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dada1958
February 26th, 2007, 10:26 PM
I've had Macs since 1993, my first was an LC II and the last an iMac G4, I always liked them but in September 2005 I tried Ubuntu because I needed something different because I was getting sick and tired of the ratrace of getting the newest and expensive 'upgrades', dictated by Apple, Adobe and other companies. It was then when I bought my first Intel chipped PC, a second hand Compaq Deskpro PIII @ 1 GHz, which I'm still using. I put a DVD-writer and a bigger HD in it as well as a sound and a video card. It has become my primary machine, the Creative stuff sounds better than the Harmon Kardon speakers that came with the G4 iMac. I'm really enjoying my digital lifestyle with Ubuntu Linux.
This PIII is still performing amazingly well during every day usage but it's really ugly and when I'm compiling stuff I can see that the CPU is obsolete, so is USB 1.1 when I transfer podcasts to my Zen V. So I decided that it's time to get a new, non Apple, PC, with Ubuntu Linux of course, much has been improved since Hoary. My new system is going to be simple, I'm not a gamer, though I like to play with LaTeX and the Gimp:

Asrock AM2NF3-VSTA MoBo
AMD CPU Athlon 64 X2 3800+ 65 Watt 2.0 GHz, 1000 MHz, 2x 512kB L2, Boxed
Corsair TWIN2X 1024-5400C4 1024 MB, PC5400, 675 MHz, 4, kit of 2
Antec NSK4400 case with 380 watt PSU

I'm still content with my Geforce 5200, SB Audigy 2 SE and my 80 GB WD HD so I can reduce the costs substantially. Building it myself and fiddling with the 64-bit Ubuntu will be a new challenge.
Wow! :lolflag:

~LoKe
February 26th, 2007, 10:28 PM
Any reason for choosing AMD over Intel?

dada1958
February 26th, 2007, 10:31 PM
Any reason for choosing AMD over Intel?
Yep, I'm not Steve Jobs and the price of course :)

~LoKe
February 26th, 2007, 10:41 PM
Yep, I'm not Steve Jobs and the price of course :)

What does Steve Jobs have to do with Intel? The Core 2 Duo is the best bang for the buck in terms of upgrading at this point in time. I hate to say this, but it's a waste of money to go with an AMD processor at this point.

But hey, if it's enough for you and you don't think you'll need to upgrade in the near future, good for you.

dada1958
February 26th, 2007, 10:59 PM
What does Steve Jobs have to do with Intel? The Core 2 Duo is the best bang for the buck in terms of upgrading at this point in time. I hate to say this, but it's a waste of money to go with an AMD processor at this point.

But hey, if it's enough for you and you don't think you'll need to upgrade in the near future, good for you.

I know that Intel's Core 2 Duo is better but sometimes human minds can act very irrational :oops:

weatherman
February 26th, 2007, 11:10 PM
What does Steve Jobs have to do with Intel? The Core 2 Duo is the best bang for the buck in terms of upgrading at this point in time. I hate to say this, but it's a waste of money to go with an AMD processor at this point.

But hey, if it's enough for you and you don't think you'll need to upgrade in the near future, good for you.
on my last pc I put an amd, it was simply the cheapest thing around and I really don't care about high-performance.

maniacmusician
February 26th, 2007, 11:11 PM
That's not a bad system. I would have gone with Intel as well, but it's cool to go on principle instead of rationally :)

I'm actually building a system too. Intel based, core 2 duo e6600. I have all the parts, except for the case! they screwed up on the shipping and now it's expected to be here on Wednesday. [sigh] now I have to wait.

At least you're aware that 64-bit Ubuntu will be a pain :) I'm not touching that with a ten-foot pole.

Oh, and you may also want to purchase another hard drive. Look for a SATA II hard drive (also known as SATA 3.0Gb/s). You can get very big SATA hard drives at very good prices. Cheaper than you'd think. Check it out.

dada1958
February 27th, 2007, 12:16 AM
That's not a bad system. I would have gone with Intel as well, but it's cool to go on principle instead of rationally :)

I'm actually building a system too. Intel based, core 2 duo e6600. I have all the parts, except for the case! they screwed up on the shipping and now it's expected to be here on Wednesday. [sigh] now I have to wait.

