# Building New System!

## lghman

Ok, I since my desktop system is getting a tad bit outdated at this point, it is time once again to start anew.  I am looking at AMD 64 X2 chips and was wondering what motherboard to get?  I want something that is going to be supported rather well, so what is your opinion?  NForce chipset, VIA chipset, other chipset??  Tell me o-wise ones of the Gentoo community.   :Smile: 

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## warrawarra

 *sonikntails wrote:*   

> Ok, I since my desktop system is getting a tad bit outdated at this point, it is time once again to start anew.  I am looking at AMD 64 X2 chips and was wondering what motherboard to get?  I want something that is going to be supported rather well, so what is your opinion?  NForce chipset, VIA chipset, other chipset??  Tell me o-wise ones of the Gentoo community.  

 

http://www.tomshardware.com/find_by_topic/reviews.html

http://www.tomshardware.com/howto/index.html

See system builder marathon links.

http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/06/01/the_power_saving_guide/

This power saving guide gives you a good idea as to performance and what is worth spending money on and what is only for fancy.

They usually have prices for budget / midrange / high end and helps you calculate the cost of a new rig.

Keep in mind that the power supply is very important as well as something that keeps the electriciy stable and clean. Can use UPS backup baterry or a AVR automatic voltage regulator or a combo product like Belkin 550va I have one and did not lose any hardware since then to bad electric supply as well as opti 1200 avr works like a charm.

http://catalog.belkin.com/IWCatProductPage.process?Product_Id=171876

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16842107125

Power supply = 

1 video card 130W for say 6800xfx extreme + 10w hd + 10w dvd + 75w-120w cpu + 10w motherboard + 20w ram + fans / cooling 50w about and 10% contingeuncy so about 500w minm for this not 500w power supply see below. Verify power consumption otherwise = fried motherboard = extra expense to replace.

Then you have to find out is it a rubish PSU or not = you can have a 100w power supply provided the 12v rails can do at least 32A or 2 of 20A or 4 of 18A 12V cables to make sure nothing starves when it need the power. 

Basically 12V x 32A = watt ? 384W so one 32A cable can pull max 384W or 2 avg pci video cards then you still need power for the rest of the hardware and other connectors for them. 

Cooling fans get rather say 1x 120cm fan instead of 4 smaller ones = same power as 1 smaller ones but 4 times the cooling / wind = happy system.

Lost a few computers until I figured this Amps out about the power and not watt rating of power supply's. Do not trust the sales gimick about watts check the AMPS.

IE: Bugatti Veyron goes 407km/h or as slow as 260+mph street legal,  Formula 1 / Indy cars dreams about one day growing up to try driving this fast, same concept. 

Newegg.com look at reviews on parts once you have a short list on what you might want say option 1 motherboard option 2 motherboard if 1 is funky etc you get the idea.

This tomshardware website has plenty of hardware info and test results on hardware = get best speed / performance mix for the money you want to spend.

As for supported hardware I think the nvidia 650 / 680 chipset on the motherboard might be fairly new so not sure about it and working propperly in linux yet.

PS> the nvidia 650 or 680 chip does slow the hd's down a bit compared to ich7/8/9  chips see motherboard shoot out last month I think.

Also a good way of knowing about working in linux is to pick the one you want and see how many persons has bought it / how many linux users is using it is it a big name brand .

Large numbers purchased usually means good product most of the time and a good possibility of it ending up being used for linux unless it is purely for gaming then maybe not.

Hope this gets you started.

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## lghman

Appriciate the information.  I can look at the reviews and stuff, but I was really just looking for users on here and their opinion on specific motherboards.  I have used VIA chipsets in the past but never used any of the nforce stuff, just don't want to get a motherboard with a totally unsupported chipset.

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## gsoe

I have tried the following (socket AM2) boards:Abit KN9

MSI K9A Platinum

ASUS M2A-VM (integrated graphics)The Abit uses the nForce4 chipset and runs really well with gentoo in my experience, and it comes at a good price. Everything just works, except you need to upgrade to the latest BIOS to get the temperature readings right. A more up-to-date version is the KN9 ultra with the nForce 770 ultra, that according to this report is very good for linux too.

The ASUS uses the AMD 690G chip with SB600 southbridge, and runs very well. I can't recommend it though, because according to memtest86 it runs the ram at command rate 1T, and there is no possibility in the BIOS to select 2T. My cheap Kingston value ram couldn't cope with that, and i got occasional freezes of the system when doing demanding tasks like compiling. Don't trust ASUS ram compatibility list, as the Kingston modules are listed in there.

As for the MSI which is the one i'm using now, it runs very well too. It uses the AMD 580X crossfire chip with SB600 southbridge. It has the 2T command rate setting, and so far i haven't had any problem with the Kingston ram. Even if it's a crossfire board, the chipset runs cooler than the Abit, and it has the open ACPI specification for SATA. It's a newer chip though, so you should expect to use newest kernel to get things working. With 2.6.21 i have two problems: 1: There is not support for the hardware monitoring chip yet, so i can't have any temperature readings, and 2: The volume slider in KDE's panel applet affects the pc-speaker channel, so to turn up or down i have to open kmix. I haven't found out yet if it's a driver problem or a KDE problem.

Thats my take, hope you get around to finding a board that suits you!

EDIT: I have been running 32-bit gentoo in all cases, if you plan to run 64-bit, there seems to be some problems with recent kernels and nForce4. Have a look at this.

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## DRZIN

Do the fix for the sata drivers in the kernel?

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## nick_already_taken

I can recommend the following system:

```

       description: Motherboard

       product: AM2NF3-VSTA (ASROCK)

       product: AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4200+

       vendor: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD]

```

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## Genone

I'm quite happy with my MSI K9N-SLI 2F, everything works fine AFAIKCT.

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## pdr

Although it has future upgrade limitation, I have been running my server (64-bit) on Asus A8N SLI Deluxe (socket 939) with x2 3800+ for quite a while now - very happy with it.

For my workstation I'm using intel E6300 in an Asus P5B Deluxe (P965 chip). Only issue with it is that lm_sensors does not support it yet.. one benefit with this is that when I upgrade my gaming box, I can put it's E6600 into the workstation - that is how the X2 3800+ got into the server (used to run it on another A8N SLI Deluxe in my workstation).

The gentoo server and gentoo workstation get hand-me-downs from my XP gaming box - well, except the video. Don't envision needing my 8800gtx in either linux box..

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