On Tuesday October 7 2003 01:34 pm, 70233,2610 wrote: > On Tue, 2003-10-07 at 08:30, Tom Brinkman wrote: > > N B, I've got a KT400a and 9.2. Basically the same chipset > > as the KT600. Everything should work right out of the box. The > > 6 channel VIA AC97 works great. You don't really need a 600 > > unless your gonna use a XP 3200+ with 400Mhz FSB (the only > > difference between the 400a and 600). Both my chipset and the > > KT600 support SATA, but from all I've read, I'd stick to usin > > the ATA/133 ports, and forget SATA with Linux. It won't be any > > faster, probly slower than /133 anyhow. > > Thanks, Tom. You're right, of course. The main dif btw the two > chipsets is the FSB speed. Its just that I've fallen in love > with an EpoX board with the KT600. I got a small grant to build > (I think that's what the committee liked - sweat equity) four lab > workstations to run free software and National Semi's Labview for > Linux, and could probably squeeze in the XP3200+ CPUs, but I sure > don't have to for this application. They'll replace six Pentium > 133 machines running Win95! The lab already has an nbd special > KT333 computer running MDK 9.1. I know enough to stay away from > the nForce chipsets. > > I'm thinking of the future too; in two years the kid they hire to > replace me (at twice my salary) can upgrade to the by-then cheap > 400 MHz FSB CPUs and soup them up a bit. > > You're probably right that everything will work right out of the > box, but I'm spending student technology fee money here so I'm a > bit cautious. I wish I knew somebody with one of these boards; > I'd bring my Knoppix disk to try it out. I presume the 2.6 > kernel would solve it all in 2004 anyhow; maybe I can just take > my time building them since they're not really needed until next > summer. > > Regards,1.0
The only Epox board AMD recommends for the 3200+ is the EP-8RDA3+ ATX NVIDIA nForce2 Ultra 400 AGP DDR Award I'd advise to avoid nVidia nForce chipset boards for now. They're no better supported under Linux than their video chipsets. IOW's, proprietary drivers that need to be changed any time you change kernels. Plus all the other garbage that goes with needin a 3rd party closed source tainted kernel. There's been other complaints about nForce + Linux too. OTOH, if you've found an Epox VIA chipset board that supports 400mhz FSB, the AMD lack of recommend might not be that big'a deal. Epox makes quality boards. 3200+'s are relatively expensive tho. For the purposes you cite, I'd look at AMD recommended VIA chipset boards for a XP 2500+ (cheap, about $80). Probly the current 'best bang for the buck' cpu AMD currently sells. It overclocks well too. http://www2.amd.com/us-en/recmobo/ResultsHandler/1,,30_182_869_4348^7923~63674,00.html In any event, I believe you'll do well keeping to VIA chipset boards. Their best one's are usually their A series, eg, KT400a. The latest stepping, revision, ie, last of the runs with some improvements over prior steppings (production runs). But w'ta heck, the only way you could do worse is to buy a ready made computer ;) Then quality is certainly not there, an Linux compatibility is suspect also. -- Tom Brinkman Corpus Christi, Texas
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