At least you're aware that 64-bit Ubuntu will be a pain :) I'm not touching that with a ten-foot pole.

Oh, and you may also want to purchase another hard drive. Look for a SATA II hard drive (also known as SATA 3.0Gb/s). You can get very big SATA hard drives at very good prices. Cheaper than you'd think. Check it out.
There will be room for such a drive, I'll check them out. Fiddling with and experience pain are two different things and I feel confident in this community so I go for it. My choice for AMD is a kind of statement yeah ...

Sammi
February 27th, 2007, 12:47 AM
Yeah large hard drives, 200 GB or more, are cheap and useful.

I can personally vouch for SB Audigy 2 and Nvidia Geforce as very Ubuntu compatible and capable in performance and functionality.

I also find that 2 GB's of RAM give a really good performance boost as opposed to only one. But this is a place where it's easy to upgrade, so it's not so important to buy loads right now. It can wait till programs get more bloated :D

~LoKe
February 27th, 2007, 02:59 AM
My choice for AMD is a kind of statement yeah ...

In which sense? Intel is making great steps to support Linux, while AMD is still not giving a **** with their support (not in regards to their processors, but rather their video cards made by ATi).

P_Badger
February 27th, 2007, 04:32 AM
In which sense? Intel is making great steps to support Linux, while AMD is still not giving a **** with their support (not in regards to their processors, but rather their video cards made by ATi).

I prefer AMD over intel for the same reason I prefer Linux over windows. Intel is the great Satan of the processor world.

See, I can be an irrational fanboy, too.

maniacmusician
February 27th, 2007, 04:35 AM
In which sense? Intel is making great steps to support Linux, while AMD is still not giving a **** with their support (not in regards to their processors, but rather their video cards made by ATi).

That's not really a fair statement to make since AMD's aqcuisition of ATI is relatively recent. We don't know what they're going to do about Linux yet


I prefer AMD over intel for the same reason I prefer Linux over windows. Intel is the great Satan of the processor world.

See, I can be an irrational fanboy, too.

That's not a fair statement either. He's just making a statement he thinks is correct. It has nothing to do with fanboyism. I personally just prefer whoever is making the best damn processors. A few years ago, that was AMD. Now it's Intel. Might shift again in another few years. Who knows.

~LoKe
February 27th, 2007, 04:54 AM
Some people just don't understand.

Before the Core 2 Duo, I was an AMD fanboy. I had an AMD based system all ready to be ordered. I wanted to support the underdog. But guess what? I found the Core 2 Duo. For a little more, I was safe knowing that I wouldn't need to upgrade any time soon. And if I decided to, I could upgrade to one of the higher end Core 2 processors. They use the same standard socket (LGA 775) as most of their other processors. This means that I can confidently say that their new processors to be released will use the same socket, so I don't need to replace my motherboard later down the road.

AMD, on the other hand, flips sockets like it's a game. 754 (dead tech), 939(dead tech), AM2, etc. Where's the reliability? When the time comes to upgrade, do I need to ditch my 939 board because AMD has decided not to develop a new processor for it?

No, I'm not a fanboy anymore. I chose Intel because overall, the value was there. Less power usage, less heat production, higher overclocking capabilities, room for upgrades, performance, reliability, so on.

And since when is Intel "evil"? I never understood the hate for Windows as much, either, but Intel is nowhere near that point. Just because they have better technology and are an industry leader does not make them "evil". They're just the better company.

Take it for what it's worth. I don't really care if you want to waste your money.

dada1958
February 27th, 2007, 09:12 AM
In which sense? Intel is making great steps to support Linux, while AMD is still not giving a **** with their support (not in regards to their processors, but rather their video cards made by ATi).
So I'll stick to Nvidia for a while ... I mentioned the price tag before and I think competition isn't a bad thing in this branch. This CPU suits me very well for what I'm doing: LaTeX, image editing, surfing the web, reading and anticipating in forums, Usenet, managing podcasts, ripping/encoding music, chatting with my girl friend, maintaining my web server etcetera.
My statement is that you can have a decent PC for not too much money, I work for people with a mental retardation, I give computer courses and they love them. My clients budget is very limited and I want to offer them the possibility to compute safely for an affordable price tag. They live in a Windows orientated environment where the management is caught by MS with their 'study trips' to Seattle and 'early adopter rebates.'
So I'm promoting Ubuntu Linux, you don't have to spend small fortunes for 'security solutions'. It can be done without MS and even better because there are alternatives that do a better job without wasting money.

