My first question is just whether there are any strong reasons to get AMD vs. Intel CPUs?
Yes. AMD gives you more bang for your buck.
I'll probably be getting a dual-CPU system if that has a bearing on this question.
This is an even better reason to get an AMD system.
caveat: This was true for a chipset common on dual PIII systems. I have not investigated more recent chipsets. This may have changed.
It's my opinion that AMD has a superior SMP architecture:
Intel - 1 bus per pair of CPU's, 3.2Gb/s bandwidth per bus. AMD - 1 bus per CPU, 2.1 Gb/s bandwidth per bus
This means that the Intel ones can be burstier, but when both are being heavily used, the Intel bus has less 500Mb/s less bandwidth.
It's also important because, at least in my understanding, in order to update the caches between CPU's, the Intel chipset flushes out to main memory, then reads back, where the AMD chipsets allow for the processor to talk directly to each other through the North Bridge. (Don't ask me why the Intel chipset stuff can't just chuck the data on the bus for the other one to read, but my understanding is that it doesn't work that way).
Also, are there any motherboards that should be avoided? Any MB features that I should try to make sure to get?
Well, I am happy with my setup:
Tyan Tiger MPX S2466N-4M.
http://www.tyan.com/products/html/tigermpx.html
Supports all current Athlon MP CPU's, and has a separate 64bit/66Mhz PCI bus, which is a big win. I coupled that with an ICP Vortex SATA raid controller:
http://www.icpvortex.com/english/product/pci/rz_sata/8546rz_e.htm
Which uses that bus. Quite fast. Rock solid stable. 4 160GB Seagate drives make it nicer. You should be able to get quite a good system for $2000.
BTW - We use the Tyan Thunder version of the same board plus the same
Vortex boards at my work for our core serves. Great way to do
file/application servers on the cheap.
--
I have learned much more about Microsoft by using the Linux operating
system than I ever would have done by using Windows.
-- Neal Stephenson, In The Beginning Was The Command Line
~~ Matt Caron ~~
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