<html><body><div style="color:#000; background-color:#fff; font-family:times new roman, new york, times, serif;font-size:12pt"><div style="font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 12pt; "><span>If you've heard me before, I'm sure you know that I brag about still using a P4 2.8 with 1.5 GB RAM as my main desktop. and a PII 400 as a play server.</span></div><div style="font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 12pt; "><span><br></span></div><div style="font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 12pt; "><span>Well, after 7 years of using the same computer, it seems that it is time to get a new home desktop computer and turn this one to my play server.</span></div><div style="font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 12pt; "><span><br></span></div><div style="font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 12pt; ">The box is still
OK for normal stuff, but not for virtualization or video editing which is becoming annoying.</div><div style="font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 12pt; "><br></div><div style="font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 12pt; ">So here are my requirements:</div><div style="font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 12pt; ">- Should last many years (5 or more by swapping components)</div><div style="font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 12pt; ">- I will reuse all the components that I can (Tower, monitor, HDD, DVD, etc)</div><div style="font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 12pt; ">- With two kids in University I want to keep it on a tight budget (< $500) so I don't want to pay for 1st generation stuff.</div><div style="font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 12pt; ">- It should
run Linux smoothly as that's the only OS I run here.</div><div style="font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 12pt; "><br></div><div style="font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 12pt; ">I looked around and found the following components at Canada Computers. </div><div style="font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 12pt; ">Do you have any opinion on them or alternative recommendations?</div><div style="font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 12pt; ">Are there any obvious pitfalls with these choices? If so, what are the alternatives?</div><div style="font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 12pt; "><br></div><div><div>$189 - AMD Phenom II X6 1100T Black Edition (125W) Six Core Socket AM3, 3.3GHz, 9Mb Cache, 2000MHz HT, 45nm (HDE00ZFBGRBOX)</div><div><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html;
charset=utf-8"><a href="http://canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=4_64&item_id=035429">http://canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=4_64&item_id=035429</a><br></div><div>$119 - Asus M5A88-V EVO Socket AM3+ AMD 880G/SB850 Chipset Dual Channel DDR3 2000(O.C.)/1866/1800/1600/1333/1066 MHz 2x PCI Express 2.0 Slots 8-Channel HD Audio GigaLAN 5x SATA 6Gb/s 1 x UltraDMA 2x USB 3.0 12x USB 2.0 DVI/VGA/HDMI ATX</div><div><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><a href="http://canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=26_335&item_id=039784">http://canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=26_335&item_id=039784</a><br></div><div>$100 - 2 x OCZ (OCZ3G1333LV8GK) DDR3 PC3-10666 1333MHz Gold Edition 8GB (2 x 4GB) Kit </div><div><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><a
href="http://canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=24_311_312_611&item_id=030963">http://canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=24_311_312_611&item_id=030963</a><br></div><div>$50 - OCZ StealthXStream 2 Ultra-Quiet 500W Power Supply (OCZ500SXS2)</div><div><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><a href="http://canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=33_442&item_id=031110">http://canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=33_442&item_id=031110</a><br></div><div><br></div></div><div style="font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 12pt; "> </div><div style="font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 12pt; ">The reasons for these choices are:</div><div style="font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 12pt; ">- Equivalent Intel i5 or i7 processors and Motherboards are more expensive (+ 50%). Plus they keep changing
the socket, which reduces the chances for future CPU upgrades.</div><div style="font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 12pt; ">- The socket is AM3+ which, I think, should last for at least another generation of AMD CPUs, probably two more</div><div style="font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 12pt; ">- Given that virtualization is part of the purpose of the upgrade, more cores and more memory will allow more VMs to happily run concurrently</div><div style="font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 12pt; ">- I don't game on the PC so on-board displays have usually sufficed. Is that still an accurate perception?</div><div style="font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 12pt; ">- The on-board video (<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 17px;
-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; "> ATI Radeon - HD 4250 GPU)</span> seems to be supported under Linux</div><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><div style="font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 12pt; "><br></div><div style="font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 12pt; ">Raul Suarez<br><br></div><div style="font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 12pt; ">Technology consultant<br>Software, Hardware and Practices<br>_________________<br>Twitter: rarsamx<br>http://rarsa.blogspot.com/ <br>An eclectic collection of random thoughts</div></div></body></html>