I have, built April 2009:
AMD Athlon 64 X2 5600 Brisbane 2.9GHz Socket AM2 65W Dual-Core Processor - $64.99
ASUS M3A78-CM AM2+/AM2 AMD 780V Micro ATX AMD Motherboard - $74.99
Kingston 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory - $44.99
Cooler Master Elite 335 RC-335-KKN1-GP Black SECC Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - $49.99
Acer X193W+BD Black 19" 5ms Widescreen LCD Monitor
Some SATA hard drive... don't know offhand.
Some DVD drive, I forget, nothing spectacular.
According to ASUS, this motherboard is a "Corporate Stable Model (CSM) for long-term availability." It has DVI and VGA output. Specs & reviews here:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131330
Running on this PC, Debian Lenny (kernel 2.6.26-2-686 Bigmem).
I have another PC very similar, same mobo but 2.8 gig AMD processor, built Dec. 2008. This PC has a nVidia Corporation GeForce 8500 GT vid card that came out of a homebuilt monster running twin dual Xeons, in which the mobo fried. This PC runs Ubuntu Hardy (kernel 2.6.24-generic)
These two PCs run cool with only the stock coolers on the CPU, and the case fans. Right now it's 65 outside, maybe 70 in here, the motherboards are both 39C and the processors are 40C (mine, using it now) and the other one at 42C.
The onboard audio chips work fine under Ubuntu and under Debian Lenny.
The vid chip in the one without the separate vid card seems to warm up if I am doing certain video-intensive operations, although this is rare. It runs movies like Youtube videos just fine, but certain online viewers, such as like zoom viewers on websites, seem to heat it up some. I haven't checked to see if the same type of operations heat up the vid card in the other PC.
Ethernet chip also works fine, needed no special tweaking. Nothing needed additional drivers downloaded.
Setting up this mobo was a little odd at first. It would not recognize an older HP flatscreen monitor, but can see the Acer monitors just fine. I RMA'd one mobo before I figured out the problem was the monitor, not the vid chip on the mobo. HP techs had no clue why this monitor was not recognized, and could only suggest downloading a different driver... not needed with the more recently-purchased Acer monitor.
I like these monitors very much. They are 19" -- not too big for the tabletop setup here, yet have 1680 x 1050 resolution, which is hard to get in the 19" monitors. The monitors now cost about $99 to $119 depending on who's selling them. These monitors are also among the few in this size and price range that come with a DVI cable in the box.
Greg Avedissian of WLUG built these PCs (among many others he's built), and he may be able to offer further advice. He does a really nice job building these things & getting them running. I usually am running several different apps in different windows, all at the same time. The speed of the processor is very good, and a dual-core is fine for me. I can wholeheartedly say that I am very happy with these PCs. All the components work together very well, and they easily do everything I need.
Hope this helps.
Liz J
2009/8/9 David Glaser
<dglaser@glaserresearch.net>
It has been ten years since I built a system and I figure I should do it
again to refresh my skills.
I took a look at motherboards and processor combinations and I was
overwhelmed by the proliferation of choices.
What I was wondering if I could get the members of the group to share
the basic configuration of systems they have built to give me an idea of
what I should look at.
I want to build a compute/file server. I do a lot of heavy duty
software development using the Eclipse IDE and the Java and C++
Development tools. Also, I need to store a lot of data - mostly images.
My house is wired with a 1GB Ethernet so I have good bandwidth to access
the server.
Thank you for any help.
-David
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