New comp build

[hxcjohn]

Hey fellas. Need some help picking a mobo mostly. For some background i play a few games mostly fps and strategy, i work alot with video (conversion and authoring mostly), and do other normal everyday stuff. I do like to tinker so i will eventually get into OCing it. future upgrade ability is a good thing too. I already have decided on an AMD Phenom II X3 720 BE processor (will take other suggestions). The motherboard is were i get really confused, so many models with very small differences. I have been looking at the GIGABYTE GA-MA790XT-UD4P, ASUS M4A78 PRO and the ASRock M3A790GXH. I am up to any suggestions. Onboard video is not a major point as i have an old graphics card that will work till i get something else. Upgradeability is really the key. I have all other components i need. I would like to keep it 300 or under. i should also mention i have been playing with linux lately, dont know if there are many mobo/cpu conflicts with linux but i would like to keep those to a min.

Thanks
John

 

[Xenonvector927]

Hey fellas. Need some help picking a mobo mostly. For some background i play a few games mostly fps and strategy, i work alot with video (conversion and authoring mostly), and do other normal everyday stuff. I do like to tinker so i will eventually get into OCing it. future upgrade ability is a good thing too. I already have decided on an AMD Phenom II X3 720 BE processor (will take other suggestions). The motherboard is were i get really confused, so many models with very small differences. I have been looking at the GIGABYTE GA-MA790XT-UD4P, ASUS M4A78 PRO and the ASRock M3A790GXH. I am up to any suggestions. Onboard video is not a major point as i have an old graphics card that will work till i get something else. Upgradeability is really the key. I have all other components i need. I would like to keep it 300 or under. i should also mention i have been playing with linux lately, dont know if there are many mobo/cpu conflicts with linux but i would like to keep those to a min.

Thanks
John

Don't have enough experience with AMD mobos, but Asus is a good brand, and I think that they make AMD mobos. For the Linux thing, absolutely NO CPU would have a conflict with a Linux OS. And there aren't many mobo conflicts. I'd know, I've used plenty of random computers with weird mobos on Linux and there was never any conflict. If there is, you can probably find Linux drivers for your mobo on the net if they're not auto detected by the kernel (which they should be). Gooooo Linux!

 

[hxcjohn]

Thanks for the linux info xenon! I have really been digging ubuntu 8.10 intrepid (my first distro of linux).

 

[Xenonvector927]

Thanks for the linux info xenon! I have really been digging ubuntu 8.10 intrepid (my first distro of linux).

Glad to hear Ubuntu has yet another fan.

 

[hxcjohn]

Its not just me. My sister used it on my computer and had me install it on her laptop, and my dad used that laptop and loved it and is having me put it on his desktop. I think i have this question in the wrong place.

 

[Xenonvector927]

Its not just me. My sister used it on my computer and had me install it on her laptop, and my dad used that laptop and loved it and is having me put it on his desktop. I think i have this question in the wrong place.

I'll keep bumping until someone gives you an answer about the mobo. Yeah, we found three P4s at our verge collection recently, each one is now running Ubuntu for a family member. They're lovin' it so far. That's about $750 that Microsoft just lost.

 

[viper200]

for that cpu id go for a

GA-MA790X-UD4 with SB750 and try for the 4th core

 

[JTP709]

To answer the question id go with a mobo that has a 790GX northbridge and SB750 southbridge. This AMD set up, along with your CPU and an ATI 4000 type graphics card are designed to maximize your performance and overclocking ability. The 790GXs do have onboard video, but the way the system is setup if youre graphix card gets maxed out the onboard video will pick up the slack, this will keep your game from hanging, crashing, or getting real low FPS. Definately recommend an ATI 4870 or 4850

 

[The Third Level]

Go for a Gigabyte with 790GX and 750 SB.

They're sick. and nice CPU choice man, 720 is a beast.

