Dave Phillips:
Not long ago I mentioned that a student had traded an MSI mobo (socket
939) for some lessons. I'm ready to start building a system around that
board, and I have some questions for this list:
1) I can get a new AMD64 Athlon 3800 2.4 GHz for (US) $145. Is the
Athlon 64 a good chip for audio work, and is that a good price ? It's
the best listed on Pricewatch.
2) Recommended case/power supply ?
If I would have bought a new machine right now, I would have gone
for intel 805d plus watercooling. When overclocking its almost the
fastest processor available. Compared to an amd64-3800+fan solution,
its not very much more expensive, its a lot faster, and could even
be a bit quiter:
http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/06/12/your_diy_gaming_rig_for_720/
3) The MSI box says it includes an nVidia nForce3 chipset, which I
assume means that there's an audio/video chipset on the mobo. I'll
probably disable the audio, and I have a gForce AGP video card to put in
the machine. Question: Am I better off using the integrated video or
should I use my card instead ? (Btw, I use the kernel nv driver, not
nVidia's binary driver).
nVidia doesn't support linux, and many people have had trouble because
of this. The nForce3 chipset probably works okey, but if there is an
alternative with chipsets from via, intel, or SiS, you should go for
that instead, ideologically speaking.
Regarding the built-in videocards on nforce boards, all of the
ones I have tried (4 different types), have had a bit blury pictures,
and neither of them have worked with the open source driver, so you should
probably put in your old video card.
(the open source driver for the nforce network works just fine, BTW,
and its also supported by nvidia themself.)
6) How can I best reduce the noise from this system ?
Get hold of long cables for mouse, keyboard, monitor and sound, and
put your machine in a closet or in a different room. For ps/2 and
vga cables, you can stretch it to at least 15 meters with asus
motherboards.
