[TriLUG] Linux and the Intel Pentium Extreme

[James Brigman]

Greg;

On Sun, 2005-07-31 at 11:42 -0400, Greg Brown wrote:
> Because I did not know if it's existance?  Actually, I was looking at
> the Extreme simply because I stumbled upon it on the Intel website
...
> One thing I do know is my old P-II "server" is tried and in need of
> replacement.  Sure, it makes for a fine SAMBA and print server for the
...
> So, now it is time to upgrade and consider processors, etc.  I am
> weary of AMD processors from past expirence and am looking at the
> Intel line for the next purchase.

You fell into Intel's "marketing trap". But please don't read anything
into that sentence or any of the other comments by the peanut gallery:
the point is that Intel has a history of taking tired old processors and
doing some "marketing repositioning" to sell the public equal, or less,
performance for equal or more money. Good examples of this extend all
the way back to the 80188 CPU, through the "486sx", "Pentium Slot A",
the "mobile Pentium", "Pentium 64T" and most recently, even the sucky
Celeron line has been re-rolled to become "Celeron 340/345" series. And
how can I forego a mention of "RAMBUS" while I smack around Intel for
their customer-hating ways? I still feel sorrow for anyone who bought a
RAMBUS-based system. Talk about losing your shirt on that deal....

AMD worked with motherboard mfr's early on and gave us some significant
innovations which capitalized on the AMD I/O capabilities. AMD-based
systems always had faster front side buses, standardized RAM sockets,
good AGP socket compatibility, better memory management and early USB
adoption. Power consumption and heat generation has always been a "plus"
with AMD units, and you can still, today, buy current model AMD-based
motherboards that use only the 20 pin power connector, not requiring any
bizarre add-on connectors like that crazy AT-hybrid thing or the extra
4-pin thing. (Although everyone now uses the "extra 4 pin thing",
particularly to power the extra PCI slots.)

I own and run seven active PC systems at the moment, and all of them use
AMD Duron/Athlon processors. Before that, I used the "K6" line of AMD
processors. I quit using Intel processors when they fragmented into
"slot" and "socket" variants. That was back when I was getting ready to
make the jump from P-166's (socket-7) to a 266Mhz PII. At the time, I
was looking at a full motherboard/CPU upgrade to stay with Intel. But if
I switched to AMD, I could stay with Socket-7 with a roadmap all the way
to 500Mhz. AMD stayed true to their customers, and delivered incredible
CPU value on the Socket-7 platform. I made the jump to a
socket-compatible 266 Mhz AMD K6 with the then-groundbreaking MMX video
primitives. Hence the faster AGP 2x video cards were made possible.
Today, I still own and run one of those motherboards, a Tyan with a
500Mhz AMD K6/2 MMX 3D-NOW CPU. Of course, AMD has continued the MMX
processor instruction set all the way through the AMD 64 bit processors,
preserving even that value for AMD customers. 

I'm taking a wait-and-see on PCI-X graphics cards, but I expect I'll be
able to buy the new AMD-64 processors and motherboards and re-use my
existing AGP 4x/8x cards in it. Again, true upgrade value. 

AMD has done an incredible job of preserving pin-compatibility on their
CPU's, while Intel has kicked customers in the teeth with their varying
socket/slot topologies. AMD pushed the "Socket A" to incredible limits,
and offers true value choices between the "Duron" and "Athlon" lines.
They fragmented their product line into the new 754 and 939 sockets only
after they were forced to in order to go to 64 bit systems. 

The 64 bit AMD processors are absolutely killing where 64 bit systems
make a significant performance and value difference. Sun microsystems is
selling 'em now and making no apologies. They are way better off than
poor old HP, who's now been shafted by Intel three times over
collaborations with HP which result in torpedoing good HP CPU's with
promises of Intel CPU's that never result (ie: Merced) or are killed
even after they hit the market...(rumors of Itanium demise).