 

[hxcjohn]

Hey sorry for the late reply guys. I ordering some stuff but then canceled my order cause i ended up hating my case decision. I was thinking of going with a BIOSTAR TFORCE TA790GX 128M AM2+/AM2 AMD 790GX HDMI ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail since its got the onboard graphics i could use for a while till i upgrade. You guys think the gigabyte over the biostar?

 

[rosenberg1979]

if you are gonna be using linux and it's your first distro and you want to get the most out of the onboard graphics processor, either go nvidia, like a geforce 8200 or 8300 board or buy a nvidia video card right away (and use whatever motherboard you like), amd/ati drivers are a bear to install correctly (can you use the command line with confidence? if not don't bother with ati), do not provide hardware accelerated video playback, which if you work with video would most likely be very important to you, and generally give you one gpu lower preformance (ie a 4870 will run benchmarks more in tune with a 4850) due to the drivers generally being terrible.

Believe me if you are running linux stay far far far from ati. Or invest in no-doz and alot of asprin.

 

[Xenonvector927]

if you are gonna be using linux and it's your first distro and you want to get the most out of the onboard graphics processor, either go nvidia, like a geforce 8200 or 8300 board or buy a nvidia video card right away (and use whatever motherboard you like), amd/ati drivers are a bear to install correctly (can you use the command line with confidence? if not don't bother with ati), do not provide hardware accelerated video playback, which if you work with video would most likely be very important to you, and generally give you one gpu lower preformance (ie a 4870 will run benchmarks more in tune with a 4850) due to the drivers generally being terrible.

Believe me if you are running linux stay far far far from ati. Or invest in no-doz and alot of asprin.

+1 for staying away from ATI. Just make sure you can find the Linux drivers for the onboard video and LAN:
http://www.nvidia.com/object/unix.html
I had to put off installing Linux on my machine for two months because no Linux drivers for it had been made yet. It was either that or be stuck at 800x600 and without any internet.

 

[rosenberg1979]

+1 for staying away from ATI. Just make sure you can find the Linux drivers for the onboard video and LAN:
http://www.nvidia.com/object/unix.html
I had to put off installing Linux on my machine for two months because no Linux drivers for it had been made yet. It was either that or be stuck at 800x600 and without any internet.

what onboard vid and lan are you using?

Normally there are opensource drivers for everything you need to get your rig up and running on the install disc, as noted in your link about the nforce drivers being avaiable as opensource drivers on your install disc. There is even the nv opensource nvidia gpu driver that really isn't half bad for day to day use. Unless you are using arch or DSL or build your own, or some really hardcore distro like that, hell even slackware has everything you need in it, mmmmm slackware 12.1, i set up a slackware server for my sister last christmas from a computer i found at the dump, hours down = 0

getting set-up is just as simple as any OS now, pop in the disc and point and click then download and install the graphics driver for your card (use you're distro's package manager rather than go to nividia, but for ati it normally fails as a rule so you need to go commad line on the install).

The graphics drivers from nvidia are closed source and enable your card to preform as it should with hardware accelerated video playback and much better opengl preformance and from what i understand (from the guys over at phronix) work with the 8*00 series opboard gpu's.

+1 SuSE 11.1
rpm based is much nicer than deb IMHO

 

[Xenonvector927]

what onboard vid and lan are you using?

Normally there are opensource drivers for everything you need to get your rig up and running on the install disc, as noted in your link about the nforce drivers being avaiable as opensource drivers on your install disc. There is even the nv opensource nvidia driver that really isn't half bad. Unless you are using arch or DSL or build your own, or some really hardcore distro like that (hell even slackware has everything you need in it) getting set-up is just as simple as any OS now, pop in the disc and point and click then download and install the graphics driver for your card (use you're distro's package manager rather than go to nividia, but for ati it normally fails as a rule so you need to go commad line on the install).

