[LAU] New processor purchase, AMD

[Joel Roth]

On Sun, Dec 05, 2010 at 12:36:39PM -0800, Mark Knecht wrote:
> On Sun, Dec 5, 2010 at 11:53 AM, Ivan K <ivan_521521 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> >
> > My thinking is that for multi-core 64bit, there are less expensive
> > than intel.  Am I wrong about this?  What multi-core intel 64bit processors
> > are people buying?
> >
> > --- On Sun, 12/5/10, rosea.grammostola <rosea.grammostola at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> Why AMD? Just interest...
> >>
> >> \r
> 
> In the last year:
> 
> Two i5-661 - 2 cores, 4 threads (4GB DRAM)
> One i7-820 - 4 cores, 8 threads (8GB DRAM + 2 disk RAID1)
> One i7-980x - 6 cores, 12 threads (24GB DRAM + 3 disk RAID1 + 2 disk RAID0)
> 
> The Intel processors seem (to me) to be more power conscience lately.
> Don't forget to add up the incremental cost of electricity over the
> next few years running a processor without hyper-threading if you go
> that way. You might be better off spending a little more up front to
> save a lot in the long term.

I'm more pro-Intel since a close encounter with an i5.

I now have a Thinkpad 410 with i5-M560 that is (mostly)
Linux-friendly, runs cool and is power thrifty. 

* The Intel supplied driver sources work for the integrated GPU
  under a recent kernel. (I'm using 2.6.36.)

* Important Fn-key combinations work.

* Beeps are still audible with the alsamixer beep control muted. :-(

* I'll be replacing the Realtek rtl8192se wireless card.
  This is after fruitless hours compiling/fiddling stale 
  drivers and equally stale ndiswrapper.

* I haven't tested the firewire. It is Ricoh e832 chipset,
  and appears to work, with some problems reported when
  the BIOS is set to allow virtual machines. The jack
  is the mini size.

My previous notebook, Toshiba Satellite L305D  had an AMD
Turion x2 QL-64 processor, and run an H2O BIOS. It tended to
overheat, always needed to be set up on books for better
airflow, and was on only (barely) acceptable with clock
fixed to 1GHz.

I suppose I could have bought an external cooler.
But then the LCD developed problems...

Cheers,

Joel

 
> - Mark

-- 
Joel Roth