On Sat, 31 Dec 2005, Lee Revell wrote:
> I am thinking of getting an AMD X2 system. I want to avoid Nvidia
> chipsets as their hardware is too closed and the Via stuff seems cheap
> which leaves me with ATI (I realize the latest stuff does not have open
> drivers, but at least there's a chance they'll release one eventually)
>
> Does anyone have any experience with the ASUS A8R-MVP?
>
> http://www.mwave.com/mwave/viewspec.hmx?scriteria=BA22189
>
> Thanks,
>
> Lee
Hi Lee and group,
So did you ever get your new system?
I can see you're not a big fan of NVidia, but I thought I'd play a
little devil's advocate here.
I put together a new AMD X2 system a few weeks ago with a Tyan
motherboard, NVidia CK804 (nforce4) chipset,
http://www.tyan.com/products/html/tomcatk8e.html
Its rock solid so far (bleeding edge Gentoo, vanilla 2.6.14), and all
the devices I care about are supported. Here's my lspci output, with
my comments in []'s,
00:00.0 Memory controller: nVidia Corporation CK804 Memory
Controller (rev a3)
00:01.0 ISA bridge: nVidia Corporation CK804 ISA Bridge (rev a3)
[ basic stuff, no problem ]
00:01.1 SMBus: nVidia Corporation CK804 SMBus (rev a2)
[ haven't tried this yet ]
00:02.0 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation CK804 USB Controller
(rev a2)
00:02.1 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation CK804 USB Controller
(rev a3)
[ works fine ]
00:04.0 Multimedia audio controller: nVidia Corporation CK804 AC'97
Audio Controller (rev a2)
[ driven by snd_intel8x0, despite the driver name ]
00:06.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation CK804 IDE (rev f2)
[ works fine, I have a Seagate drive ]
00:07.0 RAID bus controller: nVidia Corporation CK804 Serial ATA
Controller (rev f3)
00:08.0 RAID bus controller: nVidia Corporation CK804 Serial ATA
Controller (rev f3)
[ haven't tried, don't have an SATA drive, might not be supported ]
00:09.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation CK804 PCI Bridge (rev a2)
00:0a.0 Bridge: nVidia Corporation CK804 Ethernet Controller
(rev a3)
[ drivers/net/forcedeth.c ]
00:0b.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation CK804 PCIE Bridge (rev a3)
00:0c.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation CK804 PCIE Bridge (rev a3)
00:0d.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation CK804 PCIE Bridge (rev a3)
00:0e.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation CK804 PCIE Bridge (rev a3)
00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8
[Athlon64/Opteron] HyperTransport Technology Configuration
00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8
[Athlon64/Opteron] Address Map
00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8
[Athlon64/Opteron] DRAM Controller
00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8
[Athlon64/Opteron] Miscellaneous Control
[ nothing here that I need to bother with ]
01:05.0 Display controller: ATI Technologies Inc Rage XL (rev 27)
[ old chip, probably supported by Mach64 DRI for basic 3D ]
01:06.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): VIA Technologies, Inc. IEEE 1394 Host
Controller (rev 80)
[ haven't tried this yet, but it looks like bog-standard VIA OHCI ]
01:0a.0 Multimedia audio controller: VIA Technologies Inc. ICE1712
[Envy24] PCI Multi-Channel I/O Controller (rev 02)
[ Delta 66, works fine ]
04:00.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme BCM5721
Gigabit Ethernet PCI Express (rev 11)
[ yucky proprietary driver available, but I don't use this port,
the above forcedeth-driven port is enough ]
05:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation GeForce 6200
TurboCache(TM) (rev a1)
[ I added this, forgive me :) ]
I had looked at all the others, and bought Tyan based on its
reputation for stability, and mixed customer reviews of other makers
(DOAs and returns). I plan to run this thing for at least 5 years.
I respect your reasons for avoiding the NVidia 3D driver, but I
overall the CK804 chipset isn't bad (notable exception being SATA if
that doesn't work).
Only hiccup was that I had to do a BIOS upgrade before it would
recognize both cores of the X2 processor, and it was a little confused
about how much memory I had at first (saw 16MB instead of 2GB), but I
got it sorted out.
I bought all the parts from newegg, including this solid/cheap case,
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16811119047
-Jamie
p.s. I don't work for NVidia. In fact, I have several close friends
who work at ATI (shhh...).
Received on Mon Jan 16 20:15:05 2006
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