DDR or DDR2

[Bryan J. Smith]

Mohamad Al-Saqer <msaqer at iastate.edu> wrote:
> Hello all I am considering to upgrade my computer (which is a
> 754 athlon 64 3700+ and a k8v motherboard) to an amd 64 939
> platforms, and I would like to know which direction shall I
> take.
> which of nforce[3,4] and via chipsets for fedora 64 bit is
> best supported?

ViA has had a nasty and continual habit of changing their peripheral
logic on a regular basis.  This especially includes the ATA
controllers.

Although early nVidia chipsets had the associated peripheral support
issues, any kernel 2.4.23+ (or backports in newer RHEL3 update
releases of kernel 2.4.21) or 2.6.5+ should do just fine.

The only issue I've recently run into was limited to the nVidia
C51/NV44 (GeForce 61x0 + nForce 4x0) as I noted in the following blog
posting, but seems to have been cleared up with a kernel update:  
http://thebs413.blogspot.com/2005/12/linux-on-nvidia-c51nv44-nforce.html

Otherwise, the nForce platform drivers add the nvnet and nvsound
modules.
http://www.nvidia.com/object/linux_nforce_amd64_1.0-0310.html

The nvnet driver is provided for older kernels.  The GPL equivalent,
which nVidia actively works on, is forcedeth.  It should support even
GbE models well in 2.4.23+/2.6.5+, although I had to upgrade to
2.6.12+ for C51/nF4x0.  The nvsound OSS module is for pre-ALSA
setups.  Either use ALSA's AC'97 or upgrade or use a kernel 2.6
distro with ALSA if you don't want to use it.

> My main use of this computer will be computations that
> sometimes require large memory, simulations

Consider Opteron then.  The Socket-939 Opteron 165 or 175 are great
products and tested to 24x7 operation, such as with multi-day (or
week) simulations.

> and also graphics.

nVidia GeForce 7800GTX products are stable and probably the highest
performing _general_ card.  If you have more complex objects than
typical multimedia, entertainment and entry-level CAD, there are
better options for 4-5x the cost.

If you want to save a few hundred, the 7800GT is the best bang for
the buck right now.

BTW, the latest nVidia ForceWare 80 are available for Linux and have
SLI support.
http://www.nvidia.com/object/linux_display_amd64_1.0-8178.html

But I don't know what professional applications can take advantage of
it.
http://download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86_64/1.0-8178/README/appendix-w.html


-- 
Bryan J. Smith     Professional, Technical Annoyance
b.j.smith at ieee.org      http://thebs413.blogspot.com
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*** Speed doesn't kill, difference in speed does ***