<div dir="ltr"><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Dec 15, 2010 at 6:06 PM, geoffrey mendelson <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:geoffreymendelson@gmail.com">geoffreymendelson@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><br>
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There are plenty of them around. No one wants them because you can buy a new computer with 1g of DDR2 or DDR3 RAM for less money than 1g alone of DDR(1) RAM.</blockquote><div><br>Exactly.<br> <br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
There are two different Intel Graphics chip sets. I don't know which is which, but a quick search should answer the question. The earlier ones are chips that Intel bought a license to manufacture. They are not very good in general and have closed source drivers. This makes them OK for Windows, a problem for Linux. The second are the newer ones Intel designed and builds.<br>
</blockquote><div><br>Well, i5-650 is supposed to be a member of the Clarkdale family, and its little brother (i3-530) was reviewed, e.g., here<br><br><a href="http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=NzkwOA">http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=NzkwOA</a><br>
<br>- driver problems reported, GPU hangs, etc. But the date is Jan 22, 2010 - maybe there has been driver progress in the last 11 months?<br><br>Intel's support/download page does not say a word about Linux - there are drivers for every Windows in the Galaxy, but there don't seem to be any proprietary Intel HD Linux drivers.<br>
<br>Oron, can you comment? ;-)<br><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
As for buying an I5 processor, there are newer I3's with similar performance (for example 3gHz instead of 3.6gHz) for a lot less money.<br></blockquote><div><br>Indeed, i3-540 3.06GHz is ILS505, while i5-650 3.20GHz is ILS815 at KSP. From what I see, the latter has VT-d that I may want to play with (or maybe not) that comes with Intel TXT ("trusted execution technology"), unfortunately, and Turbo Boost Frequency that sounds nice to have.<br>
<br>Various benchmarks that I saw (lies, damned lies, statistics, and benchmarks) seem to indicate a difference in overall performance, but not all that much.<br><br>Thanks for pointing this out.<br> <br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
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As for realtek, they tend to have cheap chips, which generallty work well. If you are concerend about support, check the exact model number of the chip as they keep changing them and the linux drivers do not always "keep up".<br>
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When you buy a mobo make sure you are getting one that supports full 64 bit addressing.</blockquote><div><br>The H55 chipset seems OK in this respect - <a href="http://www.intel.com/Assets/PDF/datasheet/322169.pdf">http://www.intel.com/Assets/PDF/datasheet/322169.pdf</a><br>
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Be warned that most of the current production really cheap (around 600 NIS) LCD screens only have VGA ports. </blockquote><div><br>My LCD has a DVI port, but I never bothered to get a cable.<br> <br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
There are not a lot of things that run on Linux that use the extra acceleration in expensive graphic cards, on the other hand if you are also going to run Windows on it</blockquote><div><br>Not unless it is in a VM for some as yet unidentified specific purpose.<br>
<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"> (see my other comment below) and play high end games (Fallout New Vegas anyone?) you will need an extra "hot" graphics card. </blockquote>
<div><br>No, I did say games were out of scope.<br><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
If you plan on running Windows on it, then IMHO you should buy a name brand such as HP, Packard Bell, etc. The difference in cost between them and a roll-your-own system is about the cost of a Windows license. If you do not plan on running Windows on it, it pays IMHO to buy a "local" company's product, e.g. Ivory or KSP and avoid the extra cost.<br>
</blockquote><div><br>No Windows or Mac OSX, so I'll stick to KSP or Ivory who seem to have competitive prices. Besides, I don't like HP for various reasons, and I wouldn't touch PB (they still exist?!) with a ten foot pole. ;-)<br>
<br></div>Thanks, Geoff,<br clear="all"></div><br>-- <br>Oleg Goldshmidt | <a href="mailto:pub@goldshmidt.org">pub@goldshmidt.org</a><br>
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