State of the union, help me choose/design new PC
- Thread starter e_dawg
- Start date
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
SuperMicro isn't exactly in the desktop motherboard business, Greg.
The differences between 2000 Pro and Server come down to what addon components work with the systems (DHCP server, IIS etc), some licensing issues (multiprocessor support and number of allowed network connections) and the fact that Server defaults to optimizing operation for background processes rather than foreground.
I have no idea what the hell you're installing.
The differences between 2000 Pro and Server come down to what addon components work with the systems (DHCP server, IIS etc), some licensing issues (multiprocessor support and number of allowed network connections) and the fact that Server defaults to optimizing operation for background processes rather than foreground.
I have no idea what the hell you're installing.
Buck
Storage? I am Storage!
Step away from the computer, pour you favorite Scotch, sit, relax, and revisit the issue later.
Sol
Storage is cool
128 bit encryption was left out of the original windows2000, at least the non US version, to comply with export regulations at the time. Later it was included in one of the service packs when the regulations were relaxed (or changed or clarified or something). Perhaps it just wants to install the 128bit encryption pack first because something in the server edition relies on it.
At any rate there is no harm in installing it it does nothing unless you encrypt something with it and it is a legit part of windows2000...
At any rate there is no harm in installing it it does nothing unless you encrypt something with it and it is a legit part of windows2000...
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
No.
But what are you doing with a non-US copy of Windows Server anyway?
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So it's new computers for my computer labs time. 30 computers - half my machines, in other words - have depreciated to the point that they can finally be replaced.
Current machines:
AthlonXP/2000 or XP/2500s
512MB RAM or 1GB RAM
80GB hard drives
AGP Radeon 7000s
CD-RW drives
Crappy desktop cases
In other words, there's nothing that's really worth trying to keep.
I have a budget of $600 per machine. I could push for $650 and maybe get it, but only because I have some cash left over for my annual equipment budget (if I don't spend it on the PCs, I'll be able to buy 12 19" LCDs instead).
I know for sure that I want tower cases. I pretty much have to do integrated video. I want modern CPUs, but whatever I get, I have to plan to be able to buy replacement parts for three years.
I figure my fixed costs are $150 for case, DVD-RW and Hard disk (160 or 200GB). Ideally, I'd do 2GB DDR2 ($200), but realistically, I'll probably be forced to go with 1GB ($100). So I figure I have $350 to spend on motherboard and CPU.
Environmental issues are extremely important. I need quiet more than fast.
I don't know that I need dual-core CPUs, but I have to plan for three years. Low-end AMD dualies just aren't subjectively as fast as fast single core solutions (remember, we're only training on one program at a time; these machines will NEVER have a high CPU workload) and single cores are cheaper as well. Will AM2 motherboards be around in three years?
AMD motherboards have much better onboard graphics options. This is particularly important since these machines will probably end up being deployed with Vista, despite my objections on the matter.
On the other hand, the Core 2 Duo is subjectively VERY fast. But it also costs a TON of money to buy a CPU ($180 for the low end one) and motherboards are neither proven nor inexpensive. Even worse, most current Intel motherboards don't support 40-pin IDE any more.
I can just afford to do E6400s + Intel G945 motherboards and fit it in my budget. But I'd have suboptimal graphics and no way to plug in a normal DVD burner.
Thoughts?
But what are you doing with a non-US copy of Windows Server anyway?
---
So it's new computers for my computer labs time. 30 computers - half my machines, in other words - have depreciated to the point that they can finally be replaced.
Current machines:
AthlonXP/2000 or XP/2500s
512MB RAM or 1GB RAM
80GB hard drives
AGP Radeon 7000s
CD-RW drives
Crappy desktop cases
In other words, there's nothing that's really worth trying to keep.
I have a budget of $600 per machine. I could push for $650 and maybe get it, but only because I have some cash left over for my annual equipment budget (if I don't spend it on the PCs, I'll be able to buy 12 19" LCDs instead).
I know for sure that I want tower cases. I pretty much have to do integrated video. I want modern CPUs, but whatever I get, I have to plan to be able to buy replacement parts for three years.
