Motherboard Recommendations, and a hello...

[bmcculley at rcn.com]

Hello Gary!

I may still have some bootable PDP-11 media kicking around, if you'd like to add some variety to your RT-11 inventory! :-)

Great timing on your question, even as we speak my newly built (rebuilt actually, but the chassis is all that wasn't swapped) PC is at my elbow, working on getting software loaded as I type this on the old reliable laptop.  I got most of the parts from NewEgg and Tiger Direct to upgrade an old ATX box that I had lying around, decided it was worth assembling it myself to get a truly customized system.  I would recommend both suppliers heartily, btw.

I went with an ASUS P5B-Deluxe WiFi mobo, after shopping around it seemed like the best balance of feature set, technology and price ($130, a bargain from CDW; NewEgg lists it at $195).  The runner-up to ASUS was a Gigabyte board, model number forgotten.  The ASUS supports 1066 MHz for both FSB and memory btw, one of the things that convinced me it was the winner.  

Both are based on the Intel 965 chipset with native SATA and use JMicron for PATA (legacy IDE), so they (like all 965 mobos) share a problem with loading the IDE drivers, if you use an old optical drive instead of getting a modern SATA unit.  I expected that from researching the products and accepted it in order to get the CPU options I wanted.  So far that's the only issue I've encountered with the P5B, and it would easily have been avoided had I bought a SATA optical drive instead of recycling an existing IDE unit.

These are both very overclockable mobos, consensus seems to be that the ASUS boards set the standard of excellence in that area.  I've not tweaked the clock yet, probably will go with a fairly mild boost (I'm hoping for somewhere around 10 to 15%), which looks like it will be easy.

CPU choice was easy, right now it looks like Intel is well ahead of AMD, and will be for the foreseeable future.  I chose the Core 2 Duo E6400 over the E6600, basically at the time I bought it was $220 for 2.1 GHz vs $320 for 2.6 GHz, and that minor speed edge wasn't worth the relatively huge price step to me (especially if I get a couple of cycles back by overclocking, both chips are eminently overclockable).  ymmv.

Shopping carefully found 1 gb Patriot DDR2 1066 MHz ram on NewEgg for a reasonably good price ($165 after rebate).  The ASUS board supports memory and FSB speeds up to 1066, another reason I figured the money could be better spent elsewhere than on raw CPU cycles - no sense in putting a fast CPU on a slow bus!

Video wasn't planned to be upgraded, all I need is text and simple graphics, but the old AGP card didn't find a slot it fit on the new mobo, so I found a PCI x16 video card, the eVGA GeForce 6800GS, for about $100.  That seems like a lot more video than I ever thought I could use, I can't wait to start pushing it!  You can get on-board video on some of the micro ATX form factor boards, such as the ASUS P5B-VM, but I didn't go that path.

The 320 GB Seagate SATA drives are around $80 now, got a single internal drive but am considering adding another to make a raid array, and may go external for future flexibility and NAS options.

Biggest pain was the heatsink, or cooling tower - I got a Scythe that looks awesome, but it's huge, and mounting was a bear until I overcome the pathetic attempt at documentation (me bad, I didn't study the problem before jumping into trying to mount it).  It also wouldn't fit in a smaller chassis, but fit just fine in the one I'm using.  Problem now solved, and performance seems to be what I wanted it to be.

I also upgraded the power supply, the original 150 watt unit seemed insufficient :-) so I got a 550W Seasonic unit.  I have several old ATX boxes, the only one of the three that it would fit happened to be the one I was using...

No gripes about the mobo or anything other than simple mechanical design.  The JMicron issue is a bit of a pain, network install gives a workaround though.  

Mobo and chip temps are fine, 40 to 50 degree C ranges, plenty of room left if I decide to twist the clock tighter, and I've done nothing about helping the case breathe better.

I'd recommend the ASUS without hesitation, based on experience to date.  But I was expecting to be building a hot rod, not buying a turnkey package, so I didn't expect a perfectly smooth ride.  Going in I thought I know what I'm doing well enough to handle the problems - which have been nothing much more than I expected - and so far that's proved true.

but, as always, reasonable men may differ...

Buying a turnkey system I would expect that you would get some compromises in component selection and performance, and some cost for the time and effort for system assembly.  I'd want to look at the detailed specs, and would expect to see the RAM, video and mobo capabilities compromised considerably.  OEMs can get LGA775 mobos for $45 or $50 or perhaps even less, and if you don't twist the crank hard they'll probably be fine, but there's a lot of performance potential still locked up in the Core 2 Duo pentiums that they won't tap.  

Ya pays yer money, ya takes yer choice.

Hope this is helpful!

-brucem

---- Original message ----
>Date: Thu, 1 Feb 2007 13:53:24 -0800 (PST)
>From: Gary Kaufman <garyekaufman at yahoo.com>  
>Subject: Motherboard Recommendations, and a hello...  
>To: gnhlug-discuss at mail.gnhlug.org
>
>I've been lurking for a few weeks now, and figured it
>was time to surface.  I've enjoyed reading the posting
>for this group after meeting a few of you at
>Hosstrader's last fall.
>
>I'm an old computer person, and still have working
>systems that run RT-11 and CP/M among others.  
>
>I'm a relatively new Linux user - I currently run
>IPCOP with Copfilter on a home gateway and Ubuntu on
>my wife's system.  I've also played with Linux on a
>Linksys NSLU2 which I use for MT-DAAPD.
>
>I'm starting to plan a new system for myself, probably
>based on Intel Core 2 Duo.  I'm ready to attempt the
>Linux-leap for myself as well.  I was wondering what
>folks might recommend for motherboards.  I've had
>great experiences with ASUS, but the reports I've seen
>on the web for Ubuntu and the ASUS P5B Deluxe have
>been mixed.  On-board graphics would be fine as my
>needs are very modest.
>
>Thanks for any thoughts!
>
>- Gary
>
>
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