amd64 testing...

I finally chose my new computer to be an AMD64 box, after doubting among several options. The initial requirement that it had a small form factor was dropped as I realized it meant paying more for less. And, considering what's given for the money in the PowerPC architecture, I realized that I could build any of these systems for about the same amount of money:

• Mac mini (ok, that's prebuilt) 32bit G4 1.4 GHz, 512 MB RAM, ATI Mobility 32 MB, 80 GB IDE HDD, no DVD-RW, prebuilt case.
• Pegasus II, 32bit G4 1.0 GHz, 512 MB RAM, ATI Radeon 9250 256 MB, 80 GB SATA HDD, DVD-RW, micro-ATX case.
• AMD Athlon64 3000+, 64bit 1.8 Ghz 1024 RAM, ATI Radeon X300 256 MB (PCI-X), 160 GB SATA HDD, dual DVD/DVD-RW, premium PSU, beautiful case :))

Since one of the things I was eager to do was to finally test a different architecture (I've always compiled my kernels as x86 :)), any of the options gave me this thrill, and as I was already a bit tired of endless compilation times in my previous systems, I decided to go for the best performance :)

I finally bought the following:

• ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe motherboard
• AMD Athlon64 3000+ Socket 939 (1.80 GHz)
• Maxima OKE Silent 450 W PSU
• Artic Cooling 64 Freezer CPU cooling tower
• Two Kingston 512 MB DDR 400 modules in Dual Channel configuration
• ATI Radeon X300 GPU with 256 MB RAM (PCI-Express x16)
• Seagate 160 GB 7200 rpm SATA HDD
• LG DVD-RW + LG DVD
• M@trix miditower case, black.
  

Building time was about half day, carefully reading the manuals and testing as many steps as possible. Building a basic Gentoo-amd64 system took about another day, and yet another day was lost to trying to install Solaris 10 (yet without success) and building the GUI and some applications for it. Today is Day 4, and it's been spent browsing the web in a perfectly running KDE 3.4 and building (yet) some more apps in the background.

Considerations so far:

• KDE builds now in a finite amount of time :) builds are much faster than with previous Pentium 4 2.40 GHz laptop box.
• The CPU hasn't gone over 40 C yet, the fans are quite silent, except for the chipset fan, which came pre-assembled on the MB and is by far the noisiest part of the box. Still, it's not too bad.
• Driver support appears to be quite good. No problem with the ATI card, as amd64 is supported by them. Some trouble, however, with the Cool 'n Quiet technology, which I haven't got working yet.
• Flash Media Player is not yet available for linux-amd64, so I'll have to wait on that one.

Overall, it seems to be an excellent system, although a couple of things still lack proper support. Moreover, I could still do a lot more with this setup, as it comes with Dual Gigabyte Ethernet, on-board RAID controller for up to 4 SATA HDDs, PCI-X available slots, support for double core processors, etc. making it a good candidate for a file- or web-server.

(Pictures coming soon..)