[ILUG] Spoilt for choice at Elara

[Gareth Eason]

Stephen Brooks wrote:
> Robert Sweetnam wrote:
> [snip]
> 
> 
>> My preference is Intel CPU's. Primarily because every AMD CPU I have had
>> has ended up almost on fire. Always through overheating. Intel
>> processors detect when they are getting too hot and shut themselves down
>> thereby saving you a few hundred quid on a replacement.
>>
> 
> Just to add most if not all AMD processors have had this since 2003 at
> least as well.
[snip]
	Just to further add that Intel went through a significant period of making
chips that appeared to be designed to not work at full clock rate. Sustained
activity would bring it above the threshold temperature, at which point it
would clock back, bringing your compute power to a fraction of that suggested
by the chip clock speed.

	I've been bitten by Intel and their thermal protection more than once,
including an audio workstation that was rendered unusable by this feature and
took me quite a while to determine what was going on (it would work fine for a
while and then become glitchy and unreliable for multi-track audio. Rebooting
didn't help, but I eventually discovered that leaving the machine powered off
for a while did.)

	I've never had a similar problem with AMD chips - nor have I managed to burn
one out. I've melted a few old Intel chips, but that was back in the 386/486 days.

	The CPU market is a hard fought one, with AMD and Intel leapfrogging each
other with technological leaps from time to time. Best to look at what's on
the market at the moment, consider your requirements (server, laptop, power
efficiency, performance, etc.) and price-point, and base your judgement on
that. Generalising issues such as thermal problems across an entire product
range of a supplier is probably not conducive to making an accurate purchasing
decision.

	Just my 2c worth,

	Best regards,
	-->Gar