[svlug] motherboard recommendations

[Lord Sauron]

On 3/21/06, Jeff Frost <jeff at frostconsultingllc.com> wrote:
> On Tue, 21 Mar 2006, Lord Sauron wrote:
>
> > PCIe is totally overkill.  I'm getting some great mileage out of a ECS
> > nForce 3-A socket 754 with a Athlon64 3k+ I picked up a Frys.  I then
> > threw in a nice shiny new hard drive and a overkill graphics card
> > ('cause I'm nuts like that) and had a really nice system for under
> > $1k.
>
> Yes, I've done this in the past, but this is for a database playground test
> system and I'd like to hang onto it for more than a year, not just a browse
> the internet and run pine workstation which is what the original system it's
> replacing was spec'd for.

For a database?  Heck, my old ATI FireGL 8MB AGP could keep you
company for X11!!!  In my experience X tends to be really heavy on the
CPU and almost totally ignores the GPU.

> >> latest Socket 939 boards on the market these days? I'd like to find something
> >> that doesn't have terrible SATA disk performance. I'm planning to install
> >
> > I'm not aware of any problems with nFoce3's SATA150... at least, it
> > works fine for me.
>
> What sort of numbers do you get from lmdd of an 8gig file (you are running
> x86_64 right?).  I ask because some nforce boards are known for not so good
> SATA performance, thus my surveying for real world results.

That system isn't running Linux ATM...  video games (trying to kick
the habit).  Tried Cedega but that didn't work so well : (

> > Just wondering, but what on earth would you be using the mind-numbing
> > power of a PCIe card for?  The only reason I see to have that kind of
> > power is high-end stuff like real time rendering of scary things.  AGP
> > will give you great performance for much less money.
>
> RAID controller for the second PCI-e slot.  AGP is fine, but the AGP cards are
> going away.

Okay, that's good enough more me.  I'll go newegg.com -ing for boards
(it kills time, what can I say?)

> > Right now nVidia is making some really good chipsets.  Look for their
> > nForce line in your next purchase - it's really impressive.  I know
> > they're not the _best_ (TM), but they're really good for the price.
>
> I'm running nforce2 on my current board and when I first got it, had to
> compile a patched kernel to get it up and running at the time.  I'd prefer not
> to require doing that again.  So far, it's been good, though I'm still using
> PATA drives with it.

I had no problems with the nForce3..

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