Are Intel CPU with Intel chipsets more stable?

[RanDum72]

Originally posted by: goku

Originally posted by: Markfw900

Originally posted by: ribbon13

Originally posted by: Viditor
This is half correct. AMD servers use AMD chipsets for the most part (most people forget that AMD is one of the largest manufacturers of chipsets for AMD CPUs), and they certainly have been proven in mission critical servers (which is why 80% of the Forbes 100 companies have now gone with AMD for their new servers).

Yep, another example would be taking a look at the TOP500 super computers. Here's #6. That's 10880 Opterons.

And speaking of chipsets.
AMD Opteron + AMD 8000 > Intel anything + Intel anything in my humble opinion

Posting from dual Opteron 248's on Tyan 2885 (AMD 8000 chipset). Been up for 6 months 24/7. Ya, its not stable.... NOT !!!!!

Why doesn't AMD produce consumer chipsets????

AMD did, in fact produce consumer chipsets back in the day when the Athlon was just coming out (remember the AMD 760 northbridge coupled with the VIA 686A/B southbridge?). AMD moved ot of the consumer chipset biz when VIA, SIS, ALI and Nvidia started their own chipsets, which proved equal or even better than AMD's own offering (well, let me repharse that, VIA wasn't exactly that good during those days)

 

[dexvx]

Originally posted by: Markfw900
Posting from dual Opteron 248's on Tyan 2885 (AMD 8000 chipset). Been up for 6 months 24/7. Ya, its not stable.... NOT !!!!!

Do you like not update security patches or something?

Originally posted by: Viditor
Edit: I should add that another example of Opteron's acceptance as a mission critical platform is that Cray is now exclusively Opteron on their supercomputers, and Sun has dropped Intel altogether in favour of AMD...

And guess what... the average consumer who buys an AMD chip doesn't use the components Cray puts on their Supercomputers. To hint that AMD consumer level computers are mission critical like Cray's is like suggesting any Celeron system is mission critical because there are Xeon/Itanium supercomputers. And as for Sun Micro, they've never been seriously committed to Intel chips, as Intel/Microsoft or Linux duo is their major competitor and has been eating away at their market share for the last decade.

Edit: Actually, as far as I can tell, Sun has never used Intel procs in their machines.

 

[EatSpam]

Originally posted by: Xpred
I was told that they are more stable if I was just planning to go stock rather than going with AMD (maybe not as stable?). Is this true?

Eh, I wouldn't say that. As long as you go with reputable manufacturers, you're ok.

I have many systems that are rock solid and I have everything, including VIA chipsets and CPUs.

 

[Snooper]

Originally posted by: Varun
Well, it's quite common for these Dells to blow capacitors, and the Dell guy visits a couple times a month it seems to fix them.

This is a know issue. Several different MB manufactures received a bad batch of caps earlier this year. When they finally die...

This problem seems to pop up about every other year or so. I think the cap vendors start to cut corners and then something blows up (literally!) and they have spend the bucks to clean up their act or they won't have any business. Then things settle back down and they start trying to increase their margins once more. Business in the modern age!

 

[Varun]

Originally posted by: Snooper

Originally posted by: Varun
Well, it's quite common for these Dells to blow capacitors, and the Dell guy visits a couple times a month it seems to fix them.

This is a know issue. Several different MB manufactures received a bad batch of caps earlier this year. When they finally die...

This problem seems to pop up about every other year or so. I think the cap vendors start to cut corners and then something blows up (literally!) and they have spend the bucks to clean up their act or they won't have any business. Then things settle back down and they start trying to increase their margins once more. Business in the modern age!

Yep I remember just a few years ago the big issues there were with capacitors. It's really too bad.

 

[Viditor]

Originally posted by: dexvx

Originally posted by: Markfw900
Posting from dual Opteron 248's on Tyan 2885 (AMD 8000 chipset). Been up for 6 months 24/7. Ya, its not stable.... NOT !!!!!

Do you like not update security patches or something?

Originally posted by: Viditor
Edit: I should add that another example of Opteron's acceptance as a mission critical platform is that Cray is now exclusively Opteron on their supercomputers, and Sun has dropped Intel altogether in favour of AMD...