I figure my fixed costs are $150 for case, DVD-RW and Hard disk (160 or 200GB). Ideally, I'd do 2GB DDR2 ($200), but realistically, I'll probably be forced to go with 1GB ($100). So I figure I have $350 to spend on motherboard and CPU.
Environmental issues are extremely important. I need quiet more than fast.
I don't know that I need dual-core CPUs, but I have to plan for three years. Low-end AMD dualies just aren't subjectively as fast as fast single core solutions (remember, we're only training on one program at a time; these machines will NEVER have a high CPU workload) and single cores are cheaper as well. Will AM2 motherboards be around in three years?
AMD motherboards have much better onboard graphics options. This is particularly important since these machines will probably end up being deployed with Vista, despite my objections on the matter.
On the other hand, the Core 2 Duo is subjectively VERY fast. But it also costs a TON of money to buy a CPU ($180 for the low end one) and motherboards are neither proven nor inexpensive. Even worse, most current Intel motherboards don't support 40-pin IDE any more.
I can just afford to do E6400s + Intel G945 motherboards and fit it in my budget. But I'd have suboptimal graphics and no way to plug in a normal DVD burner.
Thoughts?
Bozo
Storage? I am Storage!
Every copy of 2000 Server I've seen had the 128 bit encryption floppy with it. Even our volume license ones.
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For a motherboard try this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813121046
Pop in a celeron ($35.00) and your ready for the next three tears. There is a PATA port and the motherboard accepts Core 2 Duo. It has onboard video with a PCI-X 16 port for future. And 4 SATA sockets.
It's a microATX board but it will still fit into an Antec SLK1650B ($59.00) case.
Bozo :joker:
-----------------------
For a motherboard try this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813121046
Pop in a celeron ($35.00) and your ready for the next three tears. There is a PATA port and the motherboard accepts Core 2 Duo. It has onboard video with a PCI-X 16 port for future. And 4 SATA sockets.
It's a microATX board but it will still fit into an Antec SLK1650B ($59.00) case.
Bozo :joker:
939 AMD single/dual core; reuse RAM and upgrade any 512's to 1GB; Integrated 6100/6150 MB's -- About as cost effective as you are gonna get.
No point in AM2 -- Same performance as 939 except costs more.
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
I foresee issues with availability of Socket 939 motherboards. Which is extremely unfortunate, 'cause AM2 doesn't do anything for me, either.
Right now, building off Bozo's i946 board, this is what I'm looking at:
E6400 Core 2 Duo
Bozo's board
1GB Corsair DDR2/533
160GB Seagate SATA drive
NEC 16x DVD Burner
Antec NSK3300 mATX case
Literally, if the shipping were $.20 more expensive, I'd be over budget, but that just fits.
If I go the AMD route, I can use a 6100-based board and an X2/4400 or an AM2 X2/4200. The 939 would be faster, but not as nice and fast as the Core 2 Duo, and there's the specter of replacement parts again. I'm thinking that the Intel board will be easier to find for a longer period of time.
Dell, by the way, is still shipping Pentium Ds for its sub-$1000 machines. Doesn't matter what I do, it's going to be better and cheaper than THAT.
Right now, building off Bozo's i946 board, this is what I'm looking at:
E6400 Core 2 Duo
Bozo's board
1GB Corsair DDR2/533
160GB Seagate SATA drive
NEC 16x DVD Burner
Antec NSK3300 mATX case
Literally, if the shipping were $.20 more expensive, I'd be over budget, but that just fits.
If I go the AMD route, I can use a 6100-based board and an X2/4400 or an AM2 X2/4200. The 939 would be faster, but not as nice and fast as the Core 2 Duo, and there's the specter of replacement parts again. I'm thinking that the Intel board will be easier to find for a longer period of time.
Dell, by the way, is still shipping Pentium Ds for its sub-$1000 machines. Doesn't matter what I do, it's going to be better and cheaper than THAT.
Bozo
Storage? I am Storage!
Would you save some $$$$ by using Crucial memory rather than the Cor$air??
Bozo :joker:
Bozo :joker:
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
Nope. I can save $5 per DIMM if I go with some no-name modules, but Corsair's "value" memory is generally pretty good stuff.
