Motherboard recommendations

[aRTee]

I'm in the market for a motherboard with AM2+ socket.

Or actually, two boards.

 

One will be the basis for a new server, the other for a new desktop.

 

The server will be headless and keyboardless after installation, and function as a firewall/music server with LIRC / file and download/internet server.

I will run vnc sessions on it, that I'll connect to remotely (from the internet or the internal network).

It will be running webbrowsers with loads of tabs, perhaps an email app, some music player (currently I use xmms, but with a beefed up machine I might start using amarok) and mldonkey.

 

In terms of hardware, I'll be very interested in a system with onboard graphics, since I'll never have use for more than svga for installation. Alternatively, I could use the pci radeon 9250 that sits in the current desktop - about which more later.

Furthermore, I'll want to put in two 1TB drives in software raid (built-in backups), most likely sata drives. I have a dvdrom already, with ata connector. Naturally, at current prices, I could just get an SATA dvd burner.

For LIRC / the music server, I'll need the com port - hard to come by, no longer exported to the outside bracket of any recent motherboard, but I can manage with the onboard serial port header, so that should be ok.

It would be good to have a motherboard with decent/good audio. Currently I use a SBlive 5.1, just in stereo mode. Anything of similar of better quality is fine.

 

The server will have to have two network interfaces, one to connect to the cable modem, the other to connect to the internal network/switch.

 

This server system should be relatively quiet. I'm thinking: 4850e 45 W AMD64x2 CPU, with fanless heatsink.

 

I already have an enermax 350W power supply, with atx 24(?) pin header plus 4pin extra header. It has a dual fan system: 80mm to the outside, 120mm at the bottom to suck air over the mobo+ cpu and out through the 80mm fan exhaust. The 120mm fan can be manually tuned. (Potmeter at outside next to power switch.)

Any reason I could not use this PSU?

 

 

I will want boards of which the bios can be updated without having Windows - luckily I noticed that for various Asus boards, one can update the bios just by using a usb flash drive (the built-in bios can read from usb thumbdrives). Gigabyte boards can do that trick from floppy - no problem putting a drive in, just finding a working floppy may be a bit hard...

 

 

Now some more questions:

do you have experience with an AM2+ board?

Any things you particularly like, any things I didn't mention but you think I should take into account?

Anyone with experience with

Asus M3A32-MVP Deluxe/WiFi-AP (can the wifi work as AP in Linux nowadays? I found older messages where it coulnd't yet, but just as regular wifi) - using it as AP will allow me to jump the Fon bandwagon..)

Asus M3A78-EMH HDMI

Asus M3N-HT Deluxe (splashtop - Express gate: before the bios one gets to choose to boot the built-in Linux in 5 seconds or so, or boot from harddrive - could be neat for the desktop, but I read somewhere that it doesn't work with usb keyboards/mice, and that it can only be updated from within windows...!)

Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H

Gigabyte MA790FX-DQ6 (dual gigabyte lan)

I realise these motherboards are from a broad price range - cost is no big objective, but senseless spending is out of the question. In other words, taking the dual gigabyte lan board at twice the price of another one, where I could add an old pci ethernet card which I still have is not good enough.

 

I was thinking about the Asus M3N-HT Deluxe for the desktop system, which is used for email, watching movies (mostly on the projector), writing documents and such.

The most problematic thing is that it is a dual display system, currently with an nvidia gf4200ti to the monitor and an ati 9250 for the projector - which can't deal with 720p video - too slow...

Also for TV time it cannot handle the highest quality settings, which the nvidia on the monitor has no problems with at all.

I first had a single graphics card in the desktop system, but I learnt all kinds of nasty stuff about tearing, which I don't want to go through again.

In any case, due to ATI/AMD's current stance towards the FLOSS community, I'll prefer to have an ATI card, so my question is: can that work fine on this board with Nvidia integrated graphics?

I will want to play back HD content on the projector (at least 720p, but I may get a full hd projector before I exchange this hardware again).

The only 3d stuff that will run for sure on this desktop system is Google earth and similar applications (marble for instance), and perhaps compiz (or the kde4 equivalent).

 

The desktop system has a Bt848 tv-card which I need to keep if only for the remote control. Well, we just ditched the tv so we really want this to work...

