# AMD or Intel

## compilator

Hi brothers,

I wont to upgrade my PC, currently I have Core 2 Duo, and I'll buy new CPU

My problem is:

 which CPU is better for gcc compiling? 

Overclocked Intel i5 with 4 corers, or AMD 8 cores like this: http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Bulldozer/AMD-FX-Series%20FX-8350.html

----------

## Perfect Gentleman

it depends on cpu's socket, but i'm sure you can't use AMD's cpu

----------

## schorsch_76

I would just buy what you wish. In general it is better for compilation to have more cores and more ram. 

More ram would make it possible to compile most stuff in a tmpfs.

More cores would make it possible to compile multiple files in parallel.

My suggestion is 8 core with 16 GiB or 32 GiB of RAM, but each system would be able to handle all of it.

----------

## nlsa8z6zoz7lyih3ap

 *Quote:*   

> Overclocked Intel i5 with 4 corers, or AMD 8 cores like this

 

The following gives some comparison     http://www.cpu-world.com/Compare/318/AMD_FX-Series_FX-8350_vs_Intel_Core_i5_i5-750.html.

I have an amd fx_8350 but have no experience with the Intel i5 with 4 cores.

For compiling on Gentoo I would  still go with the FX-8350, as the portage work env makes excellent use of multithreading.

My relevant entries in /etc/make.conf are:

```
MAKEOPTS="-j9  -l16"

EMERGE_DEFAULT_OPTS="--jobs=8  --load-average=16  --keep-going=y  --with-bdeps=y --complete-graph"

```

I have 32GB Ram, which allows me to make the following entry in /etc/fstab

```
tmpfs                   /var/tmp/portage        tmpfs           size=14000m,mode=1777    0 0 
```

The FX-8350 overclocks well (mine is overclocked to almost 4.7GHZ for "emerge -ev @world" .

However, especially when overclocked, it runs hot so I have liquid cooling.

----------

## krinn

You should just learn more about a cpu to choose one.

Both cpu models you are seeking have 4 cores.

And both cpu models have 8 logical cores.

AMD is quiet good with commercial shitty technique, this doesn't remove the fact their cpu is good, but avoid mistake users like they do.

It would be another thread to speak about what technique is better to get the 4 more logical cores on both cpu.

But to keep that easy, if you count all cores, they are both 8 cores, and real core they are both 4 cores then.

----------

## nlsa8z6zoz7lyih3ap

 *Quote:*   

> Both cpu models you are seeking have 4 cores.
> 
> And both cpu models have 8 logical cores. 

 

I have tested my FX-8350 to see how performance "scales" under increased load.

I ran simultaneous instances of the very same test program.

for running 1 to 4 instances, each instance took the same time to run as if I had only run 1 instance.

For running 8 instances, they slowed down by about 25%. I think that this is because the 8 cores come in 4 "pairs" which share

the "instruction translator." (I don't really know if I have gotten this technically right, but I believe that it is roughly correct,)

I would be very interested in knowing the results of a similar experiment on the intel cpu in question.

----------

## krinn

 :Smile: 

No this is because of another feature (that "ahah surprise", both cpu also shared).

When not using all cores, they have feature that overclock the cores in use (using of course two different tech again).

So when running 1 core application and running that same applications on multi-cores, the application is run at different speed.

What you are asking is also nearly close to impossible to do, except if you have a way to pickup what cores to use.

As when you run 4 time the same application, you let kernel handle what cores will be use, and it could be real cores, logical cores or a mix of them.

So it would be really really hard to give a performance of logical core vs real core.

----------

## nlsa8z6zoz7lyih3ap

 *Quote:*   

> No this is because of another feature (that "ahah surprise", both cpu also shared). 

 

Good point. However I am overclocking to about 4.7GHZ, so I am not sure how much it speeds things up when only using 1 single core.

However you have inspired me to run some better tests in a few days.  :Smile:   (Too busy today)

I am pretty sure that I can turn off some of the features that you mention in bios. 

I'll let you know how these turn out. Thanks for bringing these points up.

----------

## szatox

There used to be some neat pictures showing  estimated performance vs price for many different CPUs in a single chart.

