[ale] PC specs-AMD chipset

[Ron Frazier]

I run an AMD Phenom II X4 965, with 4 cores, at 3.2 GHz.  It does just 
fine.  I don't do any heavy gaming, simulations, or video, so it spends 
most of it's time idling.  Ubuntu 10.04 has no problem with it.  I THINK 
I could do real time video encoding, but I'm not sure.  If not, it 
wouldn't be much longer than real time.  I've been thinking of making it 
a media server, but haven't gotten around to it.  If you are building it 
yourself, make sure the motherboard can handle the AM3 socket and 145 W 
power dissipation (I think).  Make sure your power supply is beefy 
enough.  I don't have any new Intel chips to compare to.  A great 
resource for learning about computer hardware is the This Week In 
Computer Hardware podcast at http://www.twit.tv/twich .  The latest 
episode, # 106, is called try AMD.  Sounds promising, but I haven't 
heard it yet.  If you do run all the cores maxed out all the time, 
expect to add about $ 10 / month to your electric bill.  Not Earth 
shaking, but not insignificant.

Note, the max temperature of each CPU chip is different.  Many Intel 
laptop chips can take over 100 degrees C.  However, the AMD Phenom II X4 
965 can only take 62 degrees C.  I was really surprised by that.  The X6 
may be the same.  If that's the case, my experience is that the supplied 
air cooler cannot cool the chip adequately if you're maxing out all the 
cores for a period of time.  I had to go to liquid cooling on mine.  
Trust me, it's MUCH easier to make this decision up front.  I almost 
destroyed the pins on the CPU trying to extract it from the motherboard 
after first installing the air cooler, then changing my mind.

The Corsair H70 liquid cooling unit is a nice device which has two big 
radiator fans, a liquid radiator, and a pump / heat sink unit that fits 
over the CPU.  It comes pre sealed with liquid.  With this, my X4 never 
gets above about 50 degrees C under load, and idles at close to ambient 
temp.  If you get one of these, there is a power plug for the pump, and 
one for the fans.  It's important to plug the pump into  a SYSTEM FAN 
port on the motherboard, and set the BIOS to run that particular fan 
port at 100% speed at all times.  You don't want the pump slowing down.  
The power cable for the air fans can be plugged into the CPU FAN port.  
It's OK if the system throttles these air fans to lower speed when the 
CPU is not too hot.  I haven't had any problems after several months, 
and I really like it.  My only concern is, that, if the pump fails, the 
CPU would overheat rapidly and I might not know it.  However, the stock 
air cooler was totally inadequate to keep this unit cool.

Sincerely,

Ron

On 02/11/2011 09:57 AM, Paul Cartwright wrote:
> I am thinking about getting a new desktop.. does anyone know much about
> the AMD chip:
> AMD Phenom™ II X6 1075T + ATI Radeon HD 5670 1GB
>
> any better/worse than Intel I5 ( I3...whatever..) I've never run an AMD chip
>
>    

-- 

(PS - If you email me and don't get a quick response, you might want to
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mailing lists and such.  I don't always see new messages very quickly.)

Ron Frazier

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