Xeon or Opteron [modified]

[tdmeers]

Just wanted to get some opinions from some other people on a quandry of mine. I'm working on building up a "new" workstation/dev server and am wondering, Xeon based or Opteron based? I'm lookign at building it on the cheap. So I'm looking at P4 class Xeon and that same era of Opteron. It's got to be a dual CPU and have use for SCSI. I already have the case and drives but the processor/motherboard has really got me in a jam. Either way I can build up a $100 3ghz machine fairly quickly on eBay. Just thought I'd get some insite. Edit: On second thought, I'm looking at prices and find that I can build a near identical system to what I have now for the same price. Then I'd just need to find a SCSI card.

modified on Wednesday, July 15, 2009 12:31 PM

[Dan Neely]

IF you're looking at stuff from that vintage an opteron will spank the xeon silly. Just adding more cache (if even that) won't magically make netbworst suddenly stop sucking.

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[Lost User]

But a P4 class CPU at 3GHz is really equivalent to a, say, 2.4GHz Core(2). But uses more power. Doesn't sound good to me, as the short term savings are not compensating for the long term loss unless you plan to ditch it in less than a year. (unless power is cheaper where you live?) NetBurst (which is in P4's and PD's) was actually so bad that Intel completely ditched the idea and went back an improvement of their P3 architecture (which they called Core, strangely enough) - I'd trust their judgment. They actually canceled some of the NetBurst based processors that they had planned. The AMD architectures haven't changed nearly that much, they did some small tweaks and sure it became better, but the slightly older ones aren't all that bad. So, was that helpful? note: the history has been slightly simplified to keep it from getting long and boring.

[peterchen]

Core 2, Opteron, Xeon in that order.

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[daniilzol]

You don't need xeon/opteron to run server OS. Any CPU will do, so I would recommend against buying older server class CPU. It would make more sense getting single socket dual or quad core as opposed to dual socket single core/dual core CPUs. You'll get more performance and less headaches. If you live near Microcenter, it has a deal on Q9550 at $170 and i7 920 at $199 through July 20th I believe. Those are excellent prices. PCIe on modern motherboards provide plenty of bandwidth, so if you drop PCIe-SCSI card in there you should be golden. Just make sure you get motherboard with all solid capacitors (I've had couple of old MSI motherboards go bad on me with leaky capacitors, good motherboards, but after 5 years I guess it was just time for them to go).

[tdmeers]

That was helpful. I knew that Xeons used a bit more power but never really looke dat the AMD side during that whole era. I've just always had Intel the past 10 or so years.

[tdmeers]

The point is to build it on the cheap, meaning less than $100. I can get a used board, procs and memory and still have money left over. Not looking for high end, but just enough to run IIS, MS SQL 2008, Visual SVN, and hold lots and lots and lots of backups/images with minimal slowdowns. Though to do it right, I'd go get one of the new quad core Xeons or new AMD X4's. But who has that kind of coin these days for a backup machine. Though, with that kinda of spec, it would be my primary and my current (Core 2 duo E6400, 4gb ram(soon 8), dual raptors) machine would become my secondary. And I hear you on the leaky caps, what a nightmare.

[tdmeers]

Thanks for the insight. I"ll have to find some benchmarks.