good setup for linux?

[sujoki]

ok i plan on doing an upgrade sometime, this is what i have planned, definately a amd xp 2500+ barton, i want a dfi NFII Lanparty mobo, if not my second choice is the Abit KF7-S, third choice will be the asus A7N8X Deluxe, then we go on to ram, i plan on getting the fastest ram possible, i want some OCZ PC3700, then goes to power supply, preferably a Antec, Sparkle\fortron but i will settle for a enermax one, i know the psu has nothing to do with linux or windows, but has some to do with overclocking, which i plan to do . umm next is vidcard, i want a Nvidia FX 5600 or 5800, but i will settle for the 5200 considering price, that brings to total cost down alot then i can just buy another vid card later lol, its either that or a radeon 9500pro. i wont go non pro because the 5600 beats that out and i know nvidia has linux drivers, but i dont know if ati has produced linux drivers yet, does anyone know if any of this hardware has any problems in linux? i am also pointing towards nvidia because i know where to get some permanent overclocking utils, bios editors and such. and i dont know of any for ati. all my friends are like, bwa your crazy because ati cards perform better, i know it, but i want something all round that works for everything.

[SkyNet]

I don't know about going with an nForce2 chipset motherboard. I have one, and it only gives me problems when combined with an ATI video card. So if you ever plan to use an ATI video card, then don't buy an nForce2 motherboard.

I would recommend this board. A7V600. It's a KT600 Chipset, so it should out perform the KT400A boards, and it's got some nice features included with it, all at a relative cheap price. About $88-$100.

Asus A7V600
VIA KT600/VT8237
400FSB
3xDDR400
1xAGP 8X
6xPCI
2x UltraDMA133/100
4xUSB 2.0
Onboard Audio
Gigabyte LAN

[sujoki]

if you didnt see, OVERCLOCKING!!!!!, NFORCE IS NEEDED , by nature the Thourobred(SP?) and bartons are unlocked from factory, as far as i know, via mobo's dont see that fact, nforces do, also, nforces have locked pci bus's, so with the ram i am getting i could go to 233*10.5 or so instead of 190*13, higher FSP yields most overall improvement. therefore i am sticking with a NFORCE II mobo no matter what, but thanks for the advice Skynet.

[SkyNet]

Okay, just don't get an ATI card, unless you have a way of testing it first.

[sujoki]

i honestly dont see why i would have a problem with an ATI card, i read alot on the overclocking forums and alot of people have NFII and ATI. i was more or less looking for anything that would actually have trouble with linux, vs hardware not working together.

[sujoki]

btw skynet, what exact board was it?

[SkyNet]

The board I had/still have is an MSI K7N2-L coupled with an ATI Radeon 9600 Pro. It works okay in 4x AGP set from the BIOS, but when set to 8x AGP it doesn't work at all. So the ATI card could not use it's full potential.

I bought a Gigabyte GA-7VAX-A KT400A chipset to replace the MSI, and now all is well, except that this board doesn't detect the DVD-ROM drive in BIOS. I've sent in a tech support e-mail, and I'm waiting on a reply.

[sujoki]

yeah i hear MSI and Gigabyte are not the best boards, more for users that just want a mediocre system, not high proformance overclocking boards or anything.

[SkyNet]

Well, I don't know about MSI, but the Gigabyte board performs really well. The only problem is it doesn't detect the DVD-ROM drive. I'm getting by with an External DVD-Burner at the moment. However if at all possible, I would like to avoid buying another DVD-ROM drive.

I think before I do that, I'll switch out with the DVD-ROM drive in this computer, and see if it picks it up. If so, then I'll just make a trade, and save some money.

More then likely it's probably some user error on my part somewhere. A jumper I forgot to remove or install or something like that.

[sujoki]

well if you think that you might just want to take a brief check at the jumpers and make sure .