P_Badger
February 27th, 2007, 02:04 PM
That's not a fair statement either. He's just making a statement he thinks is correct.

Oh, that's all fine and dandy, it just raises my hackles when fanboys keep going ON and ON about it, and especially in the same thread, to boot.

eriqk
February 27th, 2007, 02:41 PM
If you still have that iMac kicking around somewhere, try and install Ubuntu (and I mean the regular Edgy, no Xubuntu or whatever) on it. You'll be surprised at the speed. It's even snappy-ish on a g3/500/192MB iMac.
Makes me wonder what those Apple guys are doing.

Groet, Erik

Brynster
February 27th, 2007, 03:04 PM
being a Intel Core 2 Duo fan is great, but expensive. Me personally would love one but living in my world of mortgage, bills, etc i cannot afford one the basic e6300 in the UK on avarage is twice the price of the AMD athlon x2 64. 3800. SO when i upgrade i cannot fiscally justify to my wife spending double on jus the CPU not when i will have to bite the bullet and replace

CPU
Motherboard
Ram
Vidoe card.

And still feed my wife and kids.

EdThaSlayer
February 27th, 2007, 03:06 PM
I have a AMD laptop and a Intel desktop. Intel seems to be ahead now, I do agree that Intel is a bit bossy threatening companies to not give AMD a shot(I think that was a long time ago since Intel is sold alongside AMD now).

maniacmusician
February 27th, 2007, 04:13 PM
being a Intel Core 2 Duo fan is great, but expensive. Me personally would love one but living in my world of mortgage, bills, etc i cannot afford one the basic e6300 in the UK on avarage is twice the price of the AMD athlon x2 64. 3800. SO when i upgrade i cannot fiscally justify to my wife spending double on jus the CPU not when i will have to bite the bullet and replace

CPU
Motherboard
Ram
Vidoe card.

And still feed my wife and kids.
sure, I totally agree with you. I bought a Core 2 Duo because 1.) It's been a long time since I had a modern, fast computer and 2.) Because I could afford it. I'm also a bit of a geek. I can't wait to be able to play with some new hardware.

The bottom line is, at this moment, most people don't need something like a Core 2 Duo. It's out of their price range and it wouldn't necessarily give them something they can't live without.

dada1958
February 28th, 2007, 10:22 AM
If you still have that iMac kicking around somewhere, try and install Ubuntu (and I mean the regular Edgy, no Xubuntu or whatever) on it. You'll be surprised at the speed. It's even snappy-ish on a g3/500/192MB iMac.
Makes me wonder what those Apple guys are doing.

Groet, Erik
I started my Ubuntu journey on that iMac that is still somewhere, dual boot. In the days of Hoary the the PPC kernel lacked some things that were supported by the i386 one, so I got that ugly Compaq. The iMac's HD has one partition, I don't like the idea of reformatting it again to reinstall Mac OS X and apps again (registration numbers of my licences). Besides I'm spoiled with a bigger monitor and the AMD stuff is already ordered :)

slayerboy
February 28th, 2007, 10:46 AM
back in the old days, AMD vs Intel was all about speed. AMD was consistently producing higher performance chips than Intel could dream of at competitive price point. Also, Intel Celerons used to be horrible chips compared to AMD Athlons.

I love AMD for that reason. Rather, loved. Now Intel is beating AMD in the performance, and I think AMD is a little lacking in their R&D as it would seem. Intel has greatly improved the Celeron lineup, and has made great strides with their chip speeds.

My next computer is going to have whatever is cheapest. I'd prefer AMD, because I'd still like to believe they might be better quality, but if I can find an Intel cheaper I will. Also, when AMD purchased ATI, I lost a lot of respect for them. I'm and NVidia guy, as they support open source a lot better than ATI, I was hoping that would change when AMD bought them out, but I guess not.