AMD Duron vs. Intel

[BobbyR]

I am getting a new server. I have my choice of processors, 1Ghz AMD Duron or 1Ghz Intel P3. The AMD processor is $200 less. I have read some reviews saying the AMD processor is actually better. I am thinking, do I really need to pay the extra $200 to get intel. So the question is, which processor is the best choice? Has anyone used a server running the Duron?

[easy18s]

First off, If anything, You want to get an AMD Athlon, That is AMDs top of the line procceser. For a sever get Intel. AMD is geared toward high perfomance gaming, While Intel is geared toward applications. Then again, you probebly wont notice a difference between the two, so if you wanna save the $200 go for it.

[battuss]

I just got the AMD XP processor and its friggin fast.

[easy18s]

Is his server going to be running Windows XP? The AMD XP is tailored for users running Windows XP, And it is geared towards media not applications, such that you would use on a webserver.

[battuss]

Oops, a server, i thought a home pc :)

[sandman]

save yourself the $200 unless your building a high end server you will run out of ram and melt your hd's before you run out of cpu :)
im doing 250k tru scripts on a p3-500 using 10-15% cpu :)

[easy18s]

sandman, how many times are your scripts accessed though?

But you are right, He might as well save the $200, Although, I would probebly take that $200 and put it toward memory and get one with 1024mb ram.

[Chris@DialerTek]

an AMD athlon or XP processor will give you the performance you need at an excellent price in comparison to an intel processor. Ive always recomended AMD processors and personall think the performance and affordability blows intel out of the water, hand down....

[NdY]

My personal oppinion is : if u want 2 buy an AMD processor u should buy an Athlon - the Duron is the light version of Athlon and it has much less L2 cache ( i think 64k vs 256k Athlon)... it's like INTEL's Celeron vs P3.
I'm working on pc's business from the last 3.5 years so i know what i'm saying ... :)
I have at home an Athlon on 1.2 Ghz and it kicked the shit out of an P3 in 1Ghz wich is 100 usd over..

Anyway ...even so an Athlon is much cheeper than a P3 and works way better

Take care !

[Chris@DialerTek]

amen!

[abshard]

Doesnt AMD have a server version of its cpu..the Athlon MP chip? I think that would be the one you want if you are gonna go with AMD

[abshard]

here are some prices from pricewatch

$345 - Athlon MP 1900
$259 - Athlon MP 1800
$173 Athlon MP 1600
$158 - Athlon MP 1500
$152 Athlon MP 1.2GHz
$148 - Athlon MP 1GHz

Go with dual cpus..it makes a difference :)

[abshard]

Also build your own server and save some money..

[sandman]

easy18s: it is accessed over 250k times a day with only 10-15% cpu usage.
most of it is r&b4 and ucj4 and some php trading scrip also.
a
the duron 1000mhz should be enought.

[gse]

XP so far is the best we tried. I tested it on redhat, bsd and win2k. MP is a bit expensive at this time, but you might want to use it for multiprocessing server.
If you don't need all this horsepower, take XP1600, it cost only like $129 now

[Jorge]

Originally posted by gse:
<STRONG>XP so far is the best we tried. I tested it on redhat, bsd and win2k. MP is a bit expensive at this time, but you might want to use it for multiprocessing server.
If you don't need all this horsepower, take XP1600, it cost only like $129 now</STRONG>
Just upgraded to XP1600 - fast like hell, easily beats Intel. Duron has an excellent price / power ratio but it gets really hot over time. I had to buy a special case for my old Duron 800 because of coolers´ noise - hence, I would prefer Intel for a server, 800 is far enough for a dedicated server. RAM is a crucial point, and it´s cheeeeeeeap nowadays.

[Dammy]

Originally posted by NdY:
<STRONG>I have at home an Athlon on 1.2 Ghz and it kicked the shit out of an P3 in 1Ghz wich is 100 usd over..</STRONG>

A 1.2 Ghz Athlon will kick the shit out of a 1.4 Ghz Pentium and is very close to 1.6Ghz Pentium...

[gse]

XP runs about 20-25% cooler than athlon

[dj-ohki]

Originally posted by abshard:
<STRONG>Doesnt AMD have a server version of its cpu..the Athlon MP chip? I think that would be the one you want if you are gonna go with AMD</STRONG>

na, the MP is just a mutiprocessor capable version of the XP. they are essentially the same processor, just the MP is certified to work on dual proc boards and has dual proc tuned memory prefetch unit. beyond that, they are the same chip.

another vote for an XP or duron based system, put the monies you save towards more ram.

[gse]

yeah, dual MP is good to have, just need to wait for prices to go down

[lock]

Buy on Price!!!

If you want the best buy the best but buy what you can afford. Everything is sold on speed the more you spend the faster you get.
Computers are now fast enough not to be frustraiting. A ghz processor with anything is a gig machine. Tests have proven AMD and Intel to both have strong areas in various applications. Both systems will do the job just fine so why not buy on price.
With the speed of processors these days there is nothing wrong with buying on price.

[gse]

there is also such understanding as buying for stability. A lot of gurus probably will disagree here, but what I found is that not all intel based stuff is stable. If you build like simple server, it may be ok, but when you try to add bells and whistles then comes the trouble.

Let's say old intel motherboards, on some of them if your cpu fan goes down, you can't remove it without cracking something. Slot a amd processors not the easiest either. socket a based amd processors pretty good. It takes time to find a perfect combination of your hardware architecure.

Talk to the people, or hosting companies who actually build the servers. Another way is spend some dough. For $15k HP will build you a super duper machine and give you 3 year warranty, if something goes down they will ship you replacement system within 4 hours.
I think Dell does the same.

[Chris@DialerTek]

okay, we're talking about new machines here, not "the old ones".....

and secondly, anyone who is stupid enough to spend $15,000 on a machine that is obsolete before you even open the box is a mental degenerate and deserves to be raped by several angry migits and have pictures sold as content for the incredible low price of $0.01 a pic...

I think I made my point :D

[gse]

maybe because you never had $15k, you may think this way. But lot of people do spend this kind of $ - mostly mainstream companies, you'd be surpised

and HP charges that much mostly for warranty, I never used them, and never will, we build our own servers. But I do have a colo clients who did it, they told me.

Everyone makes their own choices...

[dplaymax]

with all the servers we host - most are running on amd - however we have equal results on both - besides when hosting - you never want to run your cpu above 60% - and preferrably not above 50% - if your there - you probably need a second server :)

also a lot of the difference dependes what your running - what webserver and how efficient your databases and other code are written

[gse]

Originally posted by DPlay:
<STRONG>with all the servers we host - most are running on amd - however we have equal results on both - besides when hosting - you never want to run your cpu above 60% - and preferrably not above 50% - if your there - you probably need a second server :)

</STRONG>

not necessarily second server. you can rebuild it for multiprocessor architecture

[ProgGod]

Defintely don't put a duron or a celeron in a server, the lack of the cache is what matters in a server. Using one of those processors will give you poor results.

Dual CPUs is a bad idea in servers these days, the only operating systems that properly support dual CPUs for pthreaded applications is linux and solaris. Most people run FreeBSD on their servers, which has NO dual CPU support for pthreaded applications.

As you may or may not know, the new apache is pthreaded, so you will lose the use of one of your CPUs. Even if you could use the Dual CPUs you lose 30% just due to communication and synchronization issues with dual CPUs.

As for athlon vs intel. Athlon definetely seems to perform better, and is much cheaper. You can get an athlon 1800 processor, which is 3 times faster then a pentium 1ghz, for the same price. So I would only get a p3 over an athlon if multiple CPUs is prefered.