Best/energy efficient CPU/Chipset/Motherboard for 64bit Fedora?

James Wilkinson fedora at westexe.demon.co.uk
Mon Jan 2 18:20:13 UTC 2006


dondi_2006 wrote:
> thanks to all who quickly answered my question about 64 bit Fedora.
> If, as you explained, the only thing missing now is Flash support and
> there are no kernel/drivers issues of any kind, I guess it's OK for me.

Should be the case, unless you get some weird hardware without an open
source driver. You say no games, which means you don't need hardware 3D
acceleration.

If you find you do need 32 bit user-space stuff, you should be able to
install and run it on a 64 bit system, although you might end up
installing a *lot* of 32 bit libraries. Yum is good at sorting this out.

Tip: have a set of 32 bit libraries that are normally disabled. Use the
--enablerepo= flag to enable the ones you want when you're installing
(and upgrading, if the programs are security-related, like web
browsers). 

> I had initially thought to Pentium M for the case below, but looks like
> some AMD 64 bit chip with the right chipset would be equally good or
> better (just tell me if I'm wrong).

To the best of my knowledge (and
http://www.intel.com/products/processor_number/proc_info_table062705.pdf
) the Pentium M doesn't support 64 bit mode (yet).

> As said in previous message, I will need this box for heavy openoffice
> stuff, web browsing, email
Thus far, practically any CPU will do the job.

> plus lots of software compiling and video editing (no gaming).
Depending on what you're doing, you may find AMD's architecture is
better at complex stuff like compiling, while Intel's Pentium 4 is
better at highly repetitive stuff like encoding and decoding video.

But you should take a look at the web sites of the programs you plan to
use, and see if there's any advice there. Try Google, too.

Note that compiling does and video editing can benefit a lot from
multiple cores. You should investigate this.

> And it's very important to have it always silent,
> and using as little energy as possible when not in interactive use.

Here AMD's Athlon 64 wins out a lot over Intel's design. Make sure that
the motherboard supports Cool'n'Quiet, and has fan speed controls.
Fedora will support Cool'n'Quiet automatically, and slow the CPU down to
1 GHz when it isn't being thrashed, and drop the voltage at the same
time.

I have before now left my Athlon 64 running in a cold house with several
fans running, and come back to find that the system has automatically
*stopped* the CPU fan. It was that cool. (On my board, there's a fan
speed control in the BIOS: I haven't set anything up in Fedora).

Unfortunately, my particular system isn't that quiet, so I can't make
many comments on reducing noise. And the motherboard wouldn't fit the
case.

> * MicroAtx (bigger cases would simply not fit in my current space :-( )
> * 100% Fedora Linux/FOSS compatible (BIOS included?)
I haven't played with the LinuxBIOS project, and
http://linuxbios.org/index.php/Supported_Motherboards doesn't throw up
many suitable motherboards (and I think they're all ATX or larger).

At least my Asus NF4 motherboard seems to support everything with Open
Source software. Everything I need, anyway.

> * lowest possible power consumption

> * balanced system, that is compensate for not using the fastest possible
>   CPU with faster chipset, ram, drives 
Chipset performance is mainly due to the memory controller, which on an
Athlon64 is built-in: there's only the one option.

Presumably buying faster RAM and a hard disk with more on-board cache
will have some benefit on performance. I haven't seen any independent
figures, and doubt that the results would be particularly noticeable.

> * possibility to lower clock frequency and/or suspend (SATA) drives when 
>   nothing heavy is going on, or for regulating fan speed according to
>   temperature
> * on board audio and video (DVI output would be nice, but not necessary)
On board audio is standard these days.

If you were looking at an Intel chipset, there are plenty with on-board
video. There are starting to be a lot of options for AMD, too, but the
chipsets are new. You may find that considering a cheap add-on graphics
card gives you more options.

> * at least 2 GB of RAM (which type is best?)
For AMD, you're looking at DDR. I'd be tempted to get a good brand,
*possibly* with ECC if the motherboard supports it, and not worry too
much about ultra-fast timings (I suspect you'd get higher energy
consumption without much extra performance).

Hope this helps,

James (on Athlon 64).
-- 
E-mail address: james | "Minis on the other hand are just the wrong size. Too
@westexe.demon.co.uk  | small to work on directly and too large to put
                      | upside down on the workbench."
                      |     -- stevo at madcelt.org




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