Last time I checked trend was Intel's offered higher performance, while AMD's had better performance/price ratio. Well, it was some time ago, so don't take it for granted for current market.

Ask yourself what is important for you.

----------

## 1clue

As far as I can remember, AMD has always focused on better performance for the price, and Intel always focused on fastest.  This is since the 90s when I started building my own boxes.

I don't have enough information for valid statistics, but every AMD box I've had close contact with had severe overheating issues and regular thermal shutdown.  That said, I guess everyone I know who built one (these are all customer-assembled boxes) was trying to make the best bang-for-the-buck they could, which probably means they skimped on cooling.

I've always gone with Intel, so I've never built my own.  And that said, it seems that on my current desktop hardware I've got overheating problems too, so maybe I skimped on cooling.   :Smile: 

The most recent AMD box I've had contact with was one at work some time back.  It was really fast, 6 cores and 16g RAM, for under USD $700.  It was the fastest box we had at the time, so we loaded it up.  Then the overheating started, and we unloaded it.  Now it goes along fine but not at full load for any significant time, especially in the summer.  In comparison, not too long earlier I had built a first-generation i7 for a whole lot more than that for my personal system, which can handle being at 80% CPU average all day long.

I guess I don't have anything more to add, except that whatever you get, make sure you pay attention to cooling.  Personally I'm going to give that top priority for any more systems I build.  I've been "on the edge" with that for a long time, getting tired of it especially when I choose poorly.

----------

## creaker

I would suggest Intel.

1. Manufacturing process 0.022 (Ivy) micron vs 0.032 micron. It makes Intel CPU 1.5 times faster ceteris paribus.

2. AMD needs a more powerful, noisy and expensive cooling system. Most of the money saved by AMD CPU will be eaten by cooling system.

3. Mobo manufacturers drops AMD sockets support too quickly, so if your mobo will die in 2 or 3 years it may be a problem to buy a new one for replacement. For Intel CPU you can buy , for example, mobo for Socket-478 till now (more than 10 years old).

As for me, I would buy i7-3770 (if no plans to overclock) or i7-3770K (for overclocking). Taking into account the cooling system, it will be more expensive than FX-8350 ($60-70), but it's worth it.

----------

## compilator

So... I see I must think about Intel i7 CPU too,

Thanks for help, and I have another question

i7 is more expensive than previous CPU, than I can not enough money for graphical card, what you can suggest me?

I use GPU for openGL and CUDA learn programming, and I must be can connect 2 FULL HD display

----------

## lollix01

The perfect solution is a PC completely Intel, Intel is supported better than AMD, Ati and nVidia.

Hello!                                                        :Smile: 

----------

## szatox

 *Quote:*   

> 1. Manufacturing process 0.022 (Ivy) micron vs 0.032 micron. It makes Intel CPU 1.5 times faster ceteris paribus. 

 

It sounds like this CPU will be 1,5 times faster. But it won't. Performance depends on frequency, architecture, cache miss rate and perhaps several other things. A single transistor's gate size gives a potential to increase frequency and reduce voltage (which in turn reduces power consumption and heating), but it's not enough to say it WILL be faster.

Funny, my AMD doesn't overheat (with stock cooling) during long, parallel compilations on quad core APU, even though sometimes I was overheating in the very same room. - oh and that integrated GPU seems to mach medium-level discrete graphic cards. Obviously if you need support for CUDA you must get nvidia.

Again, make your mind on what you expect. I took AMD because it let me make the best box with my budget.

What will that PC be doing most of it's time? What would that task benefit from most? (single core performance? Parallel performance? CPU cache size? GPU? Something else?) How much you want to spend?

 *Quote:*   

> 2. AMD needs a more powerful, noisy and expensive cooling system. Most of the money saved by AMD CPU will be eaten by cooling system. 

  I have seen a computer I couldn't hear at all, so you might be right, but I'd be more concerned with noise from cheap case. You know, those things can ring and rattle, while whispering fan is not that bad.

----------

## nlsa8z6zoz7lyih3ap

 *Quote:*   

> However you have inspired me to run some better tests in a few days. :) (Too busy today)
> 
> I am pretty sure that I can turn off some of the features that you mention in bios.
> 
> I'll let you know how these turn out. Thanks for bringing these points up.

