On Tue 04 Jun 2013 07:21:00 NZST +1200, Daniel Rammelt wrote: > the CPU. With that in mind you have 2 options Intel or AMD. Either > will do you fine, Intel is a better performing CPU but it will cost > you if you want performance since only the i5/i7 CPUs have the > higher end HD GPU.
I am not sure you can categorically say Intel makes the faster CPUs over AMD. The marketing hype surely goes hyperbolic, and it is difficult ot measure. Most (all?) measurement programs are tuned for some other OS, so not relevant to Linux. Bottom line: I'd not make this the primary deciding factor. It seems clear though that Intel CPUs are quite a bit more expensive, pushing the best performance for the least money towards AMD. If you care about fast 3D graphics you probably have to invest in a separate graphics card anyway. Something above average with hardware video decoding and acceptable 3D performance cost $120-140 2 years ago, prices have probably not gone up. If the internal graphics does OK for you use it, but I wouldn't make that a primary factor either. These days it seems it always included, I treat it as a freebe that may or may not be useful. Of course for a server that's a non-issue. Linux drivers for AMD graphics seem to be continually diabolical, there are no issues with the nvidia proprietary drivers and my kernel updates have worked for many years without producing a black screen on reboot. I agree that Intel graphics is probably best supported under Linux, but it's not made for performance so check how much 3D you are getting and whether that is good enough for what you want to do with it. It's ideal for laptops IMHO. For mobos check first whether it has all the peripherals you want, and the number of slots you want to have free. Be aware that the graphics card slot also eats the slot to the left of it because of the bloated card constructions. Things you would want to know but can't find out in advance with difficulty are whether the board works properly with lm-sensors and whether the BIOS has a good feature set and no bugs affecting you. Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me. _______________________________________________ Linux-users mailing list [email protected] http://lists.canterbury.ac.nz/mailman/listinfo/linux-users
