Going Quad - Intel or AMD?

[Humanzee]

Originally Posted by CollinR

Both boards have same basic port layout so PCI, PCIe is basically the same unless you want SLI which you shouldn't.

Caveat being the single PCIe x1 port in the first slot. Not that I need two at the moment but won't that spot interfere with PCIe x16 graphics? I would want to add a serial port someplace. I suppose I could consolidate to dual tuner cards and get away with only 2 pci slots for tuners, however, thats more money to bridge a feature gap. It seems like there is plenty of room on the I/O panel to include 1394 and serial right there but they still like to include ps2 for keyboard and mouse.

Originally Posted by CollinR

IMHO the IP35 Pro would be the ultimate if it had the new Intel integrated graphics. however neither of these boards do.

I was planning on another nvidia graphics card, though its not essential to have the best graphics on this machine as it will only be driving a 20" LCD for the kitchen. Is there something about the intel integrated graphics that I should be looking at?

[Jesse]

FWIW, the IP35 pro now has a $70.00 rebate, making it $99.99.

I picked up a Q6600 for $199.99 at microcenter and I can't decide whether to replace my aging sagetv server or my aging workstation (both P4 based machines...).

If I go for a new server I will use this mobo. The pci-x slot will go very nicely with my 3ware 9500-S12.

If I go workstation I cannot decide whether to go nvidia 790i or intel X48. Of course for $100 the IP35 pro looks very tempting (especially with DDR2 so cheap). It would be nice, for once, to have the latest and greatest but it is tough to swallow $300 for a board and $50+ per gig for DDR3.

Decisions, decisions.

Jesse

[Humanzee]

Originally Posted by Humanzee

Is there something about the intel integrated graphics that I should be looking at?

Just realized that my client PC has the intel G33 integrated video. I could possibly move my 8600GTS to the server then but I imagine I still want the extra umph for the main watching / gaming area.

[hemicuda]

Originally Posted by Jesse

$50+ per gig for DDR3.

Decisions, decisions.
Jesse

I was just remarking to a co-worker today that the first 'real' computer I owned had a total of 32MB of RAM at $40/8MB. Man things have come a long way. I still have the parts, maybe I could put the old DX50 back together and make a low-power n*x server. It could be over clocked to a whopping 225Mhz.

you guys do have me thinking on what to do for the next server/workstation iteration. dual-core AMD 6400 or OC'd Q6600. Been thinking about OCing this 3200+, but the core is running in the low 50s C already. Dad's new 4000 is in the 30s. I'm almost jealous.

[BobPhoenix]

Originally Posted by hemicuda

I was just remarking to a co-worker today that the first 'real' computer I owned had a total of 32MB of RAM at $40/8MB. Man things have come a long way. I still have the parts, maybe I could put the old DX50 back together and make a low-power n*x server. It could be over clocked to a whopping 225Mhz.

you guys do have me thinking on what to do for the next server/workstation iteration. dual-core AMD 6400 or OC'd Q6600. Been thinking about OCing this 3200+, but the core is running in the low 50s C already. Dad's new 4000 is in the 30s. I'm almost jealous.

My Q6600 runs between 15-20C idle and 32-40C full load. The temp of the CPU actually worked out be be the thermometer on the wall beside it. The system board temp is actually greater than the CPU.

[EdwardATeller]

I'd be curious to hear what people have to say about the following concerning how AMD's multi-core implementation is superior to Intel's.

From this thread:

http://www.circuitcity.com/ccd/gener...8-9903cd822dd0

comes this post:

"Intel and AMD build fundamentally different processors.

Intel does not make a true dual core or quad core processor.

In the Intel Core Duo, the two cores are on the same die, but completely separate from each other. The two cores can only communicate through the Northbridge chipset (FSB) and despite the shady amrketing by Intelm the core frequency of it's FSB is 400 MHz. This means that the two cores can only communicate with each other and with any other system bus at a max of 400 MHz.