 

I have run these tests after doing my best to turn off all such features in bios. (No guarantees)

Each instance of my test program uses 100% of a core, intensive ram reading and writing, and almost nothing else.

(1) 1 instance: 35min and 33s

(2) 8 simultaneous instances  close to 49min 15s  cpu time for each instance.

I therefore conclude that the FX-8350 acts as if it were a 5.77 core cpu that had no performance hit

for the simultaneous use of both cores in a unit.

Question: Does any one know what the corresponding figures are (roughly) for a 4 core hyper threaded  i5 or i7?

----------

## 1clue

What szatox said is true, other than that I prefer Intel.  You need to pay attention to the whole picture.  You might want to google what others with your focus have done, and get overall system performance benchmarks related to those tasks.

You need a balanced system whose strengths match your needs.  You can take a slower CPU but focus on a better motherboard and peripherals and get better overall performance than a CPU-heavy system with cheaper peripherals.

There is a wide range of Intel i7s.  The low end of i7s are slower than the high end of i5s, at least some of the time.  I suspect that the same is true for AMD chips.

You need to sit down, define the problem, decide on your optimal and minimum requirements and then build a system which is designed with that task in mind.  Focus the money where the money needs to be.  Some of these new chips have video support built in, needing less hardware on the outside, but you need to pay attention to the whole system.

For me, disk access is an issue as is network performance.  My next system will have a pci solid state drive to get speeds better than sata3, and I haven't found a satisfactory network solution yet.

----------

## Anon-E-moose

 *Quote:*   

> I would suggest Intel.
> 
> 1. Manufacturing process 0.022 (Ivy) micron vs 0.032 micron. It makes Intel CPU 1.5 times faster ceteris paribus.

 

micron size doesn't necessarily have anything to do with speed.

Oh the chips can go faster but it's not a direct correlation. 

It has more to do with heat and power savings.

 *Quote:*   

> 2. AMD needs a more powerful, noisy and expensive cooling system. Most of the money saved by AMD CPU will be eaten by cooling system.

 

I run my 8320 (oc'd to 4 ghz) on a CM Hyper TX3 ($22) and it stays well below max temp, nor is it overly "noisy"

 *Quote:*   

> 3. Mobo manufacturers drops AMD sockets support too quickly, so if your mobo will die in 2 or 3 years it may be a problem to buy a new one for replacement. For Intel CPU you can buy , for example, mobo for Socket-478 till now (more than 10 years old).

 

Hell, I've got some old celerons sitting around (66 bus) but I can't say that I want to run them other than a "see it still runs" type bragging.

I've had 5-7 year old amd chips that I've had no problem finding a new mb for if I wanted to still run them.

I had a phenom II x6 that was perfectly fine, but I got a good deal on the 8320 and on the mb that I was using I just swapped out the cpu.

It all depends on what the user wants, what they are intending to do with their system and their budget as far as one vs the other.

----------

## creaker

For those who says that microns means nothing in terms of performance:

http://www.semiwiki.com/forum/content/1709-designing-finfets.html

For those who says that microns means nothing in terms of speed (switching time):

time=distance/speed.

For which transistor electric field from Gate reaches channel faster? For thin or for thick?

Once electric field will be induced in channel, what distance will be overcome by the electron faster? Large or small?

As I wrote above, these processes will be faster 1.5 times ceteris paribus

Since 22nm has other structure and topology than 32 nm for real cheaps, expected improvement is not 1.5, but still weighty.

Another one thing: for the short channel Source-Drain capacity is smaller than for the long, so channel recharges faster with less power consumption.

P.S.

I don't hear my $8 cpu cooler at all, neither quiet nor loud.

----------

## Tony0945

 *Quote:*   

> I don't have enough information for valid statistics, but every AMD box I've had close contact with had severe overheating issues and regular thermal shutdown.

 

I've never had a thermal shutdown and my last Intel CPU was a 486DX-100. You have to research the chip. Google will tell you which CPU's have a rep for bad stock coolers. Many stock coolers are OK, but sometime AMD gets cheap and sells a marginal cooler. Aftermarket coolers are not that expensive unless you get into water cooling which shouldn't be necessary at stock speeds.

