Ill tell you right now. DONT GET INTEL CPUS. they are horrid now-a-days. AMD chips are based off of newer architecture, have 33% more on-chip chache, and can run at even 266mhz system bus, as opposed to only 133mhz p3. Athlons also have 3 Floating point pipelines, as opposed to p3's 1.
all of that, and AMD chips are WAY cheaper. On Wednesday 20 June 2001 06:29, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > This is not a debian specific question, but I know there are some > hardware experts out there that may be able to help me and I would much > appreciate it :-) > > I am considering upgrading our server at work. I don't fully appreciate > the performance advantage / disadvantages of dual processors and SCSI > hardisks. > > Here is what I have been recommended to get: > 2x Intel Pentium III 866 Mhz > Intel TUPELO (STL2) Motherboard Dual Processor capable > Adaptec AIC-7899 dual channel SCSI controller > 2x 512 Mb Intel Certified ECC Registered Memory > 2x Cheetah Seagate 36Gb LVD Hard Disks > + network cards, floppy, CDROM, etc. > > Basically, my question is: What would the difference in performance be > between this configuration versus say a single P4 1.4Ghz? > > This server will unfortunately have to run Windows NT (as the > proprietary software requires it). It is basically a database server > with 8x 486s acting as essentially dumb terminals. They will run a > basic version of the proprietary software and all the processing will be > done by the server. > > 1. What do people think about whether it is worth spending the extra > money for dual processors? Does Win NT fully utilise dual processors? > It is nearly $1500 (Aus) for the motherboard! But a P4 1.4 GHz is much > the same price (I think), but the mother board would be cheaper then. > > 2. Is it worth spending the extra money on a SCSI controller and hard > disks? > > Here is what the specs say on the SCSI HD: > Formatted Capacity: 36.4GB > Interface: 68-pin > Ultra2/SCSI > Data Transfer Rates: 160MB/s > Average Seek Times: 5.4ms > Buffer Size: 16MB > Rotational Speed: 10000rpm > Height (inch/mm): LP (1.0/25.4) > > Here is the specs on a 40Gb Western Digital IDE 7200 RPM: > WD CaviarTM 40GB EIDE Hard Drive WD400BB > Transfer mode: 100 MB/s > Average Read seek: 8.9ms > > So the SCSI spins faster and has lower average access times. I suppose > this means that it would be of benefit when you are talking about a > large database server with multiple terminals connected. > > It is just hard to work all this out from the specs. Can anyone speak > from experience on these issues? Especially regarding the dual > processor versus single but faster processor. > > Thanks for help. > Mark.
