For All Practical Purposes...

[raymac46]

I have two desktop systems around my place. One runs Windows 7 and the other one Linux Mint 15. They are both fairly recent technology. The Windows 7 box has an Intel Sandy Bridge i5-2320 quad core; the Linux machine has an AMD A8-6600K quad core. The Windows 7 machine features a discrete GeForce GTX 650Ti Boost video card. The AMD has the native GPU that comes with the chip (HD 7560.)

You can find lots of Internet benchmarking data that shows conclusively that Intel CPU performance blows AMD away across the board. And in fact the i5 is about 30% more powerful than the A8 - at least in theory. When it comes to GPU there's a massive 5X difference in power between the Nvidia card and the AMD IGP solution. So you'd expect the Intel Windows 7 machine to just obliterate the Linux AMD one, right?

Well I suppose if it comes down to gaming and frame rates and anti-aliasing and display resolution that would be true. However for all (or almost all) practical purposes both machines are fast and smooth. If you want to watch videos, listen to music, do some office work, get your email, or surf the web I doubt you'd see any difference at all. In fact I suspect you'd think the AMD machine was snappier and more powerful here.

I suppose there are a number of reasons why the AMD box holds its own in basic usage:

• It's running Linux. Even with a fairly heavy distro and with the Cinnamon eye candy, the Linux machine has about 1/3 the RAM footprint of Windows 7.
  
• It doesn't have to run any CPU sucking security apps.
  
• But the major reason the AMD machine is so responsive is that it boots and runs from an SSD whereas the Windows 7 machine works off a conventional hard drive. With the SSD boot times are minimal and shut down even faster. Applications explode onto the screen as soon as you launch them.
  

Now I know it doesn't seem fair to compare an SSD based desktop to a regular HDD based one. But both machines are great for normal use, and any performance disadvantage the AMD system has compared to the Intel one (gaming excepted) can easily be overcome with an SSD. Given the costs of the CPUs it's pretty much a wash if you go Intel and conventional HDD or AMD with an SSD. So if you're building a system and you have a budget I'd sooner have the SSD in there.

Edited November 24, 2013 by raymac46

[V.T. Eric Layton]

I'd like to have the $$$ to use SSDs in my next system. However, the bang-for-the-buck is still heavily in favor of the mechanical drives. Their speed and reliability these days make them the best deal for the $$$. The 250Gig Western Digital 7200RPM SATA II drives that just recently died on me were used in two previous main systems of mine (three systems altogether) over a period of nearly 7 years. Not bad for mechanical drives that were used daily.

[raymac46]

Yes but the cost per GB for SSD storage is coming down and you don't need to have everything on the SSD. I have a 128GB drive for the O/S and applications and all my photos and music go on a regular HDD. Even a 64GB drive would be great for a Linux system.

I think once you try an SSD for your O/S you'd be reluctant to go back.

[V.T. Eric Layton]

Oh, I'd love to go pure SSD, but that ain't going to happen till I hit that lottery.

[ross549]

Comparing apples and oranges here... of course the SSD is going to run faster... the transfer rates are almost ten times faster!

 

When you have the hard drives different like that... the CPU and RAM is going to take a slight backseat on performance, because any test is going to be incredibly skewed by the SSD.

 

Adam

[raymac46]

Understood, but my point is you can get a perfectly good and fast system with the AMD hardware and adding in the SSD is not a huge extra expense since you are saving on the CPU.

[abarbarian]

I built meself a speed machine way back with a Athlon 64 3400+ (754 socket) an came across this review on it.

 

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/athlon64-3400.html

 

 

"We have reviewed the new AMD processor, which appears to be the fastest processor in the today’s market. Check out the performance of AMD Athlon 64 3400+ in four dozens of tests to make your slightest doubts vanish!"

 

"Well, AMD introduced a new Socket754 processor from Athlon 64 family. The newcomer rated as 3400+ supports 2.2GHz core clock, which is the same as that of the Athlon 64 FX-51 announced in September 2003 and positioned as a solution for hardware enthusiasts. It will allow a considerably low-cost Athlon 64 3400+ demonstrate very attractive price-to-performance ratio, as it will offer comparable performance at a pretty low price of $417 at launch."

 

"As a result, the performance difference between Athlon 64 FX-51 and the new Athlon 64 3400+ is hardly noticeable at all."

 

"So, it is now possible to build the fastest desktop PC on a Socket754 platform. Thanks to the higher working frequency of the new Athlon 64 3400+, this CPU can successfully compete not only with the top Pentium 4 processor models, but also with the Pentium 4 Extreme Edition."