Intel is great if you can spend $1,000.00 on a CPU.http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116938 Passmark rating is 12,762

I'd suggest this one http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116938 Passmark rating is 9,038 at a sixth of the price.

This one, http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819113362 runs great on Windows 7 but I haven't seen any Linux benchmarks or even if gcc optimizes for it. But it's dirt cheap.  If anyone knows about A4's or A8's on Linux I would appreciate some information.

Regarding build times my Phenom II six core is limited by hard drive speed and I've got a 10,000 RPM Western Digital Velociraptor. My guess (and that's all it is) is that Firefox would still take forever to build on that $1,000 Intel.

----------

## 1clue

@Tony0945,

Are you using tmpfs for /var/tmp/portage?  That's a huge speedup.

Also, while I was a strong doubter about ssd's for a long time, they make a huge difference even on a sata2 system.  My next system will have sata3 and usb3 as well as a pci ssd.

I'm not going to argue about overheating issues, all I'm saying is be careful.  The main box I have experience with, the one in my office, was a proof of concept and I know for certain it was built for the lowest budget.  A customer's IT staff had sized the server for our software at USD $60k, which is outrageous.  We build this one for roughly 1% of that and had satisfactory performance, heat issues notwithstanding.  Obviously not for a real server running real production software, but you get the idea.  Once it was done with testing, we had a marginal box to put a light load on.

----------

## krinn

 :Smile:  Tony0945,

If we pickup your references benchmark and vendor :

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116900&cm_re=4770-_-19-116-900-_-Product

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i7-4770K+%40+3.50GHz&id=1919

10299 passmark for $309

And amdFX-9590

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819113347&cm_re=amd_9590-_-19-113-347-_-Product

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=AMD+FX-9590+Eight-Core&id=2014

10267 passmark for $329

Need to change anything there now?

 *Tony0945 wrote:*   

> Intel is great if you can spend $1,000.00 on a CPU

 

----------

## vaxbrat

Intel may have the performance crown, but it has made them bastards again in the marketing dept.  You will often find that processors conveniently have features removed in order to make them less of a bargain when compared to the hideously expensive Xeon series.  You may end up stuck with a chip that has had virtualization disabled because it is targeted at the consumer market.  There's often no rhyme or reason to this since an I5 meant for business might have a feature while an I7 targeted at the consumer market doesn't.

You can't trust benchmarks because Intel is notorious for insisting on their ICC compilor to be used when comparing with other chipsets.  Some think the acronym stands for Intel Crippling Compiler because it will turn off crucial optimizations for everything other than a genuine intel part.  Only trust benchmarks run with gcc if you can find them.

Every AMD chip since the second generation or so of Athlon 64 has had hardware vitualization onboard.  AMD based mobo's have had 6gb SATA and more than 4 ports available for far longer than Intel based boards.

Finally realize that a chipzilla without significant competition from AMD, VIA and others will simply drag butt and attempt to squeeze every last dollar of profit out of their products.  It's already pretty much happened, but they do face significant competition from Samsung and others in the ARM arena.  Do not allow them to dominate there or the game will really be over.

----------

## Anon-E-moose

 *creaker wrote:*   

> For those who says that microns means nothing in terms of performance:
> 
> http://www.semiwiki.com/forum/content/1709-designing-finfets.html
> 
> For those who says that microns means nothing in terms of speed (switching time):
> ...

 

I should have qualified the terms of and context of speed, just as you should have.

Yes, a smaller die, smaller micron will make the component to component speed faster. It's a shorter distance, Duh.

But that doesn't always translate into external hz's being 1.5, 2 or a 100 times faster than a larger die cpu.

Nor does it necessarily mean that it gets more work done.

Many other things constrain the performance of newer cpu's.

----------

## 1clue

 *Anon-E-moose wrote:*   

>  *creaker wrote:*   For those who says that microns means nothing in terms of performance:
> 
> http://www.semiwiki.com/forum/content/1709-designing-finfets.html
> 
> For those who says that microns means nothing in terms of speed (switching time):
> ...

