From chemistry-request@ccl.net Tue May 17 03:58:43 2005
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Date: Tue, 17 May 2005 10:58:33 +0300 (EEST)
From: Mikael Johansson <mpjohans :: pcu.helsinki.fi>
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To: Luigi Cavallo <cavallo :: chemistry.unina.it>
cc: chemistry :: ccl.net
Subject: Re: CCL:Summary Opteron vs Nocona
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Hello Luigi and All!

On Tue, 17 May 2005, Luigi Cavallo wrote:

> However, there's one point about opterons. AMD just announced dual-core cpus,
> which should perform far better than the single-core shipped now.
> I contacted resellers here in italy, and they say that dual-core cpus will be
> shipped after the summer. If you buy opetrons now they can sell you single-core.
> Is this true ? Any out of there has been able to buy AMD with dual-core cpus as
> the 275 ?

I don't know about AMD's mass shipping schedule, but I do know that there 
will always be better and faster chips "after the summer". Or winter or 
whatever time period of choice :-) I don't think it in general is worth 
waiting for the next family of CPU's. Instead, get what is available when 
you need it (if possible, of course). I don't know how much better the
price/performance ratio of dual cores would be, at least in the beginning, 
when counting in all the costs of motherboards etc.

Also, after the dual core chips ship, there will be a lag before proper 
drivers/kernel patches for Linux appear. It took a year after release 
before a general AMD64 system could be considered usable for production 
under Linux. OK, the jump to dual core might not be that big, but I would 
be quite surprised if it immediately worked optimally.

Have a nice day,
     Mikael J.
     http://www.helsinki.fi/~mpjohans/