Any Pre-Buy tips for an Athlon64 ?

motobrandt · n00b Joined: 14 Jan 2004 Posts: 1 Location: Bellinham, WA

I'm looking at setting up an Athlon64 system for desktop fun and I'm just now looking at buying hardware. Does anyone have any experience with compatible/incompatible HW?

I'm looking at the MSI K8T NEO for the MB.

any tips at all software or hardware related would be greatly appreciated.

TIA :lol:

TheCoop · Posted: Wed Jan 14, 2004 8:42 pm Post subject:

get the 3000+ processor, its a lot cheaper than the others and has nearly the same performance. The motherboard doesnt matter as much in terms of performance, but you can have a look through the kernel config and the forums for suppoted hardware
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Tamerz · Posted: Wed Jan 14, 2004 8:49 pm Post subject:

I agree that the 3000+ has nearly the same performance NOW but when 64 bit apps start coming out the halved cache will cripple it. Go with the 3200+. It's not much more than the 3000+ now that the 3400+ is out.

Sphynxx · Posted: Thu Jan 15, 2004 12:37 am Post subject:

The MSI Neo is an awesome choice. When it comes to AMD, I am always a fan of MSI boards.

Tamerz · Posted: Thu Jan 15, 2004 8:58 am Post subject:

Tamerz · Posted: Thu Jan 15, 2004 8:59 am Post subject:

Oh yea, don't even bother trying to use SATA RAID built into a motherboard with Linux. It's just not worth the hastle.

trapperjohn · Posted: Thu Jan 15, 2004 9:46 am Post subject:

How is Linux-support for those new nforce-chipsets? I've heard that nforce2-chipset makes problems in certain configurations and VIA has always been well supported.

secondshadow · Guru Joined: 23 Jun 2003 Posts: 362

Actually, I'm fairly certain that the MSI K8T Neo is a VIA based board. Its the one I've been eyeing as well.

Crispy Beef · Apprentice Joined: 29 Apr 2003 Posts: 194 Location: UK

nForce 3 150 chipset is supported in the 2.6.1 kernel (gentoo-dev-sources) and works like a dream for me. The only downer is still the hardware mixing with sound, although I've read a few things saying that six channel sound is now possible. Can't confirm that myself.

I have an Athlon 64 3200+ for about a week now and am impressed with it and the system as a whole, there are a few apps that need to be tweaked and updated before they work properly or at all, but on the whole most things work nicely. :-)

Roll on the properly coded stuff.
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pjp · Administrator Joined: 16 Apr 2002 Posts: 20067

Moved from Installing Gentoo.
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Taloon · n00b Joined: 16 Jan 2004 Posts: 5

I am getting this board in today, I'll be glad to relate my experiences of installing and hardware support.

mimesis · Posted: Fri Jan 16, 2004 5:11 pm Post subject:

I strongly recommend the 3200 for the reasons people have already outlined. It's what I went with. As for mobos... if you look at the round-up reviews, the boards for socket 745 are all pretty decent performers.. so go with your favorite chipset (I got soyo's CK8 with the nforce 3).

Don't forget you need a minimum of 350W from your psu and you will no doubt want some decent ram to complement the proc's l2 cache. I got a bad psu, so I haven't gotten to try my goodies yet. It's painful to stare at the clawhammer clawing away at nothing. bleh.
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Kihaji · Apprentice Joined: 12 Sep 2002 Posts: 230

mimesis

discomfitor · l33t Joined: 21 Feb 2003 Posts: 927 Location: None

I just set up a 3200 athlon with that same motherboard today. I think the only problem that was evident was that there's an additional power socket going to the agp (or something...it's been a long day) that I forgot about, which gave me some problems for a while. Other than that, everything worked fine.
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