Re: a few simple questions about AMD64 version of Debian
On Sun, Dec 17, 2006 at 11:51:57AM +0000, Michael Fothergill wrote:
> I use the i386 versions of Sarge 3.1r3 and lately Etch RC1.
>
> I thought to buy myself an AMD 64 bit machine.
>
> I want to get a box that can have e.g. 10GB of RAM added to it.
>
> I noticed that some opteron machines exist on the internet with 10GB of RAM
> on them.
>
> Someone said that you need the 940 pin motherboard to be able to add a lot
> of RAM.
>
> But there is an old opteron 940 pin board that is going out of fashion and
> a new AM2 940 pin board coming in....
>
> Can both of these let you add a wad of RAM to them?
>
> How hard is it to install Etch AMD64 on a box relative to an i386 box?
>
> Has OpenOffice been ported to AMD64 yet?
>
> I want to buy myself a box that will last a long time. So if in 5 years
> time you need 5GB of RAM to run gnome and OO properly with the latest
> release of Debian I can take what would be an older box but make use of the
> 64 bit architecture to let me add more RAM than the 32 bit would ever allow
> you to do because of its physical limitations.
Well most modern motherboards for Athlon64 and Core 2 Duo can take 4
DIMMs, of up to 2GB each (if you can find them and afford them). So
that is 8GB ram.
Opterons use (at least on the 2xx and 8xx series, not sure about 1xx
anymore) buffered memory, which allows them to run more than two DIMM
sockets per channel, although at a slight latency penalty. So the
ability to use more ram is to do with the memory controller and the ram
being used on opteron systems. Both cost more than the stuff you would
use on a desktop machine.
Currently the Core 2 Duo chips are what I consider the right thing to
buy, being that they are faster than the AMDs. The Pentium 4/D was
never on my to buy list. The athlon 64 used to be, but now intel
actually seems to have done something right again.
--
Len Sorensen
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