[PLUG] AMD CPUs for a linux workstation

[Colin Kuskie]

On Thu, Feb 27, 2003 at 09:21:41AM -0800, Rich Shepard wrote:
> On Thu, 27 Feb 2003, Mark Martin wrote:
> 
>   The primary use of the system determines what processor is most
> appropriate. For writing, accounting, spreadsheets, e-mail and other
> user-bound work the cpu speed and bit size is not terribly important. For a
> machine on which I would be running spatial and
> hydrologic/hydraulic/sediment transport models or fuzzy decision support
> models I could justify a fast, 64-bit, multiple-cpu configuration. Actually,
> for the low-end stuff, the current (~5 year old) PII/333MHz system is plenty
> fast.

Unless the application is threaded or otherwise takes advantage of SMP,
the multi-cpu route won't help much.  However, the good news is that
you can buy used rack mount hardware like the Compaq Proliant 1850L
(512 Mb memory, Raid, Dual PIII-700 MHz Xeon server processors) for
about $1K on ebay, and there are quad boxes every once in a while for
more.  If your PII/333 is okay for the slow stuff, then one of those
might be a good buy.

Colin