Upgrading my PC...

[Kooldino]

I currently have a dual core AMD Opteron that I'm going to be upgrading to an Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor E8400.

Obviously I'll need new components to go along with this.

I'm going to need 2 gigs of RAM.

A budget minded nvidia video card (they have good driver support for linux, which I run)

And last but not least, a motherboard.

Stability is my main concern.

However, I like my boards feature rich.

My current board is an Asus A8N SLI Premium.

http://www.ixbt.com/mainboard/asus/asus-a8n-sli-premium-nforce4sli/board-big.jpg

It can support up to 8 SATA drives (some of which can be external SATA) and 4 IDE drives.

I've got a lot of drives, so this is important to me.

It also needs to have at least one PCI-E x16 slot and at least 2 PCI slots.

Passive cooling (ie, no fans) on the motherboard itself is preferred.

I also need an assload of USB ports (the current board has 10) and at least one firewire port.

And obviously, it has to be compatible with the E8400.

Anyone have any suggestions?

[Kooldino]

I'll probably rock this for a video card:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814134045

[ND66]

I got this GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS4 couple of months ago or so.

Like it so far.

.

[TransformX]

I hope you're not a gamer. Geforce 8400 is crap.
Entry level gaming: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814260057
Happy gaming: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814261001

[Kooldino]

I got this GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS4 couple of months ago or so.

Like it so far.

.

Not enough IDE goodness.

[Kooldino]

I hope you're not a gamer. Geforce 8400 is crap.
Entry level gaming: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814260057
Happy gaming: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814261001

I can't remember the last time I really gamed on a PC, so it's not a real issue for me.

[UtwigMU]

Basically forget IDE. There's no Intel native chipset PATA support and most boards use cheapo 3d party chip.

There's no need to run PATA: drives bellow 300GB are pointless anyway and opticals, you can get SATA DVD burners cheaply.

[dZeus]

I currently have a dual core AMD Opteron that I'm going to be upgrading to an Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor E8400.

Obviously I'll need new components to go along with this.

I'm going to need 2 gigs of RAM.

A budget minded nvidia video card (they have good driver support for linux, which I run)

And last but not least, a motherboard.

Stability is my main concern.

However, I like my boards feature rich.

My current board is an Asus A8N SLI Premium.

http://www.ixbt.com/mainboard/asus/asus-a8n-sli-premium-nforce4sli/board-big.jpg

It can support up to 8 SATA drives (some of which can be external SATA) and 4 IDE drives.

I've got a lot of drives, so this is important to me.

It also needs to have at least one PCI-E x16 slot and at least 2 PCI slots.

Passive cooling (ie, no fans) on the motherboard itself is preferred.

I also need an assload of USB ports (the current board has 10) and at least one firewire port.

And obviously, it has to be compatible with the E8400.

Anyone have any suggestions?

(in case you don't mean no chipset fans with 'fanless'):
forget about running your cpu 'fanless', unless you're willing to put over 1kg of heatsink in the form of this or a Scythe Ninja on top of the cpu and with the PSU fan located VERY near to this heatsink configuration (and risk damaging the motherboard/cpu if the case is not a desktop, or when you move your pc).

[Evildead666]

Why don't you use your current Opteron rig as a storage rig, and then you can happily go forward with a new PC...

If your current rig can handle all the drives, except optical of course, then you can just have a nice GigE connection between the two...

[Kooldino]

Basically forget IDE. There's no Intel native chipset PATA support and most boards use cheapo 3d party chip.

There's no need to run PATA: drives bellow 300GB are pointless anyway and opticals, you can get SATA DVD burners cheaply.

My optical drive and at least one of my hard drives are IDE, and I'd rather not buy new drives.

[Kooldino]

(in case you don't mean no chipset fans with 'fanless'):
forget about running your cpu 'fanless',

Like I said above, I'm talking about the motherboard itself (ie, the mobo chipset).

[Kooldino]

Why don't you use your current Opteron rig as a storage rig,

Because it's unstable.


So browsing through the boards at newegg...I see there are a lot of chipset options. Anyone know what the difference is?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2+50001157+40000280+1070509908&name=LGA+775&SpeTabStoreType=1

[Tjalfe]

this of any use for you?

http://compare.intel.com/pcc/default.aspx?familyID=10&culture=en-US

basically the X series is the performance series, the X48 being the newest, the P series is more main stream, the G series has build in video.

[Kooldino]

Oh sweet, thanks!

[Kooldino]

Jesus lord

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813121338