Intel realized that this was a huge bottleneck, so they created the Core 2 Duo, which allowed the two cores, still blind to each other, to communicate across the L2 cache. While this was faster than going out to the NB, it introduced a whole new set of problems. The origninal Core 2 Duo's came with very large L2 caches, because the core-to-core comms ate up most of the L2 cache, leaving very little L2 cache available for the system. The longer the computer was on, and the more programs were run, the less L2 cache the system has, and the system begins to crawl.

Eventually, Intel figured out a way to address the timing issues with core to core requests, and issued new Core 2 Duos that do not suffer quite as badly as the earlier models. These new C2D's could have less L2 cache and thus were cheaper. They still do not multitask as well as an AMD based system, and they can still communicate with the rest of the system at the speed of the NB/FSB, which is very slow when compared to the speed of the processor.

Intel still doesn not build the memory controller on the processor die, nor does it use Hypertransport. These two things are the major reasons why Intel processors, while having faster core frequencies, perform worse in real life than comaprable AMD based systems.

Many will counter with synthetic test data that shows that Intel outperforms AMD in real world use, but the testing is misleading. THe Worldbench and SIsmark t ests are designed to the specs of Intel, and are designed to skew data in Intel's favor. It is the nature of Intel being the 800 pound gorilla.

The situation gets worse with Intel's Core 2 Quad (?) design, which is tow core 2 duos glued together, but they are independent of each other. Now if core two on die 1 wants to tallk to core 2 on die two, it has to first send the request to die 1 on core 1, which must route the request to the L2 cache, which must send the request to core 1 on die 2, which then send the request to die 2. You can see where this is leading.

Intel has announced that it will begin following AMD's lead next year and integrating both the on-die memory controller and the Hypertransport bus. No word yet on whether they intend to make true dual and quad cores (like AMD's) or whether they will continue to build separate cores on the same die, which for Intel is cheaper and reduces the number of bad chips."

[CollinR]

When they start making boards with Intel northbridges and AMD sockets I wouldn't bother me. My troubles are with the northbridges.

[Slipshod]

Originally Posted by EdwardATeller

I'd be curious to hear what people have to say about the following concerning how AMD's multi-core implementation is superior to Intel's.

It's a "fanboi" comparison.

He's outright wrong on the FSB speeds, even putting the misleading AMD spin on it. Intel FSBs are "quad-pumped" (marketing term). That means that data is being transfered 4 times per physical clock cycle. So while it is technically accurate to say that the FSB's clock is 266MHz or 333MHz, the actual bandwidth is equivalent to a 1066MHz or 1333MHz FSB (respectively) with a single data transfer per clock. I don't know where he pulled the 400MHz number, unless he was talking about the fairly new 1600MHZ FSB QX9770, which has a 400MHz clock on the FSB, quad-pumped to 1600MHz. I guess he could have been talking about overclocking...

A bunch of the other bits are more or less correct as far as how the chips are put together. AMD is definitely a "4-core" chip, while Intel is 2 2-core chips... But the part where it really goes off into fanboi-ism is regarding performance. Clock-for-clock, in real-world applications (encoding, games, etc...) Intel easily beats AMD. In the end, Intel has the performance advantage (especially with the new 45nm chips), but it comes at a higher cost. Intel also has a pretty significant lead in encoding speeds, which will jump more when SSE4 goes into common usage. AMD can't match the performance, so they are having to compete on price. You'll get a better price/performance ratio with AMD, so if your application isn't bleeding-edge AMD works well.

Lastly, overclocking on the Intel CPUs is crazy, and only getting moreso with the 45nm chips. With the right motherboard and RAM It's fairly easy to take a $200 2.4GHz Q6600 up to 3-3.2GHz on air cooling. The 2.6GHz QX9450s are $310, and can get up to 3.6GHz on air...

Intel has announced that it will begin following AMD's lead next year and integrating both the on-die memory controller and the Hypertransport bus. No word yet on whether they intend to make true dual and quad cores (like AMD's) or whether they will continue to build separate cores on the same die, which for Intel is cheaper and reduces the number of bad chips."

This is true, and expect Intel to make another performance jump when they do it. AMD will be hurting even more if they don't get their 45nm process completely dialed-in by then.