I'm sure I come across like an Intel-hating AMD-loving bigot. Not true.
I have no AMD systems where I work. In that case, we go with the brand
we use for their excellent support, good engineering and competitive
prices (in that pricing tier). What I run at home is very different than
what I might run at work. However, if that same vendor sold some systems
with AMD processors, particularly at lower cost, I might deploy them
readily for some of my more impoverished departments. 

But keep in mind, smart businesses now lease their Intel-based servers
and never touch the guts of the hardware except for repairs. The box
goes back to the vendor after 3 years never having been "upgraded" or
touched by the admins. A great deal for me professionally, as I have no
desire to crack the lid in the professional realm. If I'm having to futz
with hardware upgrades at work, there's less value to the business in
that than, say, rolling NIS, SAMBA, OpenOffice or NAGIOS.

But the economics of upgrading vary by environment and financial
climate. For start-ups, universities or colleges where the procurement
process is difficult and capital is scarce, upgrades make a lot of
sense. There, I'd go AMD without a second thought. For the home or
college student, I don't mind putting in a little hardware elbow grease
to save $500-$1000 on a new or upgraded system. I don't lease my boxes,
I build something upgradeable and "run the wheels" off 'em. 

In this morning's CompUSA flyer (it's 7/30 as I write this) there's an
AMD Athlon 64+ and an MSI K8MM-V motherboard combo for $200. The K8MM is
a "low-end" 64 bit motherboard, and it's the 754 socket variant, but
it's a really cheap way to get into the 64 bit realm at relatively low
risk while preserving your power supply, AGP 4x/8x card, PATA drives and
400Mhz DDR3200 RAM. Both CompUSA and NewEgg can provide the combo at the
$200 price point. 

Am I going AMD 64 at home? Not yet. Would I go Intel with the next
motherboard? No way. I'm still getting good value out of PC133 RAM and
the 266Mhz FSB. My next CPU purchases will be Duron 1.8Ghz units, qty
two or three. Spend $42/each at NewEgg for a couple Durons running an
honest 1.8Ghz and I'll get another two years (at least) out of those
mbd's at their topmost performance level. One heck of a good way to
spend that $42 and spread it out for a cost of about $2/month. That is,
if you're stubborn like me and refuse to throw away a perfectly good
Socket-A motherboard and give up your PC-133 256MB sticks very
quickly. :-)

I do this because the freshest 32-bit systems, whether they are Intel OR
AMD, won't give me a 3-4x performance improvement over the venerable
255Mhz FSB motherboards with their PC-133 SDRAM. 512MB - 1GB RAM with
PATA drives and USB 2.0 will still handle 99% of the daily chores
required of a PC. Gaming? Video? I'll put my lil' tadpole 266Mhz FSB
systems up against my peers any day on a $$/performance basis: the
order-of-magnitude limit on performance is still the 100mbit ethernet,
and will still be even when we get to gigabit gaming. 

In fact, as long as I'm using PATA drives, AGP video and older vintage
power supplies, I'll stick with pre-64-bit AMD: the bottleneck is going
to be video and disk drive.

Now's a GREAT time for you to be upgrading those tired old P-II
machines. You will have "jumped" the entire PC-1xx iteration of RAM and
can go directly to DDR or DDR2. You'll get a passel of USB 2.x ports,
dual channel RAM, SATA (most times two RAID-capable channels, each
handling one device only) built-in sound/ethernet and maybe even
built-in video if that's what you want. You may not be able to keep much
of that old P-II system, though: if it's not ATX, (ie: the old AT
standard) you might be able to salvage the hard drives, CD drives and
floppy drives, along with their attendant cables. For an old AT system,
plan to throw away the keyboard/mouse, video card, power supply, RAM,
CPU and motherboard, at the very least. 

Would I go AMD-64? Sure, if I were buying new RAM, CPU, power supply and
case. You could re-use your PATA drives while you watch prices drop on
SATA stuff. I'd stick with Athlon/Duron only if I had a faster (>1Ghz)
cpu I wanted to re-use, a good AGP video card, DDR ram already, and a
nice power supply/case I wanted to keep. Anything else I had to replace
(RAM/PS/case/keyboard/video) I'd jump straight into a 64-bit AMD. 

JKB