 

It goes further than that.  A faster chip does not mean that a poorly designed or inappropriate motherboard won't cause bottlenecks, and even after that slow or inappropriate peripherals, or too many peripherals, can cause bottlenecks too.

Or, the slower chip overall might have better performance than the faster one in one particular area that the software uses intensively.

----------

## Tony0945

 *Quote:*   

> Are you using tmpfs for /var/tmp/portage? That's a huge speedup.

 

Yes, but I only have 8 Gigs. Allocating 4G for /var/tmp/portage isn't enough for Firefox. Temps do get high (gnome-sensors-applet) under sustained world building using tmpfs, but no shutdowns. I'm running at stock 3.2GHz with the stock cooler, a Seasonic power supply and lots of 80mm case fans in an antec tower case. The BIOS is set to run all fans at top speed. I've got three WD hard drives. CPU temp right now is 86 degrees F. I need to clean dust out. The downstairs computer dropped ten degrees after blowing it out.  My video card is a basic 8400GS, not much thermal load. I don't game and my eyes are bad. I don't need a better card. I really just bought it because the onboard video had driver trouble.

@krinn

Same performance for virtually the same price, so where is the big Intel advantage? It's at the top end where the prices are obscene. BTW, I would never spend $300 for a CPU unless inflation gets a lot worse. Witness my interest in the $50 CPU.

----------

## szatox

 *Quote:*   

> Yes, but I only have 8 Gigs.

 

```
# mount -t tmpfs tmpfs /var/tmp/portage/ -o size=85%

# df -h | grep portage

tmpfs                         6.3G     0  6.3G   0% /var/tmp/portage

```

You're welcome

You can even cover more than 100% of your RAM with ramdisks and it will not crash your system unless you actually try to use all that space. And if you tried, it would most likely report no space left on device instead of crashing anyway.

 *Quote:*   

> For those who says that microns means nothing in terms of performance: (...)

 

You forgot to add that smaller transistors are more vulnerable to all kinds of noise, so you will get random errors in lower temperatures. Going down is double-edged sword.

I'm not saying you will encounter those erros. Exacly the same goes about performance gain. It is possible, but it's just a wrong marker.

You don't care what is possible, you care what you will actually see. Don't look at MHz or um, benchmarks will give better info even though they are not 100% accurate.

edit: 1clue, of course you're right about /usr/portage and /var/tmp/portage. Kind of mistake you make when thinking about something else. Fixed, thanksLast edited by szatox on Thu Jun 26, 2014 5:21 pm; edited 1 time in total

----------

## 1clue

 *Tony0945 wrote:*   

>  *Quote:*   Are you using tmpfs for /var/tmp/portage? That's a huge speedup. 
> 
> Yes, but I only have 8 Gigs. Allocating 4G for /var/tmp/portage isn't enough for Firefox. Temps do get high (gnome-sensors-applet) under sustained world building using tmpfs, but no shutdowns. I'm running at stock 3.2GHz with the stock cooler, a Seasonic power supply and lots of 80mm case fans in an antec tower case. The BIOS is set to run all fans at top speed. I've got three WD hard drives. CPU temp right now is 86 degrees F. I need to clean dust out. The downstairs computer dropped ten degrees after blowing it out.  My video card is a basic 8400GS, not much thermal load. I don't game and my eyes are bad. I don't need a better card. I really just bought it because the onboard video had driver trouble.
> 
> @krinn
> ...

 

It sounds crazy, but what I do is this:

RAM=12g

swap=24g, 2 partitions of 12 on 2 drives.

tmpfs on /var/tmp/portage can be 6, I haven't run into anything that can't happen in that.

tmpfs is handled by swap code.

swap code is very, very good at figuring out what should be in RAM and what should be on the disk with minimum speed issues.

I have allocated more tmpfs than RAM, but not with my current setup.  I have gone months without ever touching swap.  tmpfs doesn't automatically allocate however many gigs of RAM, the size option says what the max size should be.  Now this box handles VMs so I hit swap every now and then.

@szatox,

Why would you put /usr/portage into tmpfs?  That should be persistent.  /var/tmp/portage is what you want as tmpfs, it's just scratch space for builds and is deleted anyway.

