On Thursday May 29 2003 03:44 am, John Richard Smith wrote:
> OK Tom, so you favour Via and AMD, but if money is not in itself
> a particular problem, though everything has to be reasonably
> equal, and relative, what would be the best combination of mobo
> cpu and video card for good graphics, speed and efficiency of FSB
> etc in Linux, and why ?
>
> John
I _currently_ favor AMD/VIA. It's a moving target. Intel makes
good cpu's but up till the newest i875 chipset, there's been no
decent chipsets to run 'em on. Not even VIA's. That could change
very soon. I go back'n forth between AMD and Intel. I avoid any
other cpu's. There's pros and cons to both AMD and Intel cpus.
Intels run cooler, have better thermal protection. AMD's run hot,
but due to 3 FPU's per cycle, compared to Intel's 2 FPU's per
cycle, AMD's deliver more performance from lower clock rates.
They're also cheaper.
For video, I believe there's only three valid choices, nVidia,
ATI, and Matrox. Which one you choose, would depend on how you
intend to use it. All three have good XFree support for 2d, 3d is
another issue.
As to motherboard, FSB, ram .... well I'll just say I've been
for two years now, usin a KT133a chipset (Soyo board), 1.53 Ghz
with 135mhz FSB, oc'd 1.4 Athlon (not an XP), and a mix of old
PC100, and PC133 SDram at 135 mhz, Cas2, 4-bank. I see nothin
currently out there that would prompt me to upgrade.
I suppose if I were to recommend somethin to someone comin from
even older hardware that needed to upgrade now, it would be a
KT333a or KT400a chipset on a quality board (Asus, Soyo, MSI,
Gigabyte, Biostar) and a model and revision that's AMD recommended.
Probly at most a 2600+ /333 Athlon XP (this uses a 166mhz FSB).
PC2700 cas2 DDR333 SDram (Crucial or Corsair). An AMD approv'd PSU,
at least 300 watts. Probly a GeF4 nVidia card usin the XFree driver
if 3d/accel is not needed.
As you can see none of this is the latest and greatest. Reasons
would be for better Linux kernel support, and tried and true
hardware with at least six months track record. Stayin just behind
the bleeding edge is a lot cheaper. BIOS versions are more likely
to have been updated and matured. Same for Linux drivers.
--
Tom Brinkman Corpus Christi, Texas
Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft?
Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