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
Actually after playing around a bit, Dell's price for an E520 Dimension (crap) desktop with an E6300 is $630 + shipping ($29 ground) and tax (6% in Indiana) is $695.
I can build and get the same machine as they're selling for $565. Even adding the $100 for a copy of XP (I don't need to, volume license), I'm still $30 cheaper. And mine has an Antec power supply and a burner I'm confident isn't going to crap out.
I can build and get the same machine as they're selling for $565. Even adding the $100 for a copy of XP (I don't need to, volume license), I'm still $30 cheaper. And mine has an Antec power supply and a burner I'm confident isn't going to crap out.
ddrueding
Fixture
Considering S754 is still very available; I don't think I'd be too worried about S939. Besides, following Mark's suggestions, you'd have enough money to buy many spares. The only technologies I don't expect to see in 3 years would be PATA, AGP, PCI, and DDR.
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
AMD is still making new socket 754 processors. 939, however, is done.
Buck
Storage? I am Storage!
Actually after playing around a bit, Dell's price for an E520 Dimension (crap) desktop with an E6300 is $630 + shipping ($29 ground) and tax (6% in Indiana) is $695.
I can build and get the same machine as they're selling for $565. Even adding the $100 for a copy of XP (I don't need to, volume license), I'm still $30 cheaper. And mine has an Antec power supply and a burner I'm confident isn't going to crap out.
I just went through the E520 build console. After all of the necessary add-ons for a typical home user, that cost is ruinously high. They want a nice bundle for in-home installation and a three year warranty.
Would hardware virtualization ever be of interest/use for your classes?Merc said:
I'm not familiar with VMware's stuff, but with Xen, HVM, means you can use unmodified guests. Both C2D and AM2 would be logical choices here...and there will be a strong Vista-Xen relationship.
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
I'm planning to use the free VMware Server so we can load multiple versions of MSOffice on the same machine.
Turns out that the clipart database (out of all of Office) breaks when you have more than one version of Office install on Windows. So I get complaints when the clipart doesn't work in Office 2000 or something. Whatever.
If performance is rotten, maybe I'll just make multiple disk images.
But AFAIK the low-end AM2 CPUs don't have virtualization support. That's something you need a newer core for, right?
The most appealing AMD option for me looks to be:
A64/3800
2GB DDR
160GB Drive
Antec minitower
Gigabyte 6150 board
A slower X2 and only 1GB RAM doesn't seem that appealing in comparison.
As it stands, this system has a per-unit cost is $564.67. Almost identical to the cost for the Core 2 Duo system I mentioned above with an E6300 CPU.
It's tough to say which is more important. Vista seems to want about 500MB RAM all on its own, which suggests that more RAM will be very important for the future, but since the only hardware I've really tried Vista on had pretty high-end CPUs, I'm not sure about the impact of a faster or slower or multi-core vs. single-core setup will have.
Turns out that the clipart database (out of all of Office) breaks when you have more than one version of Office install on Windows. So I get complaints when the clipart doesn't work in Office 2000 or something. Whatever.
If performance is rotten, maybe I'll just make multiple disk images.
But AFAIK the low-end AM2 CPUs don't have virtualization support. That's something you need a newer core for, right?
The most appealing AMD option for me looks to be:
A64/3800
2GB DDR
160GB Drive
Antec minitower
Gigabyte 6150 board
A slower X2 and only 1GB RAM doesn't seem that appealing in comparison.
As it stands, this system has a per-unit cost is $564.67. Almost identical to the cost for the Core 2 Duo system I mentioned above with an E6300 CPU.
It's tough to say which is more important. Vista seems to want about 500MB RAM all on its own, which suggests that more RAM will be very important for the future, but since the only hardware I've really tried Vista on had pretty high-end CPUs, I'm not sure about the impact of a faster or slower or multi-core vs. single-core setup will have.
I believe all AM2 socketed A64s have AMD-V (Pacifica) support, regardless of their position on the totem pole.
Even if they don't have virtualization support, I don't think it will be a big deal. For me, the only difference I've seen using Intel's Virtualization technology is that I can run 32bit and 64bit OS's at the same time. I don't know if you can do that with the free server version anyways. I've read that the VT is confusing most people about it's benefit in regards to performance.