----------

## Tony0945

Hmmm! Thank you! I'll try 6 gig tmpfs, after all, in the worst case I would still have 2G memory, sufficient to run Gentoo, but maybe slow.

----------

## 1clue

If you wind up in that situation, then rm -rf /var/tmp/portage/* and the system will reclaim that space.

----------

## Polyatomic

```
System uname: Linux-3.15.6-ck1+-x86_64-AMD_FX-tm-9590_Eight-Core_Processor-with-gentoo-2.2
```

Happy with my AMD man. People on irc say its a nice space heater, I don't know why the temps do not go over 35 degrees Celcius _yet_ . Anyway take it easy maybe I'll see you round.

----------

## Cyker

It's a tricky choice; Typically Intel chips are faster, but AMD has some minor niceities that I tend to stick with them.

I tend to prefer AMD, originally because their motherboards were much better (HyperTransport vs GTL+) but since Intel copied that too with the i-series that's no longer such an issue.

There is less variance with features on AMD chips; I remember with Intel you literally needed a chart when buying one of their CPUs because a higher numbered part could actually be slower and/or have less features (Virtualization features in particular) than a lower-numbered part, whereas with AMD the lines are much clearer.

Another nice thing with AMD was it was very easy to hack the cool'n'quiet tables to undervolt/underclock the CPU, which made for good power and heat savings.

I just moved from an Socket 939 Opteron 180 to an FM2+ Kaveri 7850K and it's doing pretty well so far; I just need to wait for the kernel to catch up and support my mobo sensors as it uses a new IO chip that is un supported so I don't have any heat sensors or fan control support ATM! (eek!)

(Although, in hindsight going for an APU was a bit stupid since it turns out I can't actually use it since this is a headless server. I thought I'd be able to use OpenCL and VirtualGL to take advantage of it, but all the GPU stuff needs an Xserver running, which this system can't have because it has no head! *doh!*)

----------

## szatox

 *Quote:*   

>  I thought I'd be able to use OpenCL and VirtualGL to take advantage of it, but all the GPU stuff needs an Xserver running, which this system can't have because it has no head! *doh!*)

 

Er? You have GPU, so it doesn't seem THIS headless. You don't need monitor for GPU to work. Is there something else I'm not aware of involved?

----------

## Tony0945

 *Quote:*   

> I just moved from an Socket 939 Opteron 180 to an FM2+ Kaveri 7850K

 

I want to upgrade my file server which is a 939 Athlon4600+ dual core with onboard nvidia video. I'm looking at an A10-5800K Trinity quad core or an FX-4300 Vishera quad core. I don't like the cheap motherboards that I see from Gigabyte or Asus (the only brands I'll consider)  and i5 3570 is too expensive for a budget server. Also I don't like that people are saying the AMD quad cores are really dual-cores. I'd like something that can do system updates without waiting overnight and for under $300 for CPU, mobo, and memory. Willing to give Intel another cahnce but need price and performance. On board graphics are OK because this is a file server in the basement, not a gaming machine. I've got an old $84 Hitachi CRT that is mostly turned off.

What's your experience and would you do it again differently?

----------

## vaxbrat

If you take a look at this wiki entry I did on Ceph, you will notice that it is entirely AMD based:

http://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Ceph

That includes an A10-7850K Kaveri that I have running as an object store.  I've since re-arranged things a bit, but haven't updated the wiki.  I'm up to 6 nodes by adding another FX8350 and A10-7850K.  The new Kaveri is acting as a DNS, MON and MDS server.   The cluster is up to over 50tb worth of storage and I wouldn't do anything differently.  Other than adding the two new nodes, I've kicked performanced up quite a bit by moving the journals to use my SSD based system drives.

The file server stuff is right up AMD's alley and I wouldn't have done anything differently.

----------

## Cyker

 *Tony0945 wrote:*   

>  *Quote:*   I just moved from an Socket 939 Opteron 180 to an FM2+ Kaveri 7850K 
> 
> I want to upgrade my file server which is a 939 Athlon4600+ dual core with onboard nvidia video. I'm looking at an A10-5800K Trinity quad core or an FX-4300 Vishera quad core. I don't like the cheap motherboards that I see from Gigabyte or Asus (the only brands I'll consider)  and i5 3570 is too expensive for a budget server. Also I don't like that people are saying the AMD quad cores are really dual-cores. I'd like something that can do system updates without waiting overnight and for under $300 for CPU, mobo, and memory. Willing to give Intel another cahnce but need price and performance. On board graphics are OK because this is a file server in the basement, not a gaming machine. I've got an old $84 Hitachi CRT that is mostly turned off.
> 
> What's your experience and would you do it again differently?

