On Mon, 22 Apr 2002, at 9:19pm, James R. Van Zandt wrote:
> What motherboard do you have?

  I have an Epox EP-8K7A+, and I have been very happy with it.  No problems
to speak of.  Board design and layout is impressive.  The manual, while
still lacking in the detail I really want (remember when computer manuals
included schematics?), is significantly above average.  Included software
worked well for Microsoftland.  Linux was happy with it.

  http://www.epox.com/html/english/products/motherboard/ep-8k7a+.htm

  One feature that scores extra Geek Points is the onboard POST code
display.  :-)

> Would that be your recommendation now for an Athlon?

  Depends on what your needs are.  What sort of usage (e.g., word processing
vs Quake III)?  Are you looking for an all-in-one, everything-on-board
design?  Or do you prefer the minimalist, bare-bones,
everything-is-an-expansion-card approach?  Do you want IDE RAID?  What OSes
do you plan on using with it?

  One thing you can do to save a lot of money is buy components six months
to one year behind the curve.  The performance is almost as good, but the
price is often 25% of original, since the vendors want to get rid of their
remaining stock.

> For dual Athlons?

  You can be sure Tyan (http://www.tyan.com) will do well.  AMD and Tyan
partnered to make AMD's multiprocessor product a reality.

  I have generally had very good luck with Asus, and they have a dual-proc
AMD board out.  I have not heard anything one way or the other about it,
though:

  http://usa.asus.com/mb/socketa/a7m266-d/overview.htm

> What's a good video card that has solid support in XFree86?

  From what I am told, the best choice for Open Source drivers is ATI.  The
NVidia line is a better performer, and solid, but the drivers are
binary-only.

  Your Mileage May (And Likely Will) Vary!

-- 
Ben Scott <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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