[Asterisk-Users] Motherboard and processor recommendations

[canuck15]

Regarding Chipsets/Motherboards.  I would stay FAR away from cheap ones.
Any chipset/motherboard that electrically and logically separates some PCI
slots (ie. interrupts) from onboard peripherals (network controller, VGA,
USB etc.) makes compatibility issues with Digium cards much less likely.
Many of the newer Intel chipsets do this.  

The Xeon chipsets/motherboards are the best IMHO because they usually have
PCI-X slots connected directly to the memory controller hub, that you can
put your Digium card(s) in, which are completely separate from the
peripherals and PCI slots on the I/O controller hub.  

-----Original Message-----
From: Tzafrir Cohen [mailto:tzafrir at cohens.org.il] 
Sent: Wednesday, September 07, 2005 4:59 PM
To: asterisk-users at lists.digium.com
Subject: Re: [Asterisk-Users] Motherboard and processor recommendations

On Wed, Sep 07, 2005 at 11:02:58PM +0300, Soner Tari wrote:
> Hi All,
> 
> For sometime now I've been searching the wiki and googling, but I 
> think I'm missing some of the very important answers. So I'll have to 
> ask this to the list.
> 
> I'm trying to decide on the right motherboard and processor. Here are 
> my
> questions:
> 
> 1. Would I have problems with all-onboard motherboards (Onboard VGA, 
> LAN/GLAN, Sound, SATA, RAID) ? I've read the comment about an Onboard 
> VGA on wiki.

Considering the exceptional quality of graphics you'll need with Asterisk,
and VGA-compatible adapter would suffice. The on-board one would be more
than enough. Ditto for the sound card, at least in most cases.

As for the network adapter: Are you going to get anything close to
saturating the card? I figure that the efficiency of the network adapter and
its driver will not be your bottleneck. Most of the WAN-oriented systems
would have worked fine with an old 10Mbps card, probably without a noticable
performance hit (right?).

So their quality is not much of an issue. If you have the extra space, you
can always add an extra one in an expansion slot. But it should not be
required.

An extra raid controller is something you may consider. But then-again, if
it is a cheap software-based raid, it is practically the same as using linux
for that (but with more problematic drivers). But it is for you to decide if
it is worth the extra cost.

> 
> 2. Which chipset should I prefer: Intel, SiS or VIA? I've read the old 
> SiS chipset problem on wiki.

There is much voodoo about this. There are good and bad boards made with
each of those chipsets. In fact, for practically each model of board that
has been sold for over a month or so, you'll probably find someone in this
list who had bad experience with it.

> 
> 3. Which processor has the least support problems: P4 (478 or LGA775, 
> or even EMT64) or AMD64 ? For example, in G729 config file Athlon 
> comment reads as "untested" (so far I don't have problems), and there 
> is no config option for AMD64 at all. There is no mention of EMT64 
> either. Is anything processor dependant in codecs/transcoding, echo 
> cancellation, busy detect and similar software, i.e. in dsp routines in
general ?

First of all, what do you intend to do? Much transcoding? How many lines?

Because if the load on the CPU will be light enough, than the CPU brand
won't really matter, you know.

> I think this is a very complicated issue, and given so many variables 
> perhaps luck plays an important part.

I figure some people on this list will happily sell you pre-configured
systems. Or at least pre-built ones.

-- 
Tzafrir Cohen         | tzafrir at jbr.cohens.org.il | VIM is
http://tzafrir.org.il |                           | a Mutt's  
tzafrir at cohens.org.il |                           |  best
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