My old KT266 board has finally let me down. I grabbed another socket-A board, a chaintech nforce2 something or other, but found that it will not boot linux. Dang. I've decided to take the 64bit plunge. It seems that any compatibility lists I find are out-dated. I've found few comments that are helpful in this endeavor. Most people say "VIA good" or "AMD bad" with regard to chipsets, but fail to go into any detail. I'd like to spend less than $100 on this.

I know there are a few enthusiasts here. What do you say? Why?

Have no idea, although would love to buy one Check out www.tomshardware.com, perhaps?

unfortunately I cannot comment on Linux compatibility but I try to give a recommendation based on my personal experiences made in eight years of building PCs with VIA and NVIDIA chipsets.
if you see the broader picture, counting in my conversations and job experiences at various hardware stores / sellers the first thing that comes to my mind is that AMD CPUs (generally) seem to be more sensitive regarding MOBO chipsets, i.e. you cannot combine every random board with every AMD CPU without running into more or less grave issues. this probably holds true too for Intel but is more noticeable with AMD based systems.

I had very good success with nForce (2&4) based MOBOs with mature drivers and AMD. I wouldn't recommend VIA for this purpose anymore, simply because the trouble some guys had with such systems seems to be correlating to this combination. maybe it's gotten better over time now but I don't bother checking it anymore (saying this, my VIA KT3 Ultra2 plus AthlonXP is still up and about).

for a lower budget socket 939 system my current recommendation would be an ASUS A8N-E (around 80-85€ here) with an Athlon64 3200+ (115€) or 3500+ (140€) (Venice core, ...).
or Athlon64 X2 4x00 if you need / can afford it.
(in this case, you might also want to look at this)

whatever you do stick to good MOBO producers like ASUS and MSI among others (if they are Linux driver compatible).

for further research I also would recommend well known trusted sources like Tom'sHardwareGuide.

just remember that AMD will continue to produce CPUs for this socket but won't do so forever. well, by the time you would need more horsepower the AM2 socket together with DDR2 memory will probably be a bit more attractive concerning good performance memory etc.

hope that helps a little.

edit: spelling

I would suggest you take a hard look at socket AM2. Socket 939 will be going the way of the dodo soon.

I prefer NVidia chipsets since they have given me less trouble than the others. Too bad Intel won't make a chipset for an AMD CPU.

I like MSI, ASUS, and Giga-Byte boards. They have been stable and reliable for the most part.

Edit: Added info.

Hmmm. The A8N-E. I've read a couple of accounts of people having success with that board. I'm also somewhat partial to the Gigabyte GA-K8N51PVMT-9, which I've also heard had some kind of success story associated with it.

As far as the Tom's suggestions, I looked that site over and also Anandtech, but found a very sparse selection of articles pertaining to linux.

I'm surprised no one suggested that I get a Tyan, as I'm actually starting to lean that way. They start at around $200. No AM2 yet though.

Regarding ubuntu (or debian) hardware compatibility, I found this: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=88639

I liked Tyan years ago, but their offerings haven't been in the mainstream for a long time. They had a good reputation for stability and reliability back then.

hardware for a socket 939 setup will probably be available for quite a long time.
besides, what do favor in AM2 ATM besides lower power consumption an a tat faster CPUs? IMHO this is a great time to buy a socket 939 setup (price wise / bang for the buck) if you're not a person who have to upgrade every two years.

@ mobius:
concerning Linux: did you already try to have a look at some Unix boards?

DDR2 ram is cheaper than DDR.
If you have to replace everything, since you will probably be going PCIe, why waste money?
Also you can get a Sempron 64 bit cpu for around $70.
The cheapest socket 969 CPUs are around $135.

that depends on what you're looking at. DDR2-667 is a bit cheaper ATM but DDR2-800 is on par. and you will need 800 if you want better performance compared to DDR-400 with current AM2 plus at least a 2.2GHz CPU. so there will be actually higher costs involved if you go this route.
wrong the lowest Athlon64 is around 90€ here.
hmm? I don't really understand what you're saying here. socket 939 has also PCIe available.

What? Do you mean server boards?

My point is that a hardware refresh that includes DDR does not make sense at this point. AM2/DDR2 has the greatest flexibility for the dollar.



I quoted prices from www.newegg.com. I have used pricewatch in the past, but found that the cheapest vendors may charge your credit card, and never ship you anything.



Back to my first point, a hardware refresh in todays market gives you the greatest value and flexiblity with SATA, AM2, DDR2, and PCIe.


I picked up a socket 754 board and Sempron 64 last year. It was cheap and fast. I do not ever expect to upgrade the system. I would not recommend this path to others, but it was fine for me at the time.

This post reflects my opinion of course. Some may not agree with that opinion.

I was referring to MOBOs.

well, if you don't plan to update during the next five years or so then a socket 939 system is much more cheaper ATM compared to AM2 and holds similar performance. so right now 939 is the best choice for small pockets.
if you may need to upgrade after a few years the AM2 with all it's implication is the better route, yes.
but concerning upgrades this almost only based on the memory factor as SATA, PCIe etc are also available for 939.
I guess that settles this discussion

Thanks for fighting for me.

Socket AM2 is pretty pointless at this moment. The move to DDR2 achieves nothing for the current CPUs, the extra bandwidth isn't needed yet. All benchmarks (except some synthetic mem bandwidth tests) clearly show that. There are good things, mostly the improved nForce 5xx chipset or the supposedly more energy-efficient "EE" CPUs, but that's about it. Performance is the same, price is higher, and you're basically beta-testing for a while. Plus, remember that he wants to use this in Linux, i don't think there's any support for those brand new chipsets yet.

Good point Citay, I did forget about the new chipsets. There probably is minimal Linux support for the new chipsets, if any at all.

It looks like there's a little stir about the nvidia 6150 chip. I'm starting to be partial to the MSI K8NGM2-FID. The board goes for $78 on newegg, and has 1394 and component video out. Nice. Anandtech says the MSI is superior to the ASUS or Gigabyte. Regarding the GB, I've heard about more than a few boards dead after power glitches. No thanks.

There's discussion about linux on NV 61xx here:

http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=57791