So the CPU fan in my home server died and pretty much took the processor with it. It was an old PC that I am gradually replacing the hardware on, and the cpu and crappy-ass ECS mobo (flaky everything!) were the last on the list (albeit a little sooner than expected ).

I'm in the market for a new ATX mobo/cpu/vga. I'd like to stick with AMD (how's 64bit working?) and nVidia graphics. There are plenty of choices, so does anyone have any recommendations? Disrecommendations (manufacturers / boards to avoid)?

Well, personally I would avoid Pentium Ds. I know they may be cheaper, but the extra you'll spend on P4 or even a Sempron from AMD is well worth it.

I have two computers running Slackware 10.2. Both computers have AMD chips, AMD Athlon 64 3000+ and AMD Semptron 2600+. The AMD 64 runs on a Gigabyte K8NS mobo with the NVIDIA 3 250GB chipset and Semptron runs on an ECS mobo with NVIDIA 3 chipset. Both have been great mobos. The semptron is my server while the 64 is my workstation. I have not experimented with any of the 64 bit Distros, but so far they both work beautifully. That's just my opinion.


P.S. The mobo/CPU combo for my server cost me only 170 bucks off newegg.

i'd suggest Gigabyte K8NS mobo + Athlon64. use it myself=)
btw, you'll have great overclocking potential
my athlon64 2800+ runs at 2,5GHz now.

For a server, I recommend any motherboard that has an option to enable ECC memory because 939 socket systems support ECC. Any 939 socket motherboard will only be for enthusiasts, so it is hard to tell if the BIOS includes an option to enable ECC.

The motherboard brands that I suggest are Abit, sometimes ASUS, and Gigabyte. Depending where you get an ASUS motherboard there is high possibility that the chassis leds and switches will not work because of poor manufacturing. Stay away from Silicon Image and Promise chips and ATA/SATA controllers. They have DMA problems which you do not want for a server. Also stay away from SIS and ATI chipsets.

The video card you can get is a GeForce6 6200. Really, you do not need a powerful video card for a server.

A server is not dependent on processor speed. It depends on RAM. A server depends on the amount of processors there are. It some cases like a gamer server needs processor speed, massive I/O throughput, and equal to or more than 1 GB of memory.

Thanks all for the replies, I'm off to browse newegg.

Good points Electro. I was leaning towards lower end nVidia cards, but only because it seems most "better" boards are now sans on-board graphics. This is only a "home" server; its main duties are streaming audio/video, low traffic web sites and email, and the general NFS/fileshare/printer/scanner services for the home network, so I've no need to go balls to the wall here processor or RAM wise.

Appreciate the opinions guys/gals - the last box I built had more ISA slots than anything else, so it's been a while and I feel a bit out of the loop .

Cheers,

Owen