Before I buy

jchambers · 04-04-2009, 05:02 PM

Hello.
I am going to setup a new PC for viewing at least 720p DVD and Flash movies on my HDTV. I am looking at the following boards and would like input on which will work better.
I plan on using Debian 5 Lenny (64-bit) with Fluxbox

XFX GeForce 9300 Motherboard – CPU: E7400 / 2.80GHz
MB: http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...&Sku=P450-9122
CPU: http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...?EdpNo=4256897

XFX nForce 750a SLI Motherboard – CPU: X3 8750 / 2.40GHz
MB: http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...&Sku=P450-9118
CPU: http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...?EdpNo=3797671

Any thoughts on this?
AMD Phenom X3 (AM2+) vs. Intel Core 2 Duo (775)

Are MT/s more important than GHz?
I would like to stick with Nvidia as I already know the driver setup.
Any other advice is appreciated.

Also this is the new direction from my last post.
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...9400gt-713661/

Thanks,
Jon

stress_junkie · 04-04-2009, 05:28 PM

Regarding the Intel Core 2 Duo I highly recommend the E8400. I tried the E7400. I hated it. The E8400 is much faster. I run it on an Asus P5GC-MX motherboard.

PTrenholme · 04-04-2009, 07:18 PM

Both of those board are using nVidia GPUs, and nVidia has, as far as I know, not yet released a FOSS driver that supports a 64 bit OS with full functionality. Intel, on the other hand, has, I believe, released a FOSS driver for their GPU.

You may want to consider this issue before investing.

(Perhaps I'm biased since I primarily use Fedora, and have to rebuild my nVidia driver every time the kernel changes since my laptop has a nVidia GPU on it's m/b. Oh, I also have to do that when the kernel changes on my Kubuntu 8.10 but the Jaunty repository's dkpg for nVidia seems to be working. Note: My laptop uses 64-bit OS versions for all my distributions.)

H_TeXMeX_H · 04-05-2009, 06:24 AM

I recommend you stay away from integrated graphics. What if you want to change out the graphics card in a few years ?

I recommend a good nvidia graphics card, either 8000, 9000 series (maybe 7000 will work too).

Here is the level of support for 64-bit nvidia drivers:
http://us.download.nvidia.com/XFree8...ppendix-a.html

You'll also probably want a good dual core or quad core, but it also depends on the codec used. You may want to look into VDPAU (although it's still experimental) it may provide good results:
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pag...ia_vdpau&num=1

For the motherboard I would check the HCL:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/hcl/index.php/cat/8
http://hardware4linux.info/