Jim Green put forth on 2/19/2011 10:16 PM: >> Just stay away from the WD Green drives, or any 512/4096 hybrid drives, >> for your sake. :) > > Thanks! also lets say I am building a quad/hex core desktop box for > computing. I'd like listen to ur advice about cpu and motherboard, I am not > partial to intel but I do prefer a quiet and debian friendly box that > can hold 4x2T data can simulate things relatively fast.
Very few people understand what parallel processing is, how few desktop/workstation applications are written to use it, and that it is required to make good use of more than one CPU core, specifically in a workstation environment. (In the server space just about every application can take advantage of multiple cores). Desktop multitasking can take advantage of more than 1 core, but it's difficult to push more than 2 cores using multitasking alone. Ron will list exceptions, but that's what they are, exceptions, not the general rule. The number of people actually making good use of 4 cores in desktops is a tiny fraction of 1% of all users. Whether it's Intel or AMD silicon, in a given process technology, the more cores and more cache you add to a chip, the greater the transistor count. This translates into greater current draw, and thus heat dissipation, especially with high clocked multi core chips. As most workstation cores sit idle 99%+ of the time, having a quad/hex core CPU simply wastes more electricity and generates more heat. A side effect of this is typically noisier fans needed to cool the chip. Thus, quad/hex core systems aren't going to be quiet. Americans (of which I am one) tend to always want more, bigger, faster, even when we don't need such and can't make use of it. I don't subscribe that philosophy. I always recommend to people to buy a high clock dual core workstation and avoid quad/hex systems _unless_ they have a specific application that threads well over 4 or more cores, and that this is a _critical_ application. Otherwise, again, you're simply wasting electricity and generating more heat and noise than you need to, and oh, spending more money. If you don't have such an application as described above, but you think you still need more than a single core (for instance when Firefox grinds your single CPU box to a halt while navigating /. comments), the chip I'd recommend then would be the following based on the combination of frequency, thermal dissipation, and cost: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103903 Dual core 3 GHz 2MB L2 cache 65 watts $61 If you have a critical application that scales to 4 or more cores, I'd recommend this CPU based on the same criteria, but weighting heat dissipation higher than cost: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103907 Quad core 2.6 GHz 6MB L3 cache 65 watts $180 The bulk of AMD's desktop quad core CPUs are 95-125 watt light bulbs, which is simply ridiculous for a desktop CPU. This 65 watt model costs more because it's a 65 watt model and is thus in higher demand. It's currently out of stock at Newegg. But if you _need_ a quad core, AMD, this is the one to get. Both of these chips are certified to work in the Gigabyte board I listed earlier: http://www.gigabyte.us/support-downloads/cpu-support-popup.aspx?pid=3497 Regarding the 8TB or storage, you'd get a PATA DVD/ROM drive instead of SATA as I listed previously, and since this is now a workstation build, we'll do a burner, along with 4 x 2TB HDS 7.2K rpm drives w/native 512 byte sectors (no advanced format nonsense), and you'd grab two more of the SATA cables I listed previously. Qty 1: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827136221 Qty 4: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822145298 http://www.hitachigst.com/tech/techlib.nsf/techdocs/6A7E7E6848832B7786257603007AAF5E/$file/DS7K2000_DS_final.pdf If you want 4GB ram instead of 2GB: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148262 If you want 8GB: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148347 Stick with the InWin deskside pedestal server chassis. It's inexpensive, has 5 tool less slide out HDD trays with excellent airflow over the drives, and it's pretty quiet, and it'll have 3 free 5.25" bays for mounting more DVD drives, fan/system controllers, etc, along with a kinda useless 3.5" front bay. If you want to go all out and get silly you can even put a 12 core 2.2 GHz AMD Magny Cours chip in here atop a quad memory channel SuperMicro server motherboard, 32GB RAM, dual GbE ports, an nVidia PCIe x16 workstation graphics card, a 512MB LSI Logic PCIe x8 hardware RAID card with 5 x 2TB 7.2k RPM Seagate Constellation SAS drives in a hardware RAID5 yielding 8TB net space and breathtaking read/write performance (for a single user workstation anyway). This system will set you back a bit. The drives and RAID card are $1900, the GPU $3800, the RAM about $1000, mobo $250, CPU $1300. Ignoring the case/PSU/optical drive that's about $8250 if my math is correct. The sky is the limit (or your credit line). -- Stan -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/4d60ca23.6090...@hardwarefreak.com
