[Wlug] Looking for a new system

[Jamie Guinan]

On Thu, 28 Sep 2006, John Stoffel wrote:

> >>>>> "Jamie" == Jamie Guinan <guinan at bluebutton.com> writes:
> 
> Jamie> I've built a few PCs over the past few years, so I can share
> Jamie> some experiences.
> 
> Jamie> #3: AMD64 x2, Tyan motherboard with NVidia chipset,
> Jamie> Coolermaster Centurion case.  This is my main system these
> Jamie> days, it runs quiet, and I'm happy with every part of it.
> Jamie> Wattage numbers:
> 
> How good is the video?  Do you need the NV proprietary kernel module?
> I'm really just interested in great 2-D graphics, with some 3-d, but I
> don't play games much at all these days, so I don't care.  Mostly, I'm
> looking for clear crisp text.  

Its marketed as a server board, so it has cheap onboard ATI video, but 
I found the quality was not crisp at all (probably meant for use as a 
console and not much else).

 http://www.tyan.com/PRODUCTS/html/tomcatk8e_anrf.html

But I do play games enough to want decent 3D (quake2, X-Plane), so I 
put in a fanless NVidia 6200, and use the evil Nvidia module.  
Incidentally, I've had much better luck with the evil Nvidia module 
than the evil ATI module, which gave me no end of lockups.

The NV *chipset* soldered onto the Tyan provides IDE, audio, ethernet, 
and so on, and all that stuff is supported by in-kernel (GPL) drivers.
Except maybe the NVRAID, which I wouldn't use anyway.

It will be interesting to see where AMD goes with their acquisition
of ATI.

-Jamie