[CentOS] How to select a motherboard -- CPU architectures and chipsets

[Feizhou]

Bryan J. Smith wrote:
> Feizhou <feizhou at graffiti.net> wrote:
> 
>>Well, the OP probably is stuck with a processor capable of
>>frying eggs...which is not possible with your suggestion.
>>My colleagues take their sweaters/warmers off due to the
> 
> Dell
> 
>>cum heater box besides their feet in the office.
> 
> 
> Socket-478/LGA-775 Netburst architecture (Pentium 4) is the
> absolute worst in heat generation, even at 90nm.  They've
> brought it down some with the dual-core solutions, but it's
> still way too high.

Heh, that is exactly what they have.

> 
> Newer Socket-754/939/940 Athlon 3000-3500+ and Opteron "HE"
> (or 150+) only generate 31-55W heat.  Dual-core versions are
> 70-110W.

Still below the 120W+ of the P4.

> 
> The best is the newer, but little known Socket-479 Pentium
> Pro-III architecture (Pentium M), and uses as little as 21W. 
> The 2.0-2.26GHz versions will typically best all but the
> highest clock Pentium 4.  They even offer it with the
> PCIe/DDR2 i915 chipset, although Socket-479 is a major
> mark-up (but far better than it was just a little bit ago).

Yeah, read about it quite a while ago when it knocked out the P4 2.8 
processor.

> 
> 
>>an Intel chipset motherboard seems to be the safest bet.
> 
> 
> Not always.  But for the most part, the new ICH7 peripherals
> on the i9x5 are fairly well supported now.

Thanks to their providing docs.

> 
> Ironically enough, Intel does _not_ make good server
> chipsets, they _never_ have.  The only Intel chipsets for
> servers that are worthy are the E7200/7500 series -- designed
> by ServerWorks (now owned by Broadcom).  The last server
> chipset Intel designed was the NX450 -- well over 5 years
> ago.

Yes, these are the chums in use in the newer boxes I used to admin. I 
loved the 3ware + riser card fiasco though.

> ViA is great for ViA C3/Eden platforms.  They typically lag
> in features, so by the time the leading-edge desktop ViA
> chipsets get peripheral support in Linux, they are adopted by
> the low-power C3/Eden platforms.
> 
> So yes, for desktop, ViA changes their peripheral logic way
> too much.  That keeps the kernel developers adding PCI IDs,
> tracking little variants in their ATA and other logic, etc...
>  ViA has _not_ switched to native HyperTransport on AMD, and
> are still using their VLink PCI-based interconnect.

The problems I have are related to their hardware, not whether there are 
good drivers or not. The poor latencies just won't let me use a Pinnacle 
DC10 board without crashing.

> 
> But ViA has _never_ designed a server chipset either.

Yeah, whatever. Tyan come out with a board for servers based on a VIA 
chipset for Pentium III cpus and so I got to deal with them.

> 
> I was very impressed with nVidia's ability to keep PCI IDs
> and other peripherals consistent from the nForce2/MCP-02
> through the single-chip nForce4 (integrated MCP-04). 
> Unfortunately, that seems to have ended with the new
> nForce4x0/GeForce61x0 (C51/NV44), it uses new PCI IDs and
> other things so you need a recent kernel.
> 
> E.g., FC4's installer 2.6.11 didn't cut it -- the updated
> 2.6.14 did, however.  Although I have to had it to nVidia,
> they at least give you an installable driver set that you can
> do on a minimal install.  I.e., I installed FC4 with kernel
> 2.6.11, installed the nForce platform driver with its "nvnet"
> for 10/100[/1000] NIC, ran yum update, then switched back to
> the GPL "forcedeth" after the reboot into kernel 2.6.14 (did
> not have to re-install the nForce platform drivers).
> 
> 

I cannot wait for a promise by a Nvidia rep about their future chipsets 
using SATA NCP technology that will allow an open source driver to be 
written to be acted on.