[TriLUG] AMD and reliability

[Timothy A. Chagnon]

On Mon, 2005-08-01 at 15:29 -0400, Greg Brown wrote:
> Has anyone on the list has the same misfortune with AMD that I have
> had?  Perhaps I am returning too quickly to the comfortable world of
> Intel.

You are indeed not alone, but similarly my "bad" experiences only have a
correlated and not necessarily causal relationship to the AMD chips by
themselves.  Also it has been many years since I have used AMD systems.

I _have_ had great luck running a basic desktop P4-2GHz system with a
matching Intel mobo nearly 24x7 (often at 100% load with folding at home or
other things) for over 3 years without problems.  Just my basic home
system.

Though the talk in the HPC world that I know of and some of the vendor
presentations I've been to imply that the Xeon and Itanium chips have
been hitting problematic heat and power consumption levels.  Not that
this would be trouble for most users, just requires more environmental
support in dense deployments.  Opterons appear to be the overwhelming
choice for 64-bit HPC systems.

I'm considering getting a dual-Opteron system for myself in the future.
What would be extremely helpful from fellow TriLUGgers would be
recommendations for MOBO manufacturers since AMD doesn't make their own.

Tim