Dell Mini 9 and system upgrades

I just ordered a Dell Mini 9.

It should be here next week. I purchased the 16GB SSD upgrade and webcam. It is also a Windows XP model. Later, I'll more than likely either install Linux on it (or OS X), although this will require a USB optical drive.

The plan is to also upgrade the SSD to 32GB (a $119 purchase at My Digital Discount).

More than likely, I'm going to sell my Macbook (and maybe use the money to get an iMac).

As for my dead motherboard, it looks like I'm looking at this. I've decided to go AMD Phenom. Why? Because, while I want to upgrade to quad core while I can, I don't want to go Core i7 because I'd have to spend butt-loads on the CPU and motherboard in addition to DDR3 RAM...too much upgrading. At this point, I don't even want to go Intel. While Intel has better bang for the buck regarding CPU power and robustness, I'm extremely loyal to AMD. There's nothing wrong with AMD's products if you don't benchmark (and I'm not one to hang his every decision on raw stats alone). I should have the parts within a month...then I can game again. This will leave me with an unused Pentium D 830 (dual core), though. That means I'll more than likely buy a cheaper motherboard just to utilize that CPU in one of my older systems...it is a nice CPU with good power.

EDIT: I upgraded my Mini order because they were offering a $50 discount on Presidents Day. It will have Ubuntu and it will also have a 32GB SSD. More than likely I'm going to send it back, though, since Asus has a better buy, sans the SSD, but also has BT.

About my mainboard and CPU upgrade. I went AMD. I bought a Phenom 940 with a Foxconn mainboard. It is up and running now. It is FAST and I've yet to see all 4 cores maxed out! I also bought another mainboard for the Pentium CPU. That's a project for another day, though.

Foxconn A79A-S AM2+/AM2 AMD 790FX ATX AMD Motherboard

AMD Phenom II X4 940 Deneb 3.0GHz Socket AM2+ 125W Quad-Core Black Edition Processor Model HDZ940XCGIBOX

AMD vs. Intel Comparison

About the new AMD system I recently bought...

The AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ rocks when compared to my Intel system, which uses a Pentium D830. The AMD CPU is running on an Abit NF-M2SV board with 1GB of RAM. The Intel system is running on an ECS nForce 570 SLIT-A v5.1 mainboard and 2GB of RAM. While the Intel system outguns the AMD system, spec-wise, the AMD system is quite a bit more responsive...the whole system seems and responds like it is extremely lightweight. Both are running XP Pro. The AMD CPU runs 104F temps on the average, while the Intel CPU is in the 120F range...and this system has the beefier CPU fan/heatsink too! The AMD CPU cooler is here. It is an Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 LP. The Intel CPU cooler is here and is apparently a standard issue HSF (Intel Socket 775 Cooling Fan, although it is badged as an Ultra unit).

I'm very impressed!

No, I don't have any benchmark specs (you can probably find these online via Google), but this is really a seat-of-the-pants comparison. That I noticed such a difference in this manner should speak for itself.

Now, I've split the 250GB drive on the AMD system in half, to test Slamd64, an unofficial 64-bit port of Slackware (which is a 32-bit OS). I've run into issues booting up Slamd64, though...I've been getting SATA-specific errors that hint that the hard drive is going bad (which I seriously doubt). I think I've seen these errors before when I last installed Slackware on a SATA drive...I think I selected the wrong kernel. I need to select a kernel specific to SATA support. I'll work on this during the next 7 days and report my findings here.

I'm seriously thinking on swapping the Intel machine for the AMD one, since the AMD machine appears more robust.

Ordered a new system last night

Since its been awhile since I've built a new machine and since I wanted a taste of 64-bit and dual core technology, I purchased this last night:

ECS nForce 570 SLIT-A v5.1 Socket 775 Barebone Kit / Intel Pentium D 830 OEM / 250GB SATA HDD / 18x DVD±RW DL / 1GB DDR2 PC4200 / CPU Fan / ATX Mid-Tower Case / 500 Watt Power Supply

Additionally, I bought an EVGA GeForce 7300 GT video card with 512MB PCIe, DVI, and HDTV, since the new system will require a PCIe video card, which I don't have.

I think I've accounted for everything when buying this system, hardware-wise. I'll utilize a KVM, so I won't need another keyboard/mouse for it.

Software-wise, I'll most likely be putting some form of Windows on this system. This system will be using newer technology that *nix may or may not fully support and my troubleshooting time is limited. So, I guess I'm in the market for a 64-bit OS. I don't trust Vista yet, so I'll see about getting the 64-bit version of Windows XP Professional.

This WILL be a gaming rig, but I'd also like to try my hand at 64-bit Linux when I've a bit more free time available, so eventually, it may turn into a dual-boot system. What flavor of Linux? Something that won't take long to get running and will be low maintenance, so it won't be Slackware-based, most likely, unless Zenwalk or something similar supports 64-bit Intel dual core CPUs. Hopefully Pat can look into either factoring in 64-bit support in Slackware or sanctioning and supporting Slamd64 in a way that will make it easier to use.

So, I guess I've a 1 to 3 week wait for all these parts to come in, so I can build this system. The case and power supply are on the way now, but the other parts are still in the queue with no update, with the exception of the RAM, which is on back order. Hopefully, they'll get 'un-backlogged' soon.