I've checked from Amd through Xen, I've found nothing to suggest that some models lack it. On the contrary, everything (from articles of AM2's launch on Anandtech to entries in Wikipedia) inidicates that all models have said support.
For me, the big deal is the ability to use Xen with unmodified guests (read: use a Linux host and XP guest). Without the HVM support, Xen is stuck with paravirtualization...which is all good and all, but excludes XP (given the explicit requirement that the guest OS need be modified to run on top of the hypervisor/vmm).
CityK, my comments were specific to vmware products. I just got out of the conference this evening and I went to a session specific to Intel and AMD's virtualization technology.
During this conference the presenter (who is a VM engineer) explained that the new VT for both Intel and AMD are used in a very limited way for VMWare products. Since VMWare had to overcome the ring 0 permissions prior to Intel and AMD making this possible via hardware, they were able to highly optimize the binary transfer that sits in the VMM. They claim the performance of their BT is faster than the VT offered by the 1st generation implemented by Intel and AMD.
After the conference I waited to speak with the presenter and asked him if the only real need for VT under the new Intel chips is to in-fact run 64bit OS's under ESX 3.0.x.
I will post his presentation PDF info once I get a more reliable net connection...I think you might find it interesting. They discuss paravirtualization and the new API they are working on call paravirt opt. in order to build an easier way for modifying the OS...
During this conference the presenter (who is a VM engineer) explained that the new VT for both Intel and AMD are used in a very limited way for VMWare products. Since VMWare had to overcome the ring 0 permissions prior to Intel and AMD making this possible via hardware, they were able to highly optimize the binary transfer that sits in the VMM. They claim the performance of their BT is faster than the VT offered by the 1st generation implemented by Intel and AMD.
After the conference I waited to speak with the presenter and asked him if the only real need for VT under the new Intel chips is to in-fact run 64bit OS's under ESX 3.0.x.
I will post his presentation PDF info once I get a more reliable net connection...I think you might find it interesting. They discuss paravirtualization and the new API they are working on call paravirt opt. in order to build an easier way for modifying the OS...
In general, so far everything I've come across is in agreeance to the notion that hardware solutions currently hold no performance advantages to the software implementations.
I look forward to getting the chance to read through it
Sol
Storage is cool
All of the AM2 Semperon descriptions I've seen on AMD's site and elsewhere notably lack any mention of Pacifica so, like Mercutio I've always assumed they didn't have it.
Onomatopoeic
Learning Storage Performance
CityK said:
Okay mister CityK, HANDS UP IN THE AIR!!! You are surrounded. No place to run.
You are being charged with the crime of Language Butchery. "Agreeance" is not a word found in any English dictionary.
(I wish The Grammar Police would wake up and do his job, not to mention RESTORE HIS ^#%$%@ AVATAR like the rest of did months ago.)
Your honour, irregardless of my client's choice of so called bastardized or archaic language, if we were to analyse the cousre of events which transpired, it is evidently clear that our good neighbourly fellow Onomatopoeic, in due course of making his said apprehension, failed to compose an orderly and grammatically correct sentence of his own. The rather colourful record clearly shows that he did make in plain utterance one certain wish that some chap named The Grammar Police do
Accordingly, as the State has failed to bring a proper writ of charges against my client, there is no merit to the charge, and, I for one, see no other course of action that this court can take but to summarily dismiss any further proceedings against Mr. CityK with prejudice.
time
Storage? I am Storage!
Onomatopoeic said:
Actually, it's in the Oxford English Dictionary and the Macquarie Dictionary (Australia) for starters. AFAIK, it means "the act of agreeing", as distinct from "the thing agreed upon". It's sometimes used in legal jargon to avoid confusion with the word "agreement", meaning "contract".
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
Maybe it's 'cause I work for lawyers, but agreeance is a word I hear a lot.
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
My understanding of the first AM2 chips that were released is that they were in all ways functionally identical to latter-day 939s save for the upgraded memory controller. I distinctly recall reading something that suggested Virtualization was tech that was not immediately supported with the AM2 launch but would be added with an updated core.
Of course, it's entirely possible that's incorrect and I'll admit I haven't researched it any further.