måndag 03 maj 2004 08:17 skrev Koenraad Lelong:
I would like to build my own machine, which is going to serve mail (Postfix, Courier-Imap), web (maybe), files (Samba), proxy (Squid), for my home-network. I hope to have it running for the next 4 to 5 years, if the hardware allows. Since SuSE 9.1 will include 64bit software I'm considering to make the new machine 64bit. Any reason to go (or not) to AMD Athlon64 (or Opteron) ? Comments invited. TIA
I'm currently running a 64-bit Athlon system, and the reason I switched is as follows. Every year, there's a tremendous leap in hardware and unfortunately the software follows up. Most of the software, aren't functionally superior to software that ran like 10 years ago, but they provide a lot more visual characterization which appear to gulp more cpu power, although I suspect a lot of that power is swallowed by embedded interpreters. I see the leap to 64-bit, as a future investment. The 32-bit systems, will dominate, but I suspect that won't be for long. Already there are complaints about how address space is getting short, tera byte databases are emerging and therefore a gigabyte address space is lacking. And already, Intel is planning it's takeover off the 64-bit, but x86 compatible market :-) I suspect, it won't be long until 64-bit workstations will be dominant, even in the PC world ... and we'll even be seeing 64-bit PCI slots, and not just in Opteron systems. So, this way I'll have a system that's a "future" system (say one or two years from now), and will enjoy being able to have a feel of the market as it emerges for real.