Latest Processors Tested Under Linux

An anonymous reader writes "I don't run into reviews featuring Linux much but here's a great review I found posted on Linux Hardware. It features the latest Intel Pentium Extreme Edition 955 and AMD Athlon 64 FX-60. Since both of these are dual-core processors, they also decided to throw in the best single-core CPUs for comparison. This is a great review for Linux folk. It gives a look at what hardware you may want to consider for your next workstation."

Comments

Macs, right?

[countach]

>It gives a look at what hardware you may want to consider for your next workstation.

Aren't we all fawning over the possibility of running Linux on a new iMac now?

Re:Macs, right?

[macshit]

Aren't we all fawning over the possibility of running Linux on a new iMac now?

Er, no/kinda/um...

I have a pretty anemic system at present (450MHz PIII), and have recently started to do some ray-tracing.

For ray tracing, the sort of balls-to-the-wall systems in this review are the sort of thing you want, but frankly the idea of ending up with yet another giant space-consuming ATX box that sounds like a jet-engine at takeoff is sort of depressing.

FWIW, I think the current imacs are pretty icky too [I don't like the whole integrated monitor/system style in the first place, and the current imacs are not all up to Apple's standards of elegance -- they're just sort of thick and clumsy looking].

What I'd really like is a system that's as small and as quiet as possible, e.g. the mac-mini, but with a beefed up (dual core?) processor/memory-system. Obviously the heat management would need to be upgraded too, so it couldn't be as small as a MM, but it seems like with appropriate technology (liquid cooling to giant heat sink on the rear?), it needn't be anywhere as bloated as the typical ATX box.

Are there are any happy mediums like this out there? Systems that are reasonably small and quiet, but still somewhat fast for doing computation-bound problems?

I'm glad to see this review anyway though, I'm thoroughly sick of the typical "windows office productivity apps" benchmarking you see on other review sites...

Re:Macs, right?

[i_should_be_working]

I have two of these Shuttles. Room for two 3.5" hard drives and an optical drive. But still small. I can fit one in my backpack. I also was considering the MacMini, but needed raw cpu power for simulations. Also I wanted more storage than laptop drives have.

The cooling is decent and keeps the temp low for one, but the other one has a Prescott that gets considerably hotter. Not too hot, but several degrees more than if it were just in a normal sized case. If I had known about Prescotts I wouldn't have got one and wouldn't have a problem.

Oh yeah, it's really quiet. 2 feet from my bed and doesn't bother me at all. Not as quiet as the MacMini though. Some of the Shuttles are more quiet than others, so it's helpful to read reviews.

Fascinating picture!

[WasterDave]

The first picture in the article - showing the substrate against the gate. Are the very visible lumps in that ... ummmm .... atoms?

Re:Fascinating picture!

[Danny Rathjens]

The atomic radius of silicon is 110pm(.11nm) and the scale is 1.2nm. So they look about the right size. :)

Re:Intel dominates in 1 out of 8 tests?

[Carewolf]

But the Intel processors doesn't dominate the test. They just _barely_ win it (5% faster).

The single thread tests and gaming tests are won by AMD by a huge margin (25%-100%). In most of the multithread test the Intel processor just barely keeps up. This seems to all lead to the same conclusion: AMD has a faster basic design, but Intel has HyperThreading and when HT is suitable they cancel eachother out.