Asus K8N-DL PCIe GBe vs. nForce 2200 GBe

[mdahc]

I've recently considered building a DP workstation for Adobe CS/Studio MX/Visual Studio.NET work. In an attempt to avoid getting an extended ATX case, I'm considering the Asus K8N-DL. However, Asus decided to go with the Broadcom BCM5751KFB PCIe GBe controller instead of the nForce 2200's built-in GBe controller. Thus, my question is do you think my system would be that better off with the nForce's TCP offloading capabilities (since graphics and ethernet would be running on the PCIe bus)? Also, if Tyan comes out with the K8WE, then I might just thrown in the towel and get an EATX case (they're too damn long) since Tyan seems to implement all of the 2200's and 2050's features, but I can't really see myself using SLI or PCI-X. Anyway, comments would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

 

[ribbon13]

The Tyan board will last you for a number of years, and eventually SLi workstation solutions will be available, and dual core opterons. It's has a lot more future than that asus board. But to use the second PCIe or MAC you need 2 cpus

 

[mdahc]

Thanks. Yeah, I think I'm just going to go with the Tyan board. I can deal with a gigantic case, I guess, and the Tyan board should have surfaced with appropriate bug fixes by the time dual core Opterons arrive. I was going to just get a couple of current single core Opterons because I was concerned about the power demands of dual core, but I guess it would kind of be foolish not to wait at this point.