From owner-freebsd-hardware@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Jan 1 03:08:31 2007 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [69.147.83.52]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8B40216A407 for ; Mon, 1 Jan 2007 03:08:31 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from soralx@cydem.org) Received: from cydem.org (S0106000103ce4c9c.vc.shawcable.net [24.87.27.3]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 713E513C428 for ; Mon, 1 Jan 2007 03:08:31 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from soralx@cydem.org) Received: from soralx.cydem.org (unknown [192.168.0.249]) by cydem.org (Postfix/FreeBSD) with ESMTP id 4652790770; Sun, 31 Dec 2006 18:48:19 -0800 (PST) Date: Sun, 31 Dec 2006 18:48:16 -0800 From: To: Message-ID: <20061231184816.4537b90a@soralx.cydem.org> In-Reply-To: <20070101013845.GK45526@turion.vk2pj.dyndns.org> References: <20061231105852.59380@caamora.com.au> <20070101013845.GK45526@turion.vk2pj.dyndns.org> X-Mailer: Claws Mail 2.6.1 (GTK+ 2.10.6; i386-portbld-freebsd5.4) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: jlm@caamora.com.au, freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org Subject: Re: some advice please --- amd semperon v opteron for dns/mail/nfs freebsd server X-BeenThere: freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: General discussion of FreeBSD hardware List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 01 Jan 2007 03:08:31 -0000 My hat off to all, may you have a pleasant New Year. On Mon, 1 Jan 2007 12:38:45 +1100 Peter Jeremy wrote: > >my only difficulty is that i do not understand what are the > >differences between the two amd offerings, that is between teh > >opteron and teh semperon .. > > Basically, the Sempron is the low-end "desktop" processor and the > Opteron is the high-end "server" processor (similar to the Intel > Celeron vs Xeon naming). Note that not all Sempron's support amd64 More precisely, Sempron is a castrated version of the regular Athlon64: smaller cache, and also they tend to be in the bottom end of FSB frequency and multiplier, I believe. Note that there are 3 generations of Sempron: socket A (never 64-bit), then Sockets 754 (later, ~ 1 year old, steppings are 64-bit) and [obscure] 939, and now Socket AM2 (all AMD64; technically, these are still an K8 generation, yet worth mentioning separately). What I'd recommend is either to get a full-blown Opteron or regular Athlon64 (for performance, if finances permit), or better wait a little until AMD release more energy efficient Semprons (65nm process?). The latter would definitely be the option to my linking if CPU performance is not of big importance. Definitely consider recent SCSI: very reliable (both the interface and hard drives), and FreeBSD is quite happy and error-tolerant with the interface (at least when using certain host bus adapters). Crazy fast, too -- handy for mail and file servers. I have no experience with SATA myself, but from what I know, seems like a good option: cheap (to make a mirrored array at small cost) and usually reliable. [SorAlx] ridin' VN1500-B2