workstation mobo

[David Reid]

Ken Gunderson wrote:
> On Mon, 15 Aug 2005 18:16:52 +1000
> • • <googl3meister at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> 
>>On 8/13/05, Juergen Lock <nox at jelal.kn-bremen.de> wrote:
>>
>>>On Fri, Aug 12, 2005 at 08:58:23AM -0600, Ken Gunderson wrote:
>>>
>>>>Greets All:
>>>>
>>>>I'm liking these amd opteron servers so much that I am considering
>>>>building an amd based workstationn.  Assumed it would be Athalon based
>>>>but in searching archives I note that some folks seem to prefer the
>>>>opterons for workstation use. Perhaps to some degree in reaction
>>>>to the "chipset mess".  I'm not averse to spending a bit more for the
>>>>opteron system but it seems to me the Opteron's CPU heatsink/fan might
>>>>be a bit noisy for workstation use.  And I have buddies shouting in my
>>>>ear to "stick w/ Intel" for workstation.  But then I also know others
>>>>who run AMD for their desktop machines.  Any recommends based on current
>>>>state of affairs in the ADM hardware world?
>>>
>>>I just got a new box with an Asus A8V Deluxe board (VIA K8T800 Pro,
>>>Socket 939), and so far everything seems to be working.  The only
>>>unusual thing i had to do for FreeBSD (5.4-R) was adding a patch
>>>to the sk nic driver (see other thread.)
>>>
>>
>>Update on ASUS A8V Deluxe for archives
>>
>>I installed 5.4-RELEASE about April (2005) and track 5-Stable on that
>>hardware straight from CVS - never had a prob with sk0 yet, it's
>>worked since day one with no boot time errors.
> 
> 
> Thanks for the input.  My short list is two VIA KT890 based boards:
> 
> - Abit AX8v2.0
> - Asus A8-E SE
> 
> I've had good history w/both of these mobo makers but the Asus gets a
> an extra plus in the support department since I can usually find bios
> updates etc. on their site w/a bit less digging...;-)

when I updated I went for an ABit An-8 Ultra, based on the nVidia
chipset, but while the board *almost* works correctly, it seems to have
some issues. Also given nVidias approach to drivers I'd suggest avoiding
them - I would have if I'd known how bad they were!

david