Where can I get a powerful computer?

[cascade9]

Most motherboards support RAID, Redundant Array of Inexpensive Drives or something.

If you buy 2 cheap drives, you can get better speed by running them in RAID 0 which switches between drives to reduce read and write times

Best bang for the buck if you're looking for speed and drivespace is running two 500GB drives ($45 each) as RAID 0. It will act like a 1TB drive but is far faster.

Faster, but for the OP- be warned, if one drive goes bad in a RAID 0 setup, ALL data is lost.

King of the Hill for normal single CPU desktops is the Intel i7 980X?

But the CPU alone is $1000+

You can get 80% the performance by using an AMD 6 core that is $300.
Or 70% of the performance by using a AMD 4 core that is $150.

For discount builds, the AMD rules the roost. For max performance, Intel. A $150 AMD chip will surpass a $150 Intel chip by a large margin.

If you are limited to $1000 for the entire build, you'll want the AMD Phenom II X6 3.2ghz? ($299) You will need a motherboard that is new, as some of the older ones won't go past 4 cores.

You can overclock them as well. Most new mobos support overclocking.

+1. Intel has got the fastest CPU around now, but for price/performance, AMD is king.

some of the amd x2cores can be unlocked to 4cores. You might wanna do some research on that.

Not just the X2s.

Sempron- 'unlocks' to an Athon II X2.
Phenom II X2 + X3- unlocks to X4.
Rumour is that AMD is going to release newer X4 chips that will unlock to X6, but AFAIK they arent out yet.

Athlon X2 and X4 chips have no 'extra' cores to be unlocked.

[RJARRRPCGP]

For discount builds, the AMD rules the roost. For max performance, Intel. A $150 AMD chip will surpass a $150 Intel chip by a large margin.

So it's still like the T'bred and Barton days?

[McRat]

So it's still like the T'bred and Barton days?

I'm just recently getting back into Clone building. But back when I used to build my own machines, the Intels had a huge margin in the top end of the market. The difference in performance appears to be shrinking, but the pricing difference is still there. When the first true "hotrod" CPU came out (The 80486DX33), it was over $1100 in 1990 money. Why do I think it was the Hotrod? It had the Math Co-Processor built into it, effectively making it the first "dual core" desktop CPU. It was lightyears ahead of a 80386+80387 pair (CPU+MCU) or AMD's 386 clone chip.

I hate to say the I'm rooting for AMD, but without them, I doubt the CPU's of today would be anywhere near what they are. The battle of those two shops has worked out well for the enduser.

[sandyd]

When choosing a processor, should I chose an AMD or Intel? Does one perform better with linux systems? Thanks again!

+ I find amds run much hotter than intel, you might have to grab extra cooling which may make them cost the same.

[cascade9]

+ I find amds run much hotter than intel, you might have to grab extra cooling which may make them cost the same.

LOL. I hear this quite often, sometimes its true, sometimes its not.

I havent had to buy any 'extra cooling' for any of the AMDs I've run in the last few years. Even if you did have to, AMD still rules for price/performance. A decent heatsink is cheap, and so are fans....

BTW, you are aware that the i7 9XX chips actually have a higher TDP than the hottest AMDs?

[chris200x9]

Newegg is good if your building your own machine but not as great if you want a laptop...

I got a aspire 5740G-6979 on there for $750 plus a year to pay, newegg rocks for laptops if you really look

[Groucho Marxist]

... Of course if your willing to shell out a little more System76.com is a good place checkout their "Wild Dog", "Wildebeest", and "Leopard Extreme" Desktop models. They have Ubuntu pre-installed for ya.

I'm typing this message on my Pangolin Performance; I haven't had any compatibility issues and it's ridiculously fast.

[chiliman]

Does anyone have some sort of guide for determining the compatibility of parts when building a PC? I could probably build one, but I want to make sure that all the parts are compatible with each other. Thanks.

you don't really have to worry about that too much if your buying from a manufacture prebuilt.
If you are going to build it yourself. Usually compatibility is determined by the type of motherboard you want, most of the information you need is in the specifications. Most Graphics cards are pci-e 16x slots now, and most newer motherboards have at least one of those slots. You should double check the manufacturers website for a list of supported processors and ram. If the mobo's website dosent say the brand of ram you want to buy is supported then you can check the ram manufactuer website if they have tested it with the board you want. Sometimes you'll have to update the BIOS for the board to properly recognize the processor or support lager amounts of RAM. If your getting a very new board, some of them dont have IDE cable plug built in so you have to get a pci card that will let you plug in a IDE cable if you have a CD drive or HD that needs IDE, or there might be a IDE to SATA adapter if they sell those. Then you should double check the power supply has the proper connectors, mainly, 4 or 8 pin processor power connector, 20 or 24pin motherboard power connector, and if the graphics card needs 1 or 2 of a 6 or 8pin power connection.

[bondo101]

Build it and it will run.