CPU for new server

[thatdude90210]

This Anandtech review seems to say otherwise. For image quality, the images that they showed has the 6150 caming out the worst, by a lot.

Edit: They actually put the image quality of the Intel G965 as the best. But for me, I'm not familiar enough with Intel graphics to want to build a PC purely around it.

[Jesse]

Hi,

I am always thinking about upgrading.

I think this board would make a great core 2 duo based sage server:http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813121052

PCI-E x16 -1
PCI-E x1 -3
PCI -3
GIG-E
SATA 3Gb/s -6
onboard vid, etc.

HTH

Jesse

[mike_15]

I have been looking at upgrading my server as well.

Something I am using to gauge processors is Tomshardware cpu guide.

http://www23.tomshardware.com/cpu.ht...=433&chart=185

Though I don't really know which benchmark best represents Sage, so I have been trying several to gauge overall CPU performace.

My Athlon XP3200 is too old for this list I have to go back to 2004 to see how my current CPU rates. (can play HD as long as nothing else is using any CPU)

Mike

[flavius]

I finally ordered this board: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813131070 and an E4300 to put in. I may be doing a little bit of ocing with this one..

[stevech]

boo, he went over to the dark (intel CPU) side. If too many do, and if AMD were to crump, we'd pay Intel $1000 for a CPU chip.

[zoso]

Originally Posted by stevech

boo, he went over to the dark (intel CPU) side. If too many do, and if AMD were to crump, we'd pay Intel $1000 for a CPU chip.

The low end core 2 duos are by far the best cpu for the price right now.

[flavius]

Yes, AMD has some catching up to do. And I hope they will, if only in the interest of competition.

[davephan]

Originally Posted by zoso

I went from a 930D (dual core 3GHz P4) to the QX6700 (core 2 quad 2.67GHz) and the difference is huge. Note that each Sage transcode is single thread (will only use one core) so the jump from 2 to 4 cores isn't effecting the extra performance in this application. Everything I read puts the core2's well ahead of everything else right now.

I would like to upgrade my system board, CPU, and memory. My AMD 2800+ has nearly 100% sustained CPU utilization when I am playing back AVI standard definition videos to my MVP. The CPU load is 100% sustained when transcoding the Mpeg2 to high quality Xvid AVIs with the Roxy99 scripts and programs.

Have you tried transcoding video files with the Roxy99 scripts and programs? If so, how much load is sustained by the CPU during the video transcoding process? If you haven't tried transcoding the Mpeg2 videos into Xvid AVI, could you try running the process -- it would be a good test of how much load your CPU can handle.

Dave

[jlindborg]

Originally Posted by zoso

The low end core 2 duos are by far the best cpu for the price right now.

I don't agree for a server application - at $200 even the AMD 5200 X2 is an awsome chip - the Intel counterpart (that does benchmark somewhat faster on a few things, slighly slower on others) is a full $100 more. Plus the AMD runs cooler - for servers that run 24/7 AMD can't be beat in my opinion. For game boxes, I go with Intel simply because they've got faster chip options and I turn my game box off at night - plus cost wasn't the major consideration for the game box (I still cringe remembering how much I paid for the video card setup... ouch...).

my current sage server is my old Pentium game box - but the 5200 I have running in my file server will find it's way into the server closet sometime this summer...

[davephan]

Originally Posted by zoso

I went from a 930D (dual core 3GHz P4) to the QX6700 (core 2 quad 2.67GHz) and the difference is huge. Note that each Sage transcode is single thread (will only use one core) so the jump from 2 to 4 cores isn't effecting the extra performance in this application. Everything I read puts the core2's well ahead of everything else right now.

What operating system are you using to run the QX6700 quad core? I found a couple postings on the PCWorld site that imply that Windows XP does not support the quad cores. I want to keep running Windows XP Professional. I don't want to 'downgrade' to Vista since it is crippled with DRM.

Here are the posting on the PCWorld site:

"Hasn't anyone yet realized that Windows XP limits CPUs to two cores? How ya gonna run 4 cores unless on Linux?"

"I'm sure that Microsoft will find a way to get XP to support them, if not, Vista is coming out very soon, as well."

http://forums.pcworld.com/forums/vie...?p=10009#10009


Dave

[Razillian]

Originally Posted by davephan

Here are the posting on the PCWorld site:

"Hasn't anyone yet realized that Windows XP limits CPUs to two cores? How ya gonna run 4 cores unless on Linux?"

Microsoft limits Windows XP Professional to two physical processor chips by license design (Windows XP Home is one), not an actual limitation of the software (new HAL gets loaded for multiple processors). A duocore processor counts as one physical processor. It lists as two inside XP, but for their licensing purpose it is one. If it really was an issue then hyperthreading would never have working on XP Home, because Windows considers a hyperthreaded CPU as two, and XP Home only supports one processor, yet magically it works.

If you look hard enough, you can find Microsoft referencing support for two dualcore processors (making for a total of four processors but only two physical chips). You probably won't find anything specifically showing quadcore as supported only because Vista has been released and that is Microsofts new toy to push.

And FYI, I am running a quad-core system on Windows XP Pro at work. All four processors list and get used. Actually when it was initially setup it showed eight (it was hard to get it to use all eight though) because hyperthreading was turned on, which I promptly turned off as being a waste on a multiprocessor system.

Edited Additional Info:
From http://download.microsoft.com/downlo...ate_200502.doc dated Feb of 2005 (that long ago, wow knowledge really is out of date):
"For most currently shipping Microsoft software with processor limits, each processor counts as a single processor regardless of the number of cores and/ or threads that the processor contains. For example, Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition can be used on a four-processor system, whether the processors in the system are single-core, hyperthreaded, or multicore."

[rickgillyon]

Originally Posted by jlindborg

Plus the AMD runs cooler - for servers that run 24/7 AMD can't be beat in my opinion.

Most reviews I have read (e.g. here) show Core2Duo as both faster and having lower power consumption over the AMDs - not a great deal in it though. I've not seen anything suggesting the AMDs would be cooler, quite the opposite in fact. Now if you're talking about Pentium Ds, they are hotter than hell, I have one of those in my main desktop...

[jlindborg]

Originally Posted by rickgillyon

Most reviews I have read (e.g. here) show Core2Duo as both faster and having lower power consumption over the AMDs - not a great deal in it though. I've not seen anything suggesting the AMDs would be cooler, quite the opposite in fact. Now if you're talking about Pentium Ds, they are hotter than hell, I have one of those in my main desktop...

Yeah, the Ds are definitely hot - but I have a snappy copper flower cooler on mine and keeps it under control. Comparing the temps on my 5200+ with a dore duo 1.8 Ghz in about the same case, the duo runs a bit hotter (even at idle) - but come to think of it this probably has more to do with the respective default heat sinks (or more to the point, my installation of the aformentioned devices) than the chips themselves. It's only a couple degrees either way.

Still - for $100+ difference, I'll take the AMD for my file crunching box in a heartbeat.

[rickgillyon]

The standard heatsink and fan on my PentiumD is around the size of a dinner plate, the Core2Duo one is *way* smaller...