 

My main problem was finding a microATX mobo that had AT LEAST 8 SATA sockets (The old system had 2 IDE and 5 SATA + 1 eSATA!) for all my RAID disks.

The move from 32 bit to 64bit has been a lot smoother than I anticipated; I'm glad I waited as many years as I did, as the 64-bit side of Gentoo is about as stable as the 32-bit side now and the emul-linux stuff works pretty well for the few things that don't have 64-bit parts. (Bloody Canon printer drivers!). 

I'm massively glad I'd documented EVERY step of the build when I made my old server as I was able to use that to build this one (esp. as I had a lot of "WTF is this thing and why is it configured like this!?" moments when porting /etc over!)

So far the Kaveri has been nice and quick and runs fairly cool. Going from 4GB to 16GB RAM is really nice too  :Very Happy: 

I just need to figure out how to port my K8-series CnQ hacks over to undervolt and underclock the CPU, and also wait for lm_sensors & kernel support for the temp sensors and fan controls!

----------

## depontius

I'm also into the market for a new computer.  However for me the considerations are quite different.  This might be just another desktop computer, in which case most anything will do.  However my job (actually my entire area at my current imployer) is a bit unstable at the moment - it may continue for time unknown, we may get sold, or we may just get shut down, in which case I'll be retired.  So this may be my "retirement computer", in which case the requirements become significantly different.  There are certain things I don't really feel like doing at home while I'm doing them for work, but I suspect that once retired I'd like to do more exploration in those directions - keep my feet wet, play, etc.

So if this is a "retirement computer" some of the things I'll want to do:

fpga programming - This is really pretty basic, and shouldn't need more than a regular deskside computer.

simulation - This is where things get rough.  I'd like to play with some simulation, both physics and electrical.  I'd probably want to start with off-the-shelf simulators, but I'd like to get into writing my own, at some point.  When I say physics, I mean a few things, like the flight of a model rocket, and the motion of electrons inside a vacuum tube.  

Someday I'd like to think in terms of some really BIG simulations, so I'm thinking in terms of maxing out on the DRAM and OpenCL and/or HSA.  Which brings it all back to Intel vs AMD.  First things first, when I said BIG I'd like to be able to get to 64G on the motherboard.  For at least now, that rules out Haswell and means going back to Ivy-Bridge or IvyBridge-E.  (I've done stuff here at work that needs that kind of RAM, so I do have at least some idea of what I'm talking about with 64G.)

Next, I found some Intel vs AMD / CPU vs OpenCL vs HSA benchmarking.  Basically from a floating point CPU viewpoint, Intel mops the floor with AMD, but I think that was pretty well known.  On the OpenCL side it looked like either was capable of roughly a 2X speedup.  I would have expected AMD to pick up more than Intel from OpenCL, and perhaps it did, but not enough to regain a lead.

Then there was HSA.  The Kaveri went from consistently slower than the Core-I5 to blowing its doors off - 5X faster than the I5's best.  However there was only one HSA benchmark that showed results like this. I have no idea if it's because HSA is so new that it's not much well-written code has been done yet, or if that one benchmark was super-synthetic and had no relation to any sort of real usage.  I've been familiar with vector processing with scientific computing in the past, and know that the "gather/scatter problem" prevented vector processors from helping as much as we would have liked.  It seems to me that HSA ought to go a long ways toward mitigating that problem, so I can readily believe that at some point it should show really good numbers.

Plus this may not be my "retirement computer" after all, and I may have many more gainfully employed years ahead.  So I'm hedging my bets here...  I'd like to get in cheap, yet be able to enhance.  A few notes along that line...

It's quite expensive to even get a foot in the door with Intel.  A 64G-capable board means Core-I7, and CPU+board we're talking $500-$600.  OTOH it has 8 memory slots, so it can be fully populated with 8G DIMMs to get the max RAM.  Out of the door, CPU-only or CPU_OpenCL, it's the fastest option - at a price.

