Selecting CPU/architecture for new system?

[Nikolas Britton]

On 5/31/06, Ewald Jenisch <a at jenisch.at> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I'm currently in the process of selecting hardware for a FreeBSD
> system having the main task of collecting network statistics via MRTG
> or RRDtool. In addition the machine in question should be used to
> collect netflow statistics plus providing a web-interface for
> displaying them.
>
> To give you an impression about the workload to be expected: Currently
> the system is a dual Xeon machine with 3GHz-CPUs reaching work loads
> (top) of 7 to 9. Disk-IO btw is not the problem.
>
>
> For the new system I thought about a 4-CPU machine, 4GB RAM - with
> either 32- or 64-bit architecture.
>

AMD has the market cornered on 4-way and up boxes. Have you thought
about a 2-way box with dual core CPUs?

> Here are my questions:
>
> o) Should I stick with a 32-bit architecture (i386) or go for any of
> the 64-architectures?
>

Do you need more then 4GB of RAM, if so then your only option is 64-bit.

> o) Is FreeBSD 6.1 considered equally stable under the i386
> architecture as under any of the 64bit architectures?
>

Sure, and you can still run i386 FreeBSD on a 64-bit chip.

> o) Are SMP-systems with 4 CPUs supported in i386?
>

Yes.

> o) Are SMP-systems with 4 CPU supported in any of the 64-bit
> architectures?
>

Yes.

> o) Anything else to consider in this context?
>

Code compiling is very fast on AMDs chip thanks to HyperTransport and
the on-die memory controller, if your task can take advantage of this
AMD is your best bet.


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