Core 2 Duo or Pentium D?

[DanceswithUnix]

If there is a chance of running Linux on this machine, you don't want an ATI graphics card. Another vote for the passive 7300, or for your use even a 6200TC would do as the 64MB of ram on the card would be more than enough.

As for virtualisation support, even the cheapest AM2 socket athlons have it. Don't the core2 current range have it too?

Another nail in the P4 coffin: It can't do I/O to memory over 4GB in 64 bit mode, so large memory systems can slow down. No idea if they fixed that on the core2, but I would hope so. Including the graphics card, your system is having to address 4.25GB of memory there.

Oh, and I am typing this on a Fedora 7 Linux VMware virtual machine, hosted on a dual core P4 3.2GHz with 2GB of ram running Windows XP Pro as that is the company standard. It feels very lumpy compared to any VMware guests on my single core Athlon 64 3000+ (overclocked to ~3800+) which runs Linux as a host OS on 1.5GB of ram. I don't know how much of that is the P4 and how much is having Windows as host OS but I can't say I am impressed with this P4 configuration

Hope something in those ramblings is of help

[ikonia]

yup it is totally more expensive, its really only food for thought.

If it was a 2 GB system with a host and a VM - I'd not have mentioned it but the fact that he's planning an 8GB system suggests he may have a few VM's on there, in which case cpu's pointing in the right direction may help.

All down to fit fur purpose really.

[TiG]

Again dependant on what this system is doing, i'd want to go scsi disks if the system was doing anything heavy on the IO side of things. I've seen people use sata arrays when doing heavy IO completely overwhelm even the most expensive sata controller.

TiG

[DataMatrix]

Yeah, sorry for the flaming. I was just annoyed because people don't read reviews before asking questions about a product. There's adverts everywhere also for C2D, does that not mean something?

[Clunk]

Thats a giant sig^^

[DataMatrix]

Thats a giant sig^^

[Agent]

There's adverts everywhere also for C2D, does that not mean something?

There are adverts for Mc Donald's every other advert, doesn't mean they serve good food

And please reduce that sig to the size the rules allow buddy

Cheers

[hampshirebrit]

That's a LOT more expense than either a C2D or Pentium-D, ikonia. If he's planning to deploy VMWare in a live environment, obviously, yes, larger tin is a good idea, but if it's for development and testing purposes, a C2D'd do nicely, I'd have thought, as long as it was one of the ones that support Intel's Intel VT virtualisation stuff - see http://www.intel.com/products/proces...t/core2duo.htm , which is another good reason for a C2D, specifically one of the E6XXX series.

This platform is purely for dev&test. I've been using a couple of Proliant 8500 4wayCPU servers and the noise was starting to wear me down...plus the electricity bill was taking a pounding. Even with 2Gb RAM in each, the number of very paired down VMs each could run was limited to 4.

I figured it's about time to move into the 21st century. The main issue w/ VM is memory resourcing and disk contention. I'm looking foward to getting the new system.

Thanks for the help guys. I appreciate that my hardware knowledge has some gaps, and it's good to be pointed in the right direction. I'll take the other suggestions on board when I shell out the bucks later this month.

[DataMatrix]

There are adverts for Mc Donald's every other advert, doesn't mean they serve good food

And please reduce that sig to the size the rules allow buddy

Cheers

Done

[j.o.s.h.1408]

what about quad core intel?

[EtheAv8r]

Don't listen to these People, the Pentium D is far superior with its bad netburst achitecture, tiny L1 Instruction & Data cache, etc...

Jesus, what a dumb question, read some reviews on Core 2 Duo.

How to make friends and influence people...?

If some posts a question, they want help or guidance - not abuse. If you think a question is dumb - that is your affair... simply don't respond in that case.

hampshirebrit - To repond to the original question - go with C2D - you will be very pleased you did!

[Agent]

He did say sorry - we all have bad days