Quote:
Originally posted by meff
Try out an Opteron if you have money, they can run both code and they're pretty fast too, but the clock speeds have yet to reach those of the top of the line AMD XP/MP and P4 procs.
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/RANT:
Repeat after me: Clock speed does not necessarily reflect performance.
Ok, that said, to clarify... clock speed is only part of the equation. The *real* metric is execution time. And execution time = instructions per program * clock cycles per instruction * seconds per clock cycle.
You see, the clock rate is only part of the story. If your CPU needs fewer clock cycles per instruction, it will be faster than a CPU with a higher clock rate, assuming they need the same number of instructions per program.
/END RANT
Ok, that said, 64-bit CPUs only make sense in a few areas: bandwidth (I/O, CPU, and memory), and memory size. So unless you have software that will take advantage of one of these, you won't get much out of a 64-bit CPU, especially for your money.
Personally, I'm building a cheap Athlon XP box for now and I'll turn it into my fileserver next year when I get an Opteron.
