Serious Motherboards

[NotALlama]

Hello everyone. I've been around for quite a while now in the hardware industry, and am very tired of the fanatical motherboard sensationalism manufacturers are putting into their products. What I want is something that is stable, standardized, and will last a long time. I just basically want a quality product that is a production quality grade. I was looking into the server market as they cator to a different crowd of people, such as me, but I don't know if I want to pay that much for a quality product. Any advice is gladly accepted.

 

[CraigRT]

maybe look into buying Tyan or something... they are not flashy... they are stable and reliable... i don't think ANYONE who can cater to someone who wants something to last.. as companies such as Intel change CPU/socket/chipsets too often to make upgradeability easy.

 

[Megatomic]

I think you need to post your computing needs so that we can make informed recommendations. Right now I have idea what you want in a system...

 

[new2AMD]

Originally posted by: Megatomic
I think you need to post your computing needs so that we can make informed recommendations. Right now I have idea what you want in a system...

not to mention what your definition of "fanatical motherboard sensationalism" is.

What do you want and what dont you care for?
i.e. no on board this or that.
certain fsb speeds etc.

 

[NotALlama]

I use my computer for all purposes. I encode video, audio, download lots of crap, use my computer as an ftp server, so I/O subsystems are important to me. (Storage) I also game and use my computer most of the time just for regular use, such as web browsing and chatting on irc. I do not care as to upgradability with my core system, as that's a lie to begin with. What I am looking into is something in a nice huge 5U server case with maybe a dual processor system, but I don't know what to choose. I was thinking about being hackerish and getting two AMD Duron 1.8 GHz Applebreds and modifying them into MPs for a SMP computer, but the Opterons and their motherboards looks quite inticing, despite the cost. Basically what I want to stay away from is cheap / poorly manufactured / low quality parts. I don't care much about amenities, I just want an incredibly high quality product that's stable and reliable as in won't break down or something silly like that. Thanks for your time!

One more thing, what I was really wondering about is if you CAN take AMD Duron Applebred processors and mod them to go SMP.

 

[Megatomic]

Well, I don't know anything about the newer Durons so I can't help there. But after your post I can tell you that I'd personally recommend an Opteron 24x system with dual CPUs. If you were to get a Dual Opteron 248 and pair it with 2GB of registered DDR400 memory and a Radeon 9800 XT or an NVidia GF FX 5950 and a pair of Raptors in RAID 0 you'd have a super fast machine ready to do everything on your list for several years to come.

I wish I had the $$$ to do this myself.