Otherwise, I have an Audigy sound card, but if the onboard sound is good, that's fine too. I have a 4 channel surround setup.

 

And how about suspend to ram on current desktop systems, does that work on Linux nowadays?

 

Any comments on power draw, also of DRR2 Ram? I was thinking of 4x2GB for both systems, the desktop since I'll be doing video editing on it (4x4GB would be better, but I don't see 4GB modules at affordable prices), and the server since once it's up and running I won't shut it down in a long while, and at 150US$ per 2x2GB ECC sticks I may as well fill all slots. (Uptime 460 days, but only because I moved - before that it was 650+ days IIRC.)

Since they have heatsinks and on several of the aforementioned boards there are heatpipes to be connected to the modules, I'm guessing they may use a fair amount of power..?

BTW I noticed most/all Asus boards are limited to 8GB, most Gigabyte boards can supposedly handle 16GB...

 

Oh yeah, I may want to upgrade these systems to Phenom 4x cpu's once those are out in affordable and low(er) power versions.

I'm open to all feedback, I'm mostly interested in your experience with AM2+ boards and in comments on things I may want to take into account for these Linux systems boards.

[AussieJohn]

Hello aRTee.

 

I am currently using a Gigabyte Mainboard MA790X-DS4 (it is an AM2+ socket) that I got about three weeks ago and it has performed flawlessly. (With 2008-Spring in Raid1 mode)

On it I am using AMD Athlon64-X2 6400+ Dual-Core Processor.

The board also has a 3yrs warranty in Australia and has the Japanese long life capacitors. It has quite a good spec.

 

I can certainly recommend it.

 

Cheers. John.

Edited June 2, 2008 by AussieJohn

[ianw1974]

The last few boards I've bought or recommended have been Gigabyte. I've never had any probs with them, nor my friends that I recommended them too. Even the wife's computer has a Gigabyte board.

[aRTee]

Thanks for the feedback guys!

 

I'll check out that Gigabyte board John, thanks for the tip.

[aRTee]

Well, it seems that Gigabyte ship very suitable boards, which I'll probably go for. I still have some time before actually going ahead, but for now it looks like this:

 

Desktop: Gigabyte MA78GM-S2H, since it has very nice on-board graphics (fastest integrated graphics around), which can eventually be complemented with an extra pci-x-16 card, and more importantly, AMD actually shipped this very board to reviewers to show off their new 780G + SB700 chipset...

I'll have to go with a Phenom to make sure the graphics core gets good bandwidth - one thing I didn't aim at initially, but on this board that really makes a difference. Most likely I'll be going for a 9750.

This board will only need the TVcard from the current desktop - and perhaps a second graphics card, in case the onboard card cannot play back without tearing on the second head (vga - the first head will be the regular monitor on dvi).

I'll likely get a zerotherm BTF 80 hsf combo, transplant my dvdrw and the biggest ata harddrive, and not much else - the server will take care of the data backups, perhaps I'll even mount the home dir from the server.

 

Server: most likely Gigabyte GA-MA790FX-DQ6, it's expensive, but leaves little for me to mess with. It sports onboard Sound, 2x GLAN (which I need both), 1394, SATAII RAID, 2x eSATA (always practical on a server that should be up 24/7 - no need to switch it off), serial external - instead of internal where you need to get your hands on a bracket or mess yourself with some wires or so.

I'll only have to add a graphics card, and as I'll soon have a radeon 9250 pci left over from my current desktop, that's taken care of.

I'll most likely go for WD caviar GP drives, dynamic rotational speed from 5400 to 7200, 1TB. I'll have 2 in linux software raid. These drives are slow, but raid will make sure that reading will be quite ok, and lots of RAM in the server will make sure that writing will not seem slow anyway... on the other hand, these drives are really really quiet and low power, if the reviews are to be believed.

Furthermore I'll go for Zerotherm BTF 95 fanless heatsink, to minimize the noise.

Lastly, I'm still thinking of getting a uSDHC card with thumbreader - costs around 70 US$ (72 CHF) and it would be nice to host the system - no moving parts, very low power , so I can always umount the TB raid and make sure the system is really really quiet - only PSU fans left over that move....

 

I intend to make these purchases in a week or 2, perhaps 3...

 

Thanks again for your feedback. I'll let you know how things work out.