I'm trying to build a good performance system for email and web
hosting.
I'd like to use AMD because of what I've read here about performance
vs price.
The Opteron currently offers the highest performance for web serving
of any processor on the planet (including the super-expensive guys
like IBM's Power4 or Intel's Itanium2). So yeah, for e-mail and web
hosting, you're looking in the right direction.
However most of the hard core system builders are playing games or
editing video, which is overkill for my system.
I'm just going to be serving webpages that have scripts accessing
databases, etc.
Am I correct to assume that pure processor speed is not as important
as RAM and Hard Drive access speed?
Generally speaking, yes. It's the integrated memory controller of the
Athlon64/Opteron that give it the excellent performance in these sorts
of tasks. By integrating the memory controller onto the processor
itself AMD has managed to cut a good 20-30% off the memory latency, a
HUGE bonus.
What would be a good ballpark to look for in an AMD processor?
Athlon XP 2400?
The AthlonXP 2500+ offers great performance for a dirt-cheap prices
(the AthlonXP 2400+ is much harder to find and often actually more
expensive than the 2500+). If you're looking to do this on the real
cheap, than this would be a decent solution. However the AthlonXP
does not have the integrated memory controller mentioned above, so
while it's performance is certainly acceptable, it's not anything
special. An Intel P4 2.4C GHz processor (with an 800MT/s bus speed)
would probably be faster, though probably a bit more expensive.
I've read that nVidea makes the best motherboard chipset. Im looking
for a Mboard with built in video and lan, since a web server doesn't
need a good video ssytem.
nVidia makes some of the best desktop motherboards, but for servers
your best bet is probably to go with an Intel chipset for Intel
processors or an AMD chipset for AMD processors. If you're using the
AthlonXP 2500+ mentioned above and really aiming to do this on the
cheap, than an nForce2 IGP motherboard should do the trick. The 'IGP'
part is the one with integrated graphics. MSI makes one such board in
their K7N2GM-L that should sell for pretty cheap.
My personal recommendation though, would be a Tyan Tomcat K8S
motherboard with a single Opteron 14x processor. The Opteron 140 chip
sells for pretty darn cheap and will outperform just about any other
x86 chip other than faster Opterons. The motherboard uses AMD's own
chipset (not widely used on desktops but very stable/reliable for
servers), it has integrated ATI video (cheap, low-end stuff but more
than sufficient for the task), dual gigabit ethernet.
This certainly isn't the cheapest solution for what you're looking
for, the motherboard and processor will add an extra $150-$200 over an
AthlonXP 2500+/nForce2 motherboard combo. You will also need slightly
more expensive (but more reliable) ECC registered memory to go along
with it. However this should give you a very reliable and high
performance platform for what you're looking for.
