> On 2/27/07, Phill Coxon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> What is the best recommendation for processors these days? Does Dual
>> Core or Core 2 Duo have any major performance advantages yet?
>
> Its good, but bang-for-buck AMD is still cheaper, at least it was last I
> looked.
By all accounts core 2 duo is the best performer at present, with intel
finally having a quite significant lead in performance stakes. However
which option has better bang for buck requires careful comparison of the
prices.
>
>> My current motherboard has VIA chipset which I (later) read somewhere
>> can have problems with linux. I've certainly noticed that disk
>> performance has been very sub-standard with the current computer and
>> frequently causes.
>
> I've always been a via fan, solely because you can be almost
> guaranteed everything will just intrinsically support it.
That is not my experience of via chipsets, but my current motherboard is
quite ancient. Once you choose a candidate for motherboard, the linux
kernel mailing list is a good source of info for bugs etc.
> Especially
> important if your running a Unix-like OS which is slower on the uptake
> of new hardware. As for hard drives I can't say I can measure a speed
> difference on SATA between my VIA On board & my add on- Silicon Image
> PCI card ( which I got to increase my SATA port count, and have since
> moved totally to the PCI card simply to make drive order easier to
> work out and it shaves a few seconds at boot time, as well as making
> the connectors easier to access for hot swap instead of having to dive
> through the cabling masses to get to the connectors. ), and my boards
> getting on 3 years old now and still going strong( that's probably
> almost 3 years of aggregated up time on it too, I'm not a fan of
> power-downs. ), but then again, its an ASUS, and I -do- like ASUS
> boards.
>
Asus has a very good reputation.
> Plan wisely. ( and always make sure to have a quality PSU, long story
> short, bad ones kill hard drives).
>
Whether or not this is true (see subsequent messages in this thread), a
good power supply is indeed a good investment.
>>
>> Good dual head 3D video cards? I might look at something like a Nvidia
>> Geforce 7300GT.
>>
nVidia are the best choice if you want 3d acceleration. We all know the
issues about proprietary software and video cards, but nVidia seem to be
the best of the bunch.
>> My main uses for this computer are:
>>
>> * Normal desktop use
>> * Website development - running Zend etc.
>> * running VMware (a necessary evil)
>> * Digital video work via firewire.
>> * full development server - apache 2, php, mysql, the usual services.
>>
>> Thanks!
>>
Get plenty of RAM. You are doing quite a lot with the machine, get 2G.
>>
>
>
> --
> Kent
> ruby -e '[1, 2, 4, 7, 0, 9, 5, 8, 3, 10, 11, 6, 12, 13].each{|x|
> print "enNOSPicAMreil [EMAIL PROTECTED]"[(2*x)..(2*x+1)]}'
>
>
