[linux-audio-user] 64-bit AMD dual core mobo recommendations ?

[Stephen Hassard]

lanas wrote:
>> What are people using these days to test audio latency? I haven't
>> done any quantitative analysis, but things generally feel good on my
>> Athlon 64 X2 systems.
>>     
> All right.  Which mainboard are you using ?  Is the USB working ?  The
> audio ?  Is there a working hardware SATA RAID ?  What about the
> ethernet ports, is there any problem with them ?
>   

Recently, I've tried the following motherboards:

Asus A8R32-MVP (ATI Xpress 3200 Chipset w/ ALI Southbridge)
Asus A8N32-SLI (Nvidia dual PCI-Express 16X Chipset)

Both boards worked well with recent kernels (anything 2.6.16 or greater 
seemed to work well).

USB works perfectly on both boards.

SATA works well on both boards. Very recent kernels (somewhere in the 
2.6.17 or .18, I can't remember which offhand) support NCQ for the AHCI 
chipset, which seems to give a nice speed boost to hard drive 
performance when multi-tasking. I haven't tried on-board RAID. NCQ is 
supposed to be supported for the sata_nv, but is a way off.

I haven't tried on-board audio much on either board due to me using an 
SB Audigy2, but audio on both boards seems to be detected.

Ethernet on the boards is well supported by recent kernels. The 
A8R32-MVP has two Marvell NICs (a PCI-Express and regular PCI model). 
Unfortunately neither of these seems to work with older kernels. The 
A8N32-SLI has a built-in forcedeth NIC, and a Marvell PCI-Express. The 
forcedeth works perfectly with older kernels, but the Marvell needs 
something recent.

Both boards are passively cooled, which is a bonus.

later,
Steve