Poll: AMD vs Intel

Richard Schollar

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23,707

• Feb 9, 2006

• #1

People,

I'm in the process of building a new PC which won't be used to play games - it will only be used for work-related applications (like Excel, obviously, but also MySQL Databases approaching 100 million records) and for surfing the web.

The poll question is: do I go for an Intel processor or an AMD one?

Richard

 

NateO

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9,700

• Feb 9, 2006

• #2

Get lots and lots of RAM, too.

Faster/smarter RAM? Even (much) better:

http://www.karbosguide.com/hardware/module2e5.htm

Mmm, DDR RAM...

http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=1115

Using Spreadsheets and DBs? Don't skimp on RAM.

 

Richard Schollar

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• Feb 9, 2006

• #3

Nate

Planning on 2Gb of DDR2 - any more than that is 1) Getting expensive and 2) Potentially not going to speed things up much as the load on the processor to manage the RAM increases.

This is fairly hypothetical at the moment: I am going to build the computer, but whether I *will* actually have 100 million record databases is not certain. 'Course, I need plenty of space to store the roast parsnip recipes so....

Thanks for taking an interest

Richard

 

Andrew Fergus

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• Feb 9, 2006

• #4

My vote for the Pentium shows my bias but I can't speak highly enough about the Intel hyper-threading (HT) processors. They are brilliant for multi-tasking, especially if you are trying to process a large query and still use your PC at the same time....
Just my opinion and good luck!
A

 

Richard Schollar

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• Feb 10, 2006

• #5

Thanks Andrew - I was leaning towards a 630 ('cos it's fairly cheap) - info such as you have provided is exactly what I'm after

Richard

 

Richard Schollar

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• Feb 15, 2006

• #6

True to form, I have changed my mind, and am now set on getting an Intel Pentium D 920 Dual Core - it isn't that much more expensive, and I think the dual core will come in handy in running multiple databases/instances of excel at the same time. Thank you to all of you that took the time to read/reply! I am going with Nate's suggestion of loadsa RAM too...

Richard

 

Andrew Fergus

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• Feb 16, 2006

• #7

Hi Richard
Assuming you are using Windows, once you have loaded loads of RAM (DDR preferably, and in matched pairs to get the benefits of dual core) then set your virtual memory setting to somewhere between 2 to 3 times the size of your RAM. Set the min and max options to the same value for best performance.
Andrew

 

Richard Schollar

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• Feb 16, 2006

• #8

Cheers Andrew - I shall bear it in mind when i eventually get the Beast built :wink:

Richard

 

Scott Huish

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• Feb 19, 2006

• #9

In the computer I'm using now, I got the AMD ATH64 X2 3800 Dual Core
with 1 GB (2 512MB) sticks of DDR400 RAM and I'm very happy with it.

 

XLGibbs

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• Feb 19, 2006

• #10

With Databases that large it would be wise to have two drives in terms of efficiency with that many records.

Separating the actual mdb files from the log files and tempdbs, and structuring the data prudently makes a big difference on performance. I do deal with 100 million records at my job, and query performance speed improved by 80% by addig another RAID+1 array...(although that is for the server.).

With respect to the obvious, if data is being read from one drive, and written to the other, you reach more optimal performance overall to the database performance

I have no thoughts on processor, but concur with the opinion that lots of RAM is essential.