[geeks] Sun to adopt newest Intel Xeon chips for upcoming servers (link)

[Charles Shannon Hendrix]

Wed, 24 Jan 2007 @ 19:39 -0500, Joshua Boyd said:

> > Who made the card, and which motherboard?
> 
> In that computer, the problem card was an elsa geforce3 ti 200, and the
> non-problem card is some brand that I can't remeber of FX5200, but
> probably isn't particularly reputable as it was $50ish.  The motherboard
> is a Tyan based on 440bx, I think.

Tyan is usually pretty good. Sometimes fussy like a Sun about memory,
but mostly in that it won't accept "random RAM", by which I mean the
cheap stuff with missing or simply incorrect SPD ROM data.

Years ago. Elsa was considered good, and DEC used them in their
workstations.

My second DEC Alpha had an Elsa card.

> > I've had good experiences with BFG, EVGA, and Gigabyte graphics cards.
> > I've also installed a couple of Asus nVidia graphics cards and they are
> > fine. Nothing special, but they work well.
> 
> Personally, if I were doing Nvidia in the near future, it would probably
> be PNY.

I've been wary of PNY because several locals bought them and either the
fans or the whole card died in less than a year.  Could be random bad
luck, but it spooked me a bit.

Have you had good experiences with them?

I started to get one when CompUSA sold the 7900 GS at half price (which
means CompUSA's price was finally as low as newegg). I stood in the
store and twirled the box for a long time, but in the end I was worried
and didn't get it.

Maybe I made a mistake, I don't know.

> > I've no idea about the other brands, and I'm afraid to try them out with
> > my own money.
> 
> PNY is, if I'm not mistaken, owned by Nvidia.

Wikipedia says they were founded in 1985 in New Jersey, where their HQ
remains today. No mention of nVidia.

I thought nVidia wanted to keep completely out of the final system
market and only supply parts?

> > The 7800 and 7900 are quite fast too. I have a 7900GS now, nearly free
> > because I sold off some junk to get it.
> 
> > Of course, the 8800 is supposed to be six times as fast as the 7900.
> 
> I never particularly have time to do anything that might take advantage
> of these cards.  

I make time these days, and I had to do it to keep from going nuts.

I started getting really burned out and depressed, and never had time to
do anything.

I finally started forcing myself to do things I didn't have time for:
photo editing, hikes in the woods, playing games, and reading.

Now that I'm "wasting time", I actually get a lot more real work done.

I still have a bad habit of working into the evening sometimes, but I've
mostly learned to stop.

In the end, you get more work done if you play a little.

> I bought the FX5200 for the shaders and have done exceedingly little
> with them.  

You might consider a 6600.  The 5xxx line isn't very good, and the
6600 isn't too expensive.

Avoid the 6200.

> The 8800 does look tempting from the feature capacity, but it is way
> too expensive.

True.

Expensive never means "I don't want it" though... :)

> I do think it is about time that I get a FX5200 or better for my Mac
> though.  And then maybe I should use the years vacation to actually do
> something interesting with it.x

I wonder if you could get an nv6600 working in a Mac?

Fairly cheap and not hard to find, but still fast cards for a lot of
things.

-- 
shannon "AT" widomaker.com -- ["I wish life was not so short. Languages
take such a time, and so do all the things one wants to know about." - J.
R. R. Tolkien]