Recommendation for motherboard & processor

[mj123]

I would like to build a stable & fast Linux system for personal use with the following features: (1) motherboard with built-in audio, video, supporting RAID, etc (in brief would like avoid using any card); (2) 64 bit processor. I will use this system for photo/video editing, programming, etc. Would greatly appreciate your recommendations on motherboard and processor.

Thank you

[gadgetwiz]

Greetings,

As a system builder for many years, I've found that Gigabyte manufacturers one of the most durable motherboards on the market. I can't say enough good things about them. Pair it with an Intel i7 or i5 series processor and you'll be all set for many years of trouble free operation.

[Super Jamie]

Agreed. Asus or Gigabyte board, Intel CPU.

Intel are currently a generation ahead of AMD. You'll get better speed hz for hz with an Intel.

[Gareth Jones]

I'd recommend Asus with a i7 if you expect to do serious CPU-intensive work.

A note about RAID: on-board RAID is almost certainly going to be fake RAID, which a Google search will reveal countless discussions about the problems of. Either use a proper hardware RAID card, or use Linux software RAID. Either are better than fake RAID, which is merely an ugly hack for less capable OSes... (Also Linux software RAID can perform better than even proper hardware RAID in some configurations, so read up on the details of your preferred set-up before wasting money!)

[mj123]

Thank you all for your responses. These are very helpful.

Do you recommend any specific motherboard model?

Gareth, I appreciate the information on RAID. Thank you.

[Super Jamie]

It really depends on what your needs are.

The main differences in motherboard models you'll see are

* motherboard size (ATX, Micro ATX)
* slots which support different types of devices (PCI, PCI Express) at different speeds
* the amount of internal/external connectors (PS2, USB2, USB3, number of SATA ports, VGA/DVI video, etc)
* the onboard devices on the motherboard itself (LAN, wifi, the fakeraid Gareth mentioned, built in video-card, etc)

For example, you'll need a different motherboard for a specialty gaming machine with 4 video cards, than you will for a Linux-based router PC with 6 network cards.

From your needs outline in the first post, the things you should probably concentrate on are a 16x PCIe slot to run a good video card, and make sure you have 4 (or more) RAM slots.

You sound like you're building your own PC, so get the appropritate sized power supply for your needs. Calculate with
http://extreme.outervision.com/psucalculatorlite.jsp

[stevea]

I have a GigaByte that I generally like, however it's not IMO comparable to a *good* Asus.


Asus is a top name brand an although every vendor has a few clinkers there are pretty good.
GigaByte is a "budget conscious Mobo maker and they are really quite decent.
Asus brands their budget boards "AsRock", no idea about quality but I expect they are GigaByte comparable.

IMO Intel makes some of the best mobos on the planet - if you prize rock-solid, everything-works including ACPI. They perform nicely at spec but you wont find any overclocking features on Intel (tho' I haven't seen their 'extreme' boards.

As Jamie correctly notes - YOU need to evaluate mobos against your needs.

My personal view is that I wouldn't consider a modern mobo for performance use that didn't support 16GB (and preferably 32G B) and of course you want USB3s and SATA-IIIs. The number and type of PCIe slots is base on your personal needs.

Most non-server mobos include the truly terrible RTL8xxx(Realtek) enet interfaces and they simply s*ck. some contain what I consider to be uncorrectable hardware bugs. The Linux driver work-arounds cost performance. The Intel and Marvelle GigE interfaces are far better. If you want to add-in a GigE and get full speed you'll want to put it on a PCIe slot - and that costs expensive slots and power. A few of the non-budget boards include good enets.

Personally I think mobo RAID is a loss. If your mobo breaks you likely can't recover your data w/o finding the same model mobo or doing microsurgery on your disks. Software raid is a better choice as you lose the mobo dependence. The only reason to use mobo RAID is that you need RAID support for Windoze.

---

I mostly use Intel processors, but I'm not a bigot on the issues. It certainly looks bad for AMD at the moment and I'd have a hard time recommending them for their losing market position.. OTOH the 22nm IvyBridge (latest i7s) are going to be the last to use the LGA 1155 socket. There isn't a great deal of performance diffs between the Ivy/Sandy bridge parts at similar clocks, tho the Ivy GPUs are notably faster - if you care. There is some power savings on the 22nm Ivy, and a different set of bridge designs. There were early test/rumors that the Ivy's didn't overclock well, but some geek site did a test of ~80 parts and found the overclocking potential was similar.

I'm sitting out this dance - waiting for the next-gen processors. Intel has a 22nmm Haswell in the works, ~Q1-Q2 2013 (socket LGA1150). It promise to be a lot more polished 22nm part than Ivy with a notch better performance, much more cache & GPU performance, and the bridge parts shrink too. Thunderbolt on the bridges. Haswell-Extreme parts may support DDR4, but I'd expect extreme prices too. Next-up the 14nm (Skylake) shrink of Haswell that is likely to be socket-incompatible again - likely in 2014.

[AndrewSerk]

I recently built a new workstation/virtual host. I hadn't built a new computer for myself in several years and was surprised that I couldn't find a new GigaByte mobo that supported ECC memory(maybe this has changed). After some reflection on past builds and with a Asus mobo/system laying in my rack that had been running nonstop for about 13 years without issue, I decided to purchase another Asus.

I purchased a Asus SABERTOOTH 990FX that through me a few unexpected curve balls, like not being able to boot without a PCIeV2 video card. Not being a gamer I had planned to use a older PCIe video card I had laying around but the mobo would not post with the old card. I then tried to boot it without a video card to access it over a network and could not get it to post without a video card. I contacted a Asus rep. through e-mail and the rep. was not sure if the mobo was capable of booting without a video card. The rep. ended up getting a matching mobo out and doing some testing for me. Turns out, to my surprise, that mobo will not boot without a PCIeV2 video card installed. I ended up spending about another $100 for a new video card and had no problems getting the mobo to post after that.

After having the above issue, and the way the Asus rep. responded in a timely manner helping me solve the issue, not to mention the old Asus mobo that had been running for years, I will no doubt buy a Asus again.

My Basic Hardware list:
SABERTOOTH 990FX
AMD FX-8150
16GB ECC Kingston Memory (two 8GB sticks)
SeaSonic Gold X series power supply
1 SSD Drive
6 spinning disks

With 68 days uptime so far I have found the above hardware gives me more than addiquit power to run 4-5 VMs and still have plenty left for building packages/spinning images in a timely manner.

[mj123]

I appreciate your time and suggestions. Thank you.