensen -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: deciding on a new amd64 system
Lennart Sorensen wrote: Well I would certainly prefer 2 or 4GB ram on a new system. Are we talking about desktop workstations here? Forgive my ignorance, but what on earth requires that much RAM? Video processing? I have 1 GB in my desktop at the moment, and that's useful for when I'm running VMWare, but that's about it. Most of the time, it's just being used for disk cache. As for AMD, well when they come out with the quad, assuming it does what they claim it will do, then they will probably be back on my list of recommended parts. I think I must have gone to sleep for a couple of years. When I was last looking at Intel vs AMD, they were saying that AMD's architecture was much better than Intel's, because (I think this is right) for communication between cores, the AMD doesn't have to go off-chip, but Intel's architecture requires use of the external bus, and AMD's design just plain scaled better. Or something. Then fast forward to today, where apparently Intel's Core 2 Duo is apparently kicking the pants off AMD... how did this happen? Is Intel really all that much better? Also, I only really hear comparisons between the Core 2 Duo and Athlon. How about Opteron? Is the Opteron still a good choice for servers? Or has Xeon leapt ahead there too? Sorry for the ignorance. I don't pay much attention to hardware stuff in between computer purchases. Last time I really looked was in 2005 or so. Thanks! /Neil -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: deciding on a new amd64 system
On May 22, 2007 02:37:41 pm Neil Gunton wrote: Lennart Sorensen wrote: Well I would certainly prefer 2 or 4GB ram on a new system. Are we talking about desktop workstations here? Forgive my ignorance, but what on earth requires that much RAM? Video processing? I have 1 GB in my desktop at the moment, and that's useful for when I'm running VMWare, but that's about it. Most of the time, it's just being used for disk cache. With the pricing on DDR2 ram now a days it is an easy decision to go with 2gb I got my 2gb for a little over $140 CAD just over a month ago and can get the same ram today for just under $120 CAD plus the caching does not hurt either just speeds up the machine even more. I am almost tempted to get another 2gb to throw in just for the hell of it. As for AMD, well when they come out with the quad, assuming it does what they claim it will do, then they will probably be back on my list of recommended parts. I think I must have gone to sleep for a couple of years. When I was last looking at Intel vs AMD, they were saying that AMD's architecture was much better than Intel's, because (I think this is right) for communication between cores, the AMD doesn't have to go off-chip, but Intel's architecture requires use of the external bus, and AMD's design just plain scaled better. Or something. Then fast forward to today, where apparently Intel's Core 2 Duo is apparently kicking the pants off AMD... how did this happen? Is Intel really all that much better? Intel just did not stand still when getting their ass kicked they went out and designed something better. The Core 2 Duo is definitely faster when I built my new machine I just moved the hard drive from my old system AMD X2 939 running at 2.4ghz 2gb ram to new Core 2 Duo 2.49ghz 2gb ram. I re-complied the kernel on old for the modules needed to boot the new system it took just like it always did about 12 minutes on new machine it takes just about 8 and a half minutes. Now even with the new being ~100mhz faster and the ram running at 356FSB (DDR712) 5-5-5-15 vs old 240FSB (DDR480) 3-3-3-7 I don't think that can account for about a 3 and a half minute difference. Also, I only really hear comparisons between the Core 2 Duo and Athlon. How about Opteron? Is the Opteron still a good choice for servers? Or has Xeon leapt ahead there too? From my experience of having had two different Opterons in my 939 board both of which I ran as fast as my X2 there was next to no difference in the performance of them vs X2. So Opteron vs Core 2 the Core 2 is faster against the Xeon I have no clue never had one of them. Sorry for the ignorance. I don't pay much attention to hardware stuff in between computer purchases. Last time I really looked was in 2005 or so. Thanks! /Neil Stephen -- GPG Public Key: http://users.eastlink.ca/~stephencormier/publickey.asc signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
Re: deciding on a new amd64 system
On Tue, May 22, 2007 at 12:37:41PM -0500, Neil Gunton wrote: Are we talking about desktop workstations here? Forgive my ignorance, but what on earth requires that much RAM? Video processing? I have 1 GB in my desktop at the moment, and that's useful for when I'm running VMWare, but that's about it. Most of the time, it's just being used for disk cache. Ram is cheap, firefox leaks memory (or wastes it) like crazy. KDE doesn't seem much better. Until people start taking code quality seriously, it is simpler to throw more ram at it. I think I must have gone to sleep for a couple of years. When I was last looking at Intel vs AMD, they were saying that AMD's architecture was much better than Intel's, because (I think this is right) for communication between cores, the AMD doesn't have to go off-chip, but Intel's architecture requires use of the external bus, and AMD's design just plain scaled better. Or something. Then fast forward to today, where apparently Intel's Core 2 Duo is apparently kicking the pants off AMD... how did this happen? Is Intel really all that much better? The Core 2 Duo has an internal connection between the two cores (they are a single die) just as the Athlon 64 X2 does. The Core 2 Quad has two Core 2 Duo dies attached together using the front side bus. So for a quad design, the Core 2 is similar to the dual core design intel did with the Pentium 4 (aka Pentium D). The Core 2 is based on the Pentium-M core which goes back to the PPro (it is derived from the P6 core). The pipeline is in the low to mid teens, unlike the netburst which managed to go past 30 stages (great for clock frequency, bad for dealing with conditional branches). So in terms of design, the Core 2 has a lot more similarity with the Athlon than the Pentium 4, except it is a bit more modern and has some clever tricks, which makes it able to run faster than the Athlon 64 at the same clock speed. Hopefully those improvements AMD is promising in the next version of the Athlon 64 will in fact give them the same or hopefully better performance per clock than the Core 2 Duo. Also, I only really hear comparisons between the Core 2 Duo and Athlon. How about Opteron? Is the Opteron still a good choice for servers? Or has Xeon leapt ahead there too? The Opteron is an Athlon 64, except it (usually) uses registered memory (allows more banks of memory in the server, at a slight speed penalty). Current Xeon's are Core 2 Duo or Core 2 Quads, with a different bus speed (I believe they tend to run 1333MHz effective bus rather than the 1066MHz of the Core 2 desktop chips). Xeon's also usually have more cache. Of course the opteron has the fast hypertransport link between cpus, and per cpu memory controllers, so the memory bandwidth is better on the opteron with lower latency, which is why the opteron still scales better than the xeon. For single or dual cpu the xeon is usually fastest, but for 4 or more cpus the opteron is better off since the xeon still has to share a single bus to the chipset for all the cpus while the opteron has the hypertransport links between cpus instead for memory accesses and only has to use the link to the chipset for accessing devices. Adding opterons and memory gives more overall memory bandwidth. Adding cpus to a xeon system doesn't add bandwidth, just processing power. Until intel some day gets an on chip memory controller. Sorry for the ignorance. I don't pay much attention to hardware stuff in between computer purchases. Last time I really looked was in 2005 or so. Lots has happened. It is nice to have some competition between AMD and intel to keep them both going, although I like to root for AMD being the underdog. -- Len Sorensen -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
