[NBLUG/talk] Intermittent USB failures getting worse; search for new motherboard becomes more urgent (long)

[Sean]

I can address some of your concerns. The RAM usage by KDE and video
card recommendations I'll leave to others. I only use command line,
and as such I only have very basic video cards in my Linux systems.

First, Newegg sells the FX-70 (socket L1 a.k.a. socket F) for $50
cheaper than TigerDirect:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103862

My understanding is that Linux does not really care how many
processors (or cores in this case) a system has. The question is do
you have enough concurrently running processes that require enough CPU
usage to pack in a certain number of cores. I think four 2.8GHz cores
would be quite significant for most every-day servers, let alone a
desktop.

Your question about latency is a good question. It has to do with how
long it takes memory to give up requested data, and has to do with the
number of cycles required to retreive the data. The latency range of
the memory will depend on the architecture of the RAM module. The mobo
you mentioned uses DDR, so the latency will be, on average, higher
than what you were used to with DDR. Of course the latency will vary
between manufacturers. This article may help with the concept of
latency:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAS_Latency

RAM voltage only really comes into play if you wish to overclock your
system. RAM voltage is rather minimal, and the overall system power is
much more influenced by the power eaten by your video card and
processor(s). I haven't done any research into the new AMD quad CPUs,
but the Intel Core Duo supposedly (at least for dual core CPUs)
presented the lowest power consumption per GHz (I think the term used
is "per cycle", but I can't remember or sure). I'll have leave the
details of power consumption to others.

As for VGA vs DVI, DVI ports do supposedly offer better resolution,
but the images appear to be just fine if you use a DVI to VGA adapter.
I don't use HD, so I cannot speak to that possibility. I don't know
how the nVidia driver for Linux handles multi-monitor support, so you
may want to specifically look into that (such as desktop spanning,
stretching, etc.).

I haven't yet done any research to read benchmarks comparing the new
quad core CPUs, so at this time I do not know which is better. I'm
sure someone else in this group has done the research and can tell
you. If I don't see someone else tell you I'll try to look it up and
post what I find.

Hope this helps.


Sean