[geeks] Good low-end AMD 64bit system?

[Shawn Wallbridge]

The Asus A8V Deluxe is a good typical desktop board, but it is socket 
939, so that means Athlon 64. You would be much better off in the long 
run getting something like the SK8(N/V) with socket 940 (which means 
you could go to the dual core Opteron's in the future), but they 
require real Opteron processors which are more expensive. If you want 
the true power of AMD64, you want the Tyan Thunder K8W, which is a nice 
Dual board, but will set you back around $500, plus chips.

If you want the best machine, I would wait for Dual Opteron's with PCI 
Express. They will be the best performing AMD64 machines. We are 
waiting for these to upgrade our render farm.

We also built an Athlon FX machine based on the Shuttle SN95G5, and it 
was fantastic (mind you we had a Quadro 4000 in it). If I want a quiet 
machine in the future, that will be it. It's probably the smallest 
AMD64 you can build. It's nice to not have to worry about adding all 
the usual things. Mind you, I haven't tried running alternative OS's on 
it (if you are sticking with windows, you will be fine)

shawn



On 24-Dec-04, at 4:24 PM, Bill Bradford wrote:

> I'm going to possibly build a low-end 64-bit AMD system in the next
> couple of weeks.  The only real experience I've had with building 
> 'semi-recent'
> x86 hardware in the past 2-3 years is my VIA EPIA C3-based mini-ITX 
> stuff;
> I've not touched any of the AMD offerings since the Athlon Thunderbird.
>
> Suggestions on chips, motherboards, etc?  I'll go with a GeForce FX 
> 5x00
> series AGP video card...
>
> Bill
>
> -- 
> bill bradford
> austin texas
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