 

So I did. I spent so much time focusing on me build that I missed,

 

However, the situation in the market will change dramatically in the beginning of February 2004. This is when Intel is expected to announce its new Prescott core and Pentium 4 Extreme Edition 3.4GHz, which should definitely raise the performance maximum for Intel solutions.

 

An within a few weeks me speed machine was the tortoise of the pack. If only I had waited a few weeks.

 

Why am I telling you this ?

 

Well I gave the pc to me sister eventually as a present. Now I felt a tad mean about it as I thought it was a slow as stink by the time I gave it to her a couple of years ago.

So this year I gave her a SSD a 64GB OCZ Agility 2 that was on a super special offer. Now by today's standards this is a tortoise of a SSD so I was not expecting a vast improvement in speed.

However on installing the ssd I was very pleasantly surprised to find very noticeable changes to boot and shutdown and also programs like Libre Office started noticeably faster and ran much smoother.

My conscience is absolved, my sister is very happy. Which is a relief as my annual seat at the Christmas dinner she hosts is now safe for this year at least.

 

So it just goes to show that you can breath new life into dying pc's sometimes with very little loot.

[raymac46]

Just checking prices today in Canada at least. You can get a Core i3 and cheap graphics card for around $200. An A8 APU and an SSD goes for about the same price.

I also saw a video on YouTube that showed you were not getting bottlenecked by an AMD X4-750 Piledriver based CPU compared to an i5 unless you got into pretty high end graphics cards like a GTX 780. An i5 is going to cost close to $200 on its own. Given the alternatives I'll stick with AMD and get the SSD.

[raymac46]

An within a few weeks me speed machine was the tortoise of the pack. If only I had waited a few weeks.

 

Yes I know the feeling. Around the time I was getting my first all Linux, all the time machine (Athlon 64 X2,) Bruno had built himself a Core 2 Quad 6660. I remember the C2Q was eating my lunch in those Super Pi calculations. Once I got over my initial disappointment (the X2 Super Pi result was actually not bad at all) I found that the AMD system was just fine for what I wanted to use it for. It's still running as my music box in the workshop.

[Guest LilBambi]

Isn't that always the way!!!

 

Which is why I have always gone with falling edge ... cheaper and they all are like new cars when you drive them off the lot!

[V.T. Eric Layton]

HA! I still have my Athlon 64 2600+ and the socket 754 mobo out in the shop. Mobo is shot, though.... bad southbridge IC.

 

The trailing edge, you mean, Fran? I like that. My equipment is all on the trailing edge, too. HAHAHA

[ross549]

Understood, but my point is you can get a perfectly good and fast system with the AMD hardware and adding in the SSD is not a huge extra expense since you are saving on the CPU.

 

I would not build a machine for daily use these days without an SSD. The hard drive is such a bottleneck on most systems.

 

Adam

[raymac46]

I would not build a machine for daily use these days without an SSD. The hard drive is such a bottleneck on most systems.

 

Adam

I certainly agree. If you're building it you might as well get what you want if the budget allows for it.

[raymac46]

It's a good idea to be a little bit off the bleeding edge for a Linux machine - especially when it comes to video. On my recent build I went with Trinity (last year's technology) rather than the newer Richland APU. That way I was pretty sure I'd get decent FOSS support for Open GL. You don't want to have software 3D support for your video - even if it's only to run the latest desktops. :'(

I have a netbook that runs that horrid Intel GMA500 video, and although there's decent 2D support for it, if you have a desktop that needs 3D (like Cinnamon or Unity) it runs very slowly using llvmpipe. I stick with Xubuntu 12.04 on that machine.

Edited November 25, 2013 by raymac46

[Guest LilBambi]

SSD is great. Just wish they had 1TB drives for a decent price in SSD.

[V.T. Eric Layton]

Personally, I have no use for drives that size. I have trouble filling up a 250G drive. I actually prefer to run multiple 250G drives on my main systems.

 

I set them up in some fashion similar to this:

• drive 1 - main Linux OS partitions and MS WIndows OS partitions
  

• drive 2 - main Linux OS rsync partitions and MS Windows backup partitions
  

• drive 3 - common Linux-Windows storage and archival partitions and other tester distribution partitions
  

All that is easily done for me with 750G or so. I don't store any really important data on my computers. I don't trust hard drives enough to do that. I store what little important data I do have on external media such as flash drives and DVDs; all those with multiple backups. My main method of storing important data is still HARD COPY on dead tree media. I guess I'm just old fashioned. Barring fire or flood, though, I shouldn't have any worries about that media deteriorating in my lifetime.

