[ale] OT: motherboard/processor recommendations

[Greg]

I replaced my Asus K7M / Athlon 700Mhz / 768  PC133 RAM board with a Biostar
(el cheapo) mobo / Duron 1.2 GHz Morgan chip / 1GB DDR Ram setup and I
haven't seen the difference to justify the cost (especially buying the
different RAM), although I have not done any serious Java development or
stuff to test it.  Stuff does open up faster and some other tasks that are
processor intensive now whiz along, but I think perhaps too the new board is
taking more advantage of the hard drives than the older board.

Things are a little bit better/faster now, though I think that my old
Athlons greater L1/L2 cache made up for the slower cycles.  I think also
that until they stop wanking around with the PR gained from the cycle wars
and start looking at the whole thing as a system (i.e. like Sun and
sometimes Apple) you won't see a whole lot of difference.  Cycles are not
everything, but it sells a lot of chips, since many think of it as the
single quantifier of a chips "effectiveness" or what have you both AMD and
Intel will keep on pushing things in that direction.  Sun sparc stations
defy this thought with the superiority of a systems approach (usually).  If
you have a trillion Hz chip on a board that has small busses and cannot take
advantage of the cycles as a *system*, then it is totally wasted.  Think
putting a 12 lane interstate with no speed limit in front of a 1.5 lane dirt
road.  However, Sun now makes a under-$1000 workstation (the SunBlade), so
maybe things will get better, I dunno.

I think that Athlons are still tops the last I heard, but I know Intel has
come out with a 2 GHz chip.  I am a bit better informed on the older stuff,
sorry.  I would suggest looking at the whole system (HD / mobo / RAM /
processor / etc) however and not focus in on one aspect.

As for buying, there are many places here in Atlanta that you could go to as
opposed to ordering - and now I know 85% of them after my travails of the
past week.  However, Crucial has the lowest prices for memory - whether it
is ECC stuff for Suns, DDR, or PC133.  They are at www.crucial.com .  Very
good place.

Good Luck,

Greg



> -----Original Message-----
> From: John Wells [mailto:jb at sourceillustrated.com]
> Sent: Thursday, August 15, 2002 2:05 PM
> To: ale at ale.org
> Subject: [ale] OT: motherboard/processor recommendations
>
>
> I typically build my own pcs from web-order parts, but have had no need to
> keep up with hardware trends since two years ago, when I assembled my
> current 900mhz athlon.
>
> I'm looking to upgrade the motherboard and processor, but don't know what
> my best options are.  Is the Athlon still outperforming the equivalent
> pentium?  If I stick with the Athlon, what are some good mbs to take a
> look at?  I'd like to go top of the line as far a processor speed goes.  I
> currently run an Abit KA7 and have been very pleased with performance.
>
> An additional question: is DDR practically (as opposed to only
> theoretically) equivalent to 2xSDRAM?
>
> Thanks!
>
> John
>
>
>
> ---
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