[plug] DFI Motherboards - Sound

[Bernd Felsche]

Leon Brooks <leon at cyberknights.com.au> writes:
>On Wednesday 12 October 2005 08:55, Bernd Felsche wrote:

>> For a file/database server, it's usually more effective to add more
>> memory and hard discs (and channels) than to add another processor.
>> When you run out of processor (i.e. it spends more than about 25% to
>> 30% of it's time in IO processing), you upgrade the processor.

>Agree.

A long time ago (hah; about 3 years) I was asked to tune a server
(HP Iron) running a database application... it had 14 drives but
only 4 of them were doing most of the work. After a lot of fiddling
and working 36 out of the 48 hours of a weekend, the IO became
nicely balanced. The result was that it's the first database server
that I've had in front of me in 15 year that lacked the number
crunching power to keep the drives busy.

>The machines I've just assembled are happy to have the AMD64/3000 ripped 
>out and an AMD64/4400-X2 dropped in place. Which needless to say makes 
>a _substantial_ difference to the available horsepower. Think of 
>upgrading a dinky old 186 ("red motor") XA Ford to a 351 Shaker with 
>one change and no shattered drivetrain components. However, I would be 
>surprised if they ever sustained 5% CPU useage as-is.

With sufficient RAM, you can set up a very nice LTSP-based network
with one of them.

>I'm surprised at how cheap the Opterons themselves have become, at ~$300 
>a CPU to drop into an ~$800 Tyan board alongside ECC ram at ~$500/GB.

Indeed. An $800 Tyan board btw usually provides 2 U320 SCSI
channels. They are very nice as well; but getting cabling to sustain
that is an issue.
-- 
/"\ Bernd Felsche - Innovative Reckoning, Perth, Western Australia
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