 

What's 250G SSD drive going for these days? I can pick up Western Digital Caviar Blue 7200RPM 250G mechanical drives all day for $50. I don't suppose I can get an SSD that cheap, huh?

[ross549]

The current best strategy for SSD deployment is to have an SSD + HD in your system. Put the main OS and frequently used data on the SSD and then have the HD store the stuf less frequently accessed.

 

Apple uses this strategy with their Fusion drives. However, the implementation is a bit different. The Fusion drive sees what data is frequently accessed (I think on a file level, but may be block level), and moves that data to the flash storage portion for much more rapid access. You get the capacity of an HD, the speed of a SSD, and the lack of the need to manage where your data is stored, since the drive allocates files dynamically.

 

I am not sure if there is a linux/windows variant of this style of storage available or not.

 

I will say this, though.... my Mac *flies* with the SSD. Everything is fast.

 

Adam

[raymac46]

I have seen 250 GB SSDs in Canada at least for around $170. Still more costly but at least in the realm of possibility. I found that a 128 GB SSD along with a 1 TB HDD gives me plenty of storage capacity. I have a couple of USB drives I use for backups.

[abarbarian]

SSD is great. Just wish they had 1TB drives for a decent price in SSD.

 

You might find some very interesting info here Fran,

 

http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/advanced-hard-drive-caching-techniques?page=0,0

 

Even today, the consumer SSD cannot compare to the capacities provided by the magnetic hard disk drive (or HDD), which is why in this article I intend to introduce readers to proven methods for obtaining near SSD performance with the traditional HDD. Multiple open-source projects exist that can achieve this, all but one of which utilizes an SSD as a caching node, and the other caches to RAM. The device drivers I cover here are dm-cache, FlashCache and the RapidDisk/RapidCache suite;

 

Eric = Samsung Evo 250 GB £123 inc postage

Crucial M500 260 GB £119 inc postage.

 

I like your strategy Eric smaller drives are the way, I use 500 GB's mainly. Most folk do not realise the hassle a 1Tb or 2 Tb failed drive causes if it goes kaput.

 

[Guest LilBambi]

Yep, I know ... combos like the Mac Fusions (SSD plus SATA is the way to go these days)

[lewmur]

SSD is great. Just wish they had 1TB drives for a decent price in SSD.

I don't see the point. I have a 120gb SSD with three OS's on it and about 3TB of other storage. All of the apps I use on each OSs fit with no problems on the SSD. So what's on the 3TB of regular HDD's? Backups and media. Since even high def media streams fine with HDDs, why waste high cost/byte SSD space on media files? And backups are done while I'm sleeping so speed is no big deal.

 

Of course, it goes without saying that I'd love to see the cost of SSDs come down, but I don't see it happening any time soon.

Edited November 27, 2013 by lewmur

[ross549]

In some cases, there is no space for a second drive.

 

Adam

[Guest LilBambi]

Very true Adam

[abarbarian]

In some cases, there is no space for a second drive.

 

Adam

 

I guess with the USA being so huge out in the boonies you may not have heard about the latest technological inventions

 

The latest in technological inventions. A must have for the serious pc er.

[V.T. Eric Layton]

I never have issues with no space for an hdd. I buy BIG cases when I build my systems. I like lots of lebensraum, ya!

[ross549]

I guess with the USA being so huge out in the boonies you may not have heard about the latest technological inventions

 

The latest in technological inventions. A must have for the serious pc er.

 

That is not always a viable solution. I know Bambi's setup, and having a second drive hooked up is not the best option for her. She's done it before out of necessity, but her case only has the space for a single 2.5" drive.

 

Adam

[V.T. Eric Layton]

And while we're on the topic of SSDs...

 

OCZ gets offer from Toshiba to buy assets in bankruptcy sale

[abarbarian]

I never have issues with no space for an hdd. I buy BIG cases when I build my systems. I like lots of lebensraum, ya!

 

Me too you got to have somewhere to put the other half.

 

 

[ross549]

And while we're on the topic of SSDs...

 

OCZ gets offer from Toshiba to buy assets in bankruptcy sale

 

Yes... that one caught me completely off guard. I had no idea OCZ was in trouble.....

 

Adam

[V.T. Eric Layton]

@ abarbarian... Yes. You need to have room for the power supply, too.

 

 

@ Adam... Yeah, that issue with the shortage of nand gate chips was making the tech news rounds a few months back. I didn't think it boded well for SSD production or evolution.