And guess what... the average consumer who buys an AMD chip doesn't use the components Cray puts on their Supercomputers. To hint that AMD consumer level computers are mission critical like Cray's is like suggesting any Celeron system is mission critical because there are Xeon/Itanium supercomputers. And as for Sun Micro, they've never been seriously committed to Intel chips, as Intel/Microsoft or Linux duo is their major competitor and has been eating away at their market share for the last decade.

Edit: Actually, as far as I can tell, Sun has never used Intel procs in their machines.

?
You obviously haven't had your coffee yet!
Please reread the original posts...
I never hinted that there's a correlation between mission critical and consumer level, in fact I seperated the two out.

BTW, Sun sold Xeons in their low end systems for 2 years...

 

[ArneBjarne]

Originally posted by: Pariah
AMD and to a much greater extend, NVidia, has not proven itself in the truly mission critical server arena. Until they do so, Intel + Intel is still the proven and safer stable option. CPU's are very rarely the cause of system instability, the motherboard is a far more often culprit. So it isn't really a case of Intel being more stable than AMD. I wouldn't think twice between an Intel CPU/Nvidia chipset and Intel CPU/Intel chipset/Intel board, it would be Intel chipset all the way. Since AMD has no comparable partner in the chipset arena, they lose by default until they prove otherwise.

It's all a moot point for home users where a crash once a month isn't that big a deal. AMD platforms are just as good as Intel for home users where systems don't get punished 24-7-365. Crashes on any properly configured modern PC should be very few and far between.

Well, I guess the Sun Fire X2100 Sun Fire X2100 isn't exactly the top of the line for Sun, but it is still a nice feather in the cap for nForce4 (note that it is nForce4 Ultra not Professional, but I guess that only makes it more relevant for someone looking to buy a desktop board)

 

[dexvx]

Really... I dont know why people keep bringing up Sun Microsystems in the picture. People keep viewing them as some god all of computing. Sure they had their heyday, but frankly, this is all I need to point out on how successful Sun Micro is.

Ok some replies:

Yes, apparently Sun Micro did make some low end Xeon servers. They did semi-venture into Solaris for Itanium, but they dropped that (it would indicate they were ready to drop SPARC).

There have been some reports of nForce4 IO corruption under high DMA stress. Whether thats a chipset issue or an OEM issue is up for grabs.


But in conclusion:

CPU's have some errata. However, the vast majority of crashes under load are probably due to poor components. The most important core components for stability in any computer (now) is the Motherboard and the Power-Supply. There is a reason why some OEM's (Supermicro) are very expensive, but have a reputation as rock solid versus value OEM's that have a reputation for decent stability and being inexpensive.

For most consumers, if your computer crashes once every month, it will not set you back greatly. For those people, value boards are what they should be looking for and they are the intended target segment for those OEM's.

 

[Markfw]

Originally posted by: dexvx

Originally posted by: Markfw900
Posting from dual Opteron 248's on Tyan 2885 (AMD 8000 chipset). Been up for 6 months 24/7. Ya, its not stable.... NOT !!!!!

Do you like not update security patches or something?

Originally posted by: Viditor
Edit: I should add that another example of Opteron's acceptance as a mission critical platform is that Cray is now exclusively Opteron on their supercomputers, and Sun has dropped Intel altogether in favour of AMD...

And guess what... the average consumer who buys an AMD chip doesn't use the components Cray puts on their Supercomputers. To hint that AMD consumer level computers are mission critical like Cray's is like suggesting any Celeron system is mission critical because there are Xeon/Itanium supercomputers. And as for Sun Micro, they've never been seriously committed to Intel chips, as Intel/Microsoft or Linux duo is their major competitor and has been eating away at their market share for the last decade.

Edit: Actually, as far as I can tell, Sun has never used Intel procs in their machines.

I run windows 2000, and Mcafee Enterprise 8.0. That was an upgrade, that didn;t require a re-boot, and I update that automatically without a re-boot. It runs F@H x2 times.

Edit: Why do you keep trying to put AMD down and defend Intel ? I don't think anybody here will say Intel is not stable in an enterprise class machine (my dell at work is another story, but thats dell's fault).

But AMD IS stable in an enterprise class 100%, and 99.9% in the consumer class (I say that since I actually had one of my F@H rigs lock up after 2-3 months, and had to re-boot)