CPU/motherboard recommendations

[Bernt Hansson]

Robert Huff said the following on 2009-05-13 01:39:
> 	I am actively building the parts list for a new system, and
> would welcome advice on motherboards.
> 	Quick research has pointed me to two paths with regard to CPUs:
> Intel Q9550(s)/Q9650, and AMD Phenom II 925/945.  (Unfortunately, the
> 925 doesn't seem to be available to the general public yet.)
> 	The ideal motherboard would be small on bells and whistles
> (onboard NIC, video, and RAID are optional (even undesirable) though
> a decent sound chip would be good) and big on reliability,
> expandability (this machine might end up with 8gbytes memory and
> many storage devices), and good layout.
> 	My current machines (over five years old) use ASUS and MSI,
> both of which have been mostly OK.
> 	So ... let's start wirh the horror stories.  What has a high
> failure rate out of the box, or is not compatible with generic
> components?

I'm using this motherboard for my desktop.
http://www.gigabyte.eu/Support/Motherboard/CPUSupport_Model.aspx?ProductID=2694#anchor_os

With acceptable result. X and usb don't play well. snd_hda doesen't load 
at boot. Otherwise it's using AMD X2 64 6400+ CPU and 8 Gbytes of memory 
 
       (16Gb max) Don't know if it's on the market any more. I'm quite 
happy with it.

Oh the onboard nic only works when it feels like it, so don't count on 
it, buy a separate nic.