In article
news:<slrnfkluma.q2l.aznomad.2@ip70-176-155-130.ph.ph.cox.net>, AZ Nomad
wrote:
> I think intel core 2 duo has the edge over amd although I still prefer
> amd.
I agree.
At the low end of the range the AMD chips are cheaper and use less energy
for the same power (i.e. work done). Toward the high end the AMD chips
become quite energy-hungry (the 6000+, for example) and at the very top
you can't beat the Core2 chips.
The core 2 quad Q6600 is a bargain if you want four cores, the 4-core AMD
parts are only just beginning to appear and I haven't seen a review yet.
> motherboard -- get one with the I/O you want.
IMHO there are very few good motherboards out there at the moment. For
one thing the motherboard makers have been too quick to drop support for
legacy devices, and for another I like to use ECC RAM and support for
that is rare on anything but server (Xeon/Opteron) boards.
I am very fond of the Asus M2NPV-VM motherboard, in which I run
energy-efficient versions of AMD X2 chips. The M2NPV-VM is a uATX board
with the nVidia nForce 430 chipset and integrated GeForce 6150 video (I
don't do games, so that's fine). It has:
* 4 SATA drive connections -- but still has two PATA channels (4 drives)
unlike most current boards, and a floppy connector.
* 2 firewire and 8 USB 2.0 ports -- but still has one parallel and two
RS-232 serial ports (though the serial ports are only provided as headers
on the motherboard and the brackets to bring those to D9 connectors are
hard to find)
* gigabit ethernet
* Support for two monitors (VGA and RGB or TV (HDTV)) from onboard
graphics -- but also has PCIe x16 slot for beefier graphics card if
required.
* 5.1 channel sound (S/PDIF)
* support for ECC RAM (up to 4GB with a 32-bit OS, 8GB with 64-bit).
Best of all -- it's one of the cheaper boards around (despite being from
a reputable manufacturer).
I have not found an intel S775 board that has this rich support for both
new and legacy peripherals ... and the nicest S775 boards I know of at
present cost between two and three times as much.
> power supply: don't use the crap that is included with most cases. A
> blowout on that $8 power supply can take out your whole system. Spend
> $50-90 here.
I'll add a rider to that -- spend those dollars on a good quality PSU
rather than a lower-quality unit that claims a higher power output. Work
out roughly how much poser your system will actually use, add 10-20% as a
margin for error, and buy the best PSU you can that exceeds that power by
as little as possible.
My Athlon64 4200+ system in the M2NPV-VM (with integrated graphics --
faster GPUs eat energy) idles at less than 100W (as measured by my UPS)
and probably uses less than 200W maximum. My 430W PSU is huge overkill!
(but I got it cheap)
> Case: very personal choice. I like quiet cases.
> I have no use for dorkage: crap fans with blinking lights, clear
> panels on the case, etc.
I wholeheartedly agree. The Antec Solo is a nice case -- not expensive,
no dorkage, USB and firewire on the front, very quiet.
> hard drive: 500G is <$90 nowadays. $750G is <170.
Yes, around 500G is the sweet spot at the moment (about £50 here in the
UK).
> optical drive: some can write a label on the disk (on the edge?)
There are two systems -- HP's "LightScribe" and Yamaha's "LabelFlash" --
probably more. The label/picture is written in a dye layer on the *back*
of the DVD, so it covers the whole disk surface. There are some pictures
here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LightScribe
http://labelflash.jp/
The label-burning process can apparently be very slow, I've not tried it.
Both systems need special drives which cost a pound or two more than
normal ones, and require special disks with the dye layer. It may be
useful for burning promotional demo disks but for labelling backups a
fibre-tip marker is quicker, cheaper, and less fuss.
AFAICT LightScribe is somewhat supported under linux, but LabelFlash is
not.
http://www.linux.com/feature/118705 may be of interest?
> double layer blank media is still too expensive and may always be so.
Yes, DL disks are still several times the price of single-layer ... but
they're only around 40p to £1 (a dollar or two) so if you actually need
to put 9GB of data onto one disk (say, you want to run an unattended
backup that will fit a DL disk but not SL) the cost isn't prohibitive.
It's hard to find a DVD writer that doesn't support DL these days, so the
point is moot.
Cheers,
Daniel.