[Eckwell]

Originally Posted by hemicuda

I was just remarking to a co-worker today that the first 'real' computer I owned had a total of 32MB of RAM at $40/8MB. Man things have come a long way. I still have the parts, maybe I could put the old DX50 back together and make a low-power n*x server. It could be over clocked to a whopping 225Mhz.

you guys do have me thinking on what to do for the next server/workstation iteration. dual-core AMD 6400 or OC'd Q6600. Been thinking about OCing this 3200+, but the core is running in the low 50s C already. Dad's new 4000 is in the 30s. I'm almost jealous.

Ha! My first PC was an APPLE II+ with 8KB of RAM, plus we paid $100 for an additional 8KB (Yes... 8K, not MB)

Ha! we have come a long way...

[hemicuda]

Originally Posted by Eckwell

Ha! My first PC was an APPLE II+ with 8KB of RAM, plus we paid $100 for an additional 8KB (Yes... 8K, not MB)

Man, I forgot about the Apple IIe w/ the printer/com card that you had to invert a chip to switch between them. Had one back in grade school. Never could afford the color monitor though. Anyway, no more OT posts from me in this thread.

Maybe all this DC/QC stuff will get sorted out by the time the wife 'allows' me to upgrade the server.

[valnar]

Originally Posted by Humanzee

So I started looking for new server components not long ago and began with outlining the requirements I had, regardless of the processor brand. I narrowed it down to this. motherboard as it seems to be the only board that I could find that has most of what I need. So that means AMD for me.

3 PCI slots
2 PCIe x1
2 PCIe x16
Firewire(1394) for recording HD
Serial for some Home automation stuff.
7 onboard SATA with at least one eSATA for lots of storage and expansion
Optical S/Pdif output
8 Channel Audio
Also has 2 gigabit lan which, like the SLI, I'll probably only use one of.

<cut>

What do you folks think?

I've had bad luck in the past with the NVIDIA/Marvell Gigabit ethernet controller. It's worse than Realtek at streaming video (UDF). I don't know if this one is any better, but the fact its an NVIDIA chipset is enough reason for me to stay away. You really ought to go Intel.

My motherboard was the DFI Lanparty UT nF3 250GB, an otherwise superb motherboard. I ended up disabling the onboard ethernet and putting in an Intel PCI NIC card. Slower.....but the problems with streaming video went away.

-Robert

[Humanzee]

I think I've decided now on the IP35 Pro with a Q6600 thanks to CollinR's persuasion. Ill have to get a serial card, or a usb to serial adapter. That and maybe a non realtek nic for my client PC.

[RobJ]

I've had bad luck in the past with the NVIDIA/Marvell Gigabit ethernet controller. It's worse than Realtek at streaming video (UDF). I don't know if this one is any better, but the fact its an NVIDIA chipset is enough reason for me to stay away. You really ought to go Intel.

My motherboard was the DFI Lanparty UT nF3 250GB, an otherwise superb motherboard. I ended up disabling the onboard ethernet and putting in an Intel PCI NIC card. Slower.....but the problems with streaming video went away.

Many people have had problems with nVidia chipsets prior to the nForce 5 series, especially for higher I/O usage. The nForce 2, nForce 3, and nForce 4 boards are NOT recommended (by me at least!) for server-like usage. But the nForce 5 series seems to have fixed the problems, and I can particularly recommend the 570, 590, and later chipsets, as good as the comparable Intel, in my opinion.

I can't speak to the earlier Marvell, but I understand the more recent Marvell LAN chipset to be superior to the Realtek.

Video streaming on a gigabit network should not really care about the brand of chipset, too low a bandwidth hit. I would suspect a problem with the nForce 3 chips.

[valnar]

Originally Posted by RobJ

I can't speak to the earlier Marvell, but I understand the more recent Marvell LAN chipset to be superior to the Realtek.

Video streaming on a gigabit network should not really care about the brand of chipset, too low a bandwidth hit. I would suspect a problem with the nForce 3 chips.

This is true. Thanks for clarifying. Recent Marvell NIC's are fine. It was surely something NVidia did to muck it up.

Robert