I need help spec'ing a system

the beaver

New Member
I've been looking over this board for the last hour or so and you guys know your stuff.

I run dual monitors with Publisher, Word taking up the left monitor and Photoshop, Firefox, and Explorer on the other one, with another random 4 or 5 windows open -- my beast of a computer doesn't cut it anymore.

I want dual processors (I'll be getting into video editing with Adobe Premiere soon) and based on what I've read on this board, Intel is better for apps. If you could answer a couple of questions I'd really appreciate it. . .

I want a dual socket PCIe board that'll take 64-bit Intel chips. What board, what chips, and what RAM would be best?

(budget? maybe 1,500?)

Thanks
 
Last edited:

Praetor

Administrator
Staff member
Sorry. New to the board.
No worries, just trying to keep the place clean. Welcome




Unless you want to go Dual Core, im guessing Opterons tend to do better than Xeons (even if they dont, getting a decent Xeon setup will cost craploads). Hence I'll spec out a quick Dual Opty setup

Opteron 244 [OPN=OSA244CEP5AU] @ 190USD each
ASUS K8N-DL NF4Pro @ 270USD

Corsair PC3200 XMS 2x1GB ECC REG @ 330USD
or​
OCz PC3200 EL 2x512MB ECC REG @ 250USD

Subtotal = 900USD for the 1GB RAM option, 980USD for 2GB option
The rest can be for all the other components you'll need on your setup
 

Praetor

Administrator
Staff member
Is there a mobo that has dual sockets for AMD64s?
If you followed the links I gave you, you'd see i met those requirements (and explained my choice for them in my previous post) :)
 

the beaver

New Member
Praetor said:
If you followed the links I gave you, you'd see i met those requirements (and explained my choice for them in my previous post) :)


Sorry man, I'm really a hack at this. I followed the links and snooped around newegg.com for awhile -- I'm just not too good at this (didn't notice where it said AMD64)

Anyway, armed with what you said I headed out to the electronics/computer area today and snooped around for a few hours. They were more interested in selling Tyan boards, but they said they weren't getting any of those Asus boards into the country until Monday.

I'll probably go with what you say, but I have a (probably stupid) question about the AMD Opteron 244: it says that it's 1.8Ghz and that seems a little slow, but I've heard that AMD and Intel figure these things differently -- should I put out more money to get faster chips?
 

LittleHoov

New Member
the beaver said:
I'll probably go with what you say, but I have a (probably stupid) question about the AMD Opteron 244: it says that it's 1.8Ghz and that seems a little slow, but I've heard that AMD and Intel figure these things differently -- should I put out more money to get faster chips?


its not a stupid question, its just one that gets asked about every day here..can we get a GOOD answer to this question added to CPU 101? or something like that? or maybe make a post of FAQs that arent all covered in the various stickys?

but anyway, the best way i can tell you the answer to that question is the AMD does more per-clock cycle than Intel does, so Intel needs the higher operating frequency to do the same amount that AMD does with a lower frequency.. but i know thats not a very good technical answer, perhaps someone else will chime in.
 

Praetor

Administrator
Staff member
I'll probably go with what you say, but I have a (probably stupid) question about the AMD Opteron 244: it says that it's 1.8Ghz and that seems a little slow, but I've heard that AMD and Intel figure these things differently -- should I put out more money to get faster chips?
Well with a $1500 budget for two server chips, you didnt leave me much room to play with. Id say i did a pretty dang nice job squeezing in there ;) The bottom end chip from that series is 1.4Ghz and the top model, 2.6Ghz in 200MHz increments so the 1.8Ghz is on the low end of the scale but pretty nice considering the price

its not a stupid question, its just one that gets asked about every day here..can we get a GOOD answer to this question added to CPU 101?
Eventually ... :)
 
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