From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Apr 9 09:43:34 2003 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id AEAA137B401 for ; Wed, 9 Apr 2003 09:43:34 -0700 (PDT) Received: from web41806.mail.yahoo.com (web41806.mail.yahoo.com [66.218.93.140]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 2277443F93 for ; Wed, 9 Apr 2003 09:43:34 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from jmw_ymail@yahoo.com) Message-ID: <20030409164333.76915.qmail@web41806.mail.yahoo.com> Received: from [216.79.97.66] by web41806.mail.yahoo.com via HTTP; Wed, 09 Apr 2003 09:43:33 PDT Date: Wed, 9 Apr 2003 09:43:33 -0700 (PDT) From: John Wilson To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Content-Filtered-By: Mailman/MimeDel 2.1.1 Subject: Looking for hardware suggestions X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 09 Apr 2003 16:43:35 -0000 Good day. I'm currently looking into building a new machine and need a few suggestions in regard to good, compatible hardware. I'm thinking of staying with Intel processors, and quite possibly, an Intel motherboard. Based on quite a number of posts in various newsgroups, the Intel motherboards seem to be rock-stable. I am not at all interested in overclocking. The motherboard I was looking at is the Intel D845PEBT2. The LAN controller is the Intel 82562ET, which as best as I can tell, is supported in the fxp driver. The integrated sound is an ADI 1980, which I have no idea if it is supported or not, although this is not really a big deal. I'm still going to be using standard ATA hard disks, so the SATA ports don't really make much of a difference if they are supported or not, although it does provide an upgrade path in the future. If anyone is using this board with -Current, or 4.8 for that matter, how do you like it? Are there alternative boards that can be recommended? The only other question is in regard to video. I'm not at all into playing games and the like, but do want snappy 2d performance in X and watching DVD movies. :) Again, best that I can tell is that the Matrox G550 would be the way to go. Is this a good card for my needs? Finally, I was wondering how, in general, people felt about the stock HSF that comes with the boxed Intel processors. From what I've been able to gather, they are pretty decent. Is this actually the case? And furthermore, I would like to stay away from any of that Arctic Silver paste as I've heard horror stories about frying components due to the conductivity of this stuff. Is there really a huge difference between this stuff and regular thermal grease? Thank you very much for your help with this matter. It is much appreciated. - John Wilson --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Platinum - Watch CBS' NCAA March Madness, live on your desktop!