The graphics drivers from nvidia are closed source and enable your card to preform as it should with hardware accelerated video playback and much better opengl preformance and from what i understand (from the guys over at phronix) work with the 8*00 series opboard gpu's.

+1 SuSE 11.1
rpm based is much nicer than deb IMHO

I bought an Asus P5N-MX. A cheap and nasty motherboard. I half expect it to die on me - it was the cheapest motherboard in the store and is nearly two years old (I think) and no longer available on Newegg. Although the onboard graphics are very nice. The simple explanation was that it was my first build (typing on it now) and I was so nervous and paranoid about everything that I just didn't want to go through all the stress and trouble (negligible as it was) and just wanted to get up and running. So I installed a copy of XP that I had lying around, installed the drivers off the disk, and everything's working great. I still run Linux on a lot of machines, but the drivers for them are always preinstalled and there's no problem there. Oh, and there's the small matter that I couldn't acces the internet to download the drivers...
I really don't like SUSE at all because of that STUPID, STUPID chamelon!! It is just all over the place and looks dead ugly to me. I use Linux Mint and Ubuntu primarily, although I did really enjoy my time using Mandriva and it was very easy and simple to use. It also ran pretty fast on my old PIII 500MHz.

 

[rosenberg1979]

lol i turn my lizzard off and make it look like default gnome, it gave me the creeps too.

That is odd about your lan diver not autoconfiguring at install, those drivers haven't changed in years and are very well supported. I've had no problem from an old socket A athalon compaq to sis and via bargin motherboards, to nvidia boards, but sometimes odd things happen, i had one board i was sure was cursed, nothing ran stable on it ever.

Try the darkside and pop in a suse 11.1 install dvd, you can always make the lizzard go away. I haven't used mandrivia in years but i did find it a very pleasant distro when i did use it. I still can't get behind debian based distros the packages are old and it's just a different way of doing things when you've been using a rpm based distro for so long. I can always get behind some of that no package manager slackware fun though!

Slackware: "Dependencies?, solve them yourself i'm busy!

 

[Xenonvector927]

lol i turn my lizzard off and make it look like default gnome, it gave me the creeps too.

That is odd about your lan diver not autoconfiguring at install, those drivers haven't changed in years and are very well supported. I've had no problem from an old socket A athalon compaq to sis and via bargin motherboards, to nvidia boards, but sometimes odd things happen, i had one board i was sure was cursed, nothing ran stable on it ever.

Try the darkside and pop in a suse 11.1 install dvd, you can always make the lizzard go away. I haven't used mandrivia in years but i did find it a very pleasant distro when i did use it. I still can't get behind debian based distros the packages are old and it's just a different way of doing things when you've been using a rpm based distro for so long. I can always get behind some of that no package manager slackware fun though!

Slackware: "Dependencies?, solve them yourself i'm busy!

Lol. Slackware is just too complicated for me. The closest I've ever gotten to Slackware is Slax (but they only have the name in common lol).
My mobo wasn't very popular, so I guess no one really bothered writing drivers etc for it. Frankly I can't be bothered hunting around for them (even though they're easy to find). Plus I don't have the hard drive space, and have no money for a new one. We have a couple decommisioned Compaqs to muck around with at school, all different models, and yeah, the drivers for them are auto detected on every distro we tried. A little frustrating for me that it doesn't work for me. But that's because Compaqs are popular.

 

[rosenberg1979]

That does suck, but I still think it's kinda odd , usally 90% of the chips from one board are just recycled from older models. If you are really looking for a pet project take it over to one of the dedicated linux boards and try to get a guru on your case. Otherwise juse run windows if it suits your needs, you already have it. I made the switch when i needed more server like function from my rig and now i use it because it's just what i know.

lol I was the resident computer geek until my friend with vista asked me to fix their computer, i couldn't even navigate it. Hmmmm +1 for linux now i can't fix your computer, i don't know how!

 

[hxcjohn]

Thanks for the tip on staying away from ati!