[lug] CPU comparisons

[Sean Reifschneider]

On Fri, Oct 26, 2007 at 01:32:06PM -0600, siegfried wrote:
>Why, in the past, have mother boards that accommodate more than 4GB been
>very expensive? They are just empty memory slots!

If you just want empty memory slots, buy them from an electronics parts
supplier and glue them anywhere you want in the case.  If you actually want
to use them, you'll need chipsets that have the ability to drive the
additional memory.

You obviously think this is easy.  However, it is not.  As evidence, I
would like to point out that over half the machines I've gotten recently
which support 8GB of RAM have had serious problems driving the 2GB modules
that are needed to get 8GB in them.  The same part number from Crucial
worked once, but then failed to work in the next 3 chassis.  And these are
not what you'd consider cheap motherboards, they're $300-ish server boards
in all but one case.

On the other hand, the higher end machines we got that can take up to 32GB
(but we only load them with 2GB modules which takes them up to 16), have
had no problems.  These are, however, $600-ish server boards.

If you want to buy a cheap motherboard that just has memory ports slapped
on, you will get what you pay for.

Sean
-- 
 Millions long for immortality who don't know what to do with themselves
 on a rainy Sunday afternoon.                -- Heinlein
Sean Reifschneider, Member of Technical Staff <jafo at tummy.com>
tummy.com, ltd. - Linux Consulting since 1995: Ask me about High Availability