A top-end Kaveri CPU+board will run a bit over $250, a less than half of the Intel solution.  But it only has 4 DIMM slots, so it will take 16G DIMMs in order to fully populate.  It might mean getting "throwaway" memory for now, getting the real memory closer to real need.

Sometimes simply explaining to others helps one see the correct solution.  At the moment, this may or may not be a "retirement computer".  At the moment the future of HSA is unclear, but if it comes to fruition it could be really good for my anticipated future workload.  At the moment, Kaveri + "throwaway RAM" gets me something fully adequate for me needs now, for not too much money  If I'm completely wrong on HSA, it's also not too much to completely replace at some point.

I'm curious about anyone else's take on this...

----------

## 1clue

I think we're getting pretty far afield of the OP's 2 core solution, but I definitely feel the same pain as depontius and Cyker.

Really, what I need is pretty simple:

Screaming fast CPU non-overclocked CPU with a bunch of cores

Screaming fast disk (faster than sata3, probably pci-based ssd)

RAID (not necessarily screaming fast, could be spinners)

Screaming fast networking

A lot of monitors.

Not necessarily all on the same box.

For me, I want a couple KVM/QEMU boxes for VMs (maybe a 3770 with 32g) and another box for a workstation that has lots of screen real estate, all hooked together with preferably better than 1gbps networking.

I need a rock solid development environment with the ability to model an enterprise class server and stay in the same order of magnitude for speed.  I also want failover on the vm side.

Oh yeah, cheap would be nice.

Simple, right?    :Very Happy: 

----------

## sinojos

What sums up the difference between Amd and Intel, from my 33 years of experience modifying/building systems, is this.

Amd is a bigger pipe that flows slower.

Intel is a smaller pipe that flows faster.

Put each respective hose each in a one gallon bucket. The Amd bucket will fill before the Intel bucket.

Just because the water is coming out of the hose faster, does not mean you are getting more water. But it is a great advertising gimmick that the majority falls for.

----------

## szatox

Not sure about that that bucket-filling speed, but pipes from AMD are much cheaper.

However, since we came to the topic of personal mainfraimes, maybe it would be a good idea to consider ARMs as well? You know, those tiny things without roadblocks inherited from x86 that nobody cares to write software for  :Smile: 

Well, just and example. The point is there are also other architectures that are better for specific cases, and as soon as we want something else than a reagular desktop it might be worth at least brief consideration.

----------

## eccerr0r

Continuing the pipe analogy, my experience with ARM CPUs is that they're a small pipe that flows slow, and you'll be waiting forever for the bucket to fill...  But if you only have a small cup to fill, then it may not matter...

----------

## sinojos

When mainstream arm processors get to 64bit, that may just make a cup overflow! RISC OS at 64bit would be simply awesome! Most people are not aware that RISC OS was the first desktop to do many things that eventually were copied in all later desktops. RISC OS was built for the ARM processor by the people that designed the ARM processor back in the early 80's. Do some searches, you will find that a number of things taken for granted, and attributed to m$ or apple, first appeared in RISC OS.

RISC OS is even speedy on a 700Mhz cpu, 256Mb of ram, raspberry pi. NO other OS can compete speed wise on an ARM processor. RISC OS is coming back!!

----------

## sinojos

Got ahead of my self, forgot to add, history gets re-written all the time, for example RISC OS. Along with who had the first publicly available 64bit processor, it was AMD. While m$ and intel have been under investigation by the US Attorney General for a number of years, as documents have surfaced that m$ and intel stopped mainstream computer builders (dell, compaq, etc) from putting 64bit AMD computers with Linux on the shelf. m$ and intel were roughly 1 year away from having a 64bit system, while AMD and Linux were already there.

Money, does a lot to re-write history and change mainstream thinking. Easy to do with kids just learning the ropes, but those of use who have been doing it for over 30 years, know better, as I had a 64 bit system (AMD & Gentoo) long before m$ and intel had 64bit on the shelf, yet listen to many people, and it is like AMD or Linux never existed until today.

----------

