Re: MSI K9N Diamond main board?

[dtutty@porchlight.ca]

On Wed, Sep 27, 2006 at 11:43:44AM -0700, Andrew Sharp wrote:
> On Tue, Sep 26, 2006 at 04:26:30PM -0400, dtutty@porchlight.ca wrote:
> 
> > Most reviews are for Asus but have heard comments about decreasing
> > reliability after a couple of years.
> 
> I've heard the same comments.
> 
> > Tyan has great reliability and would be my first choice but their AM2
> > uses the nVidia Pro chipset which nVidia says doesn't have mainstream
> > kernel drivers, they provide binary drivers for RHES and SLES.
> 
> I'm not sure what's up with that comment.  I've got a board with that
> chipset (Tyan K8WE) and it works fantastically.  Like a rock.  My
> previous system that I built was a Tyan something dual Athlon, built in
> July 2002, still running strong.  I'm pretty sold on them at this point.
 
> What support is not included here that you would want?
> 
> I don't recall anyone mentioning any problems with this board, apart
> from Sarge installation problems because of the need for recent 2.6.12+
> kernels.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> a
> 

Thanks,

I've emailed Tyan to try to clear this up (nVidia says to talk with
Tyan since I'm not buying a case of nVidia chips).  I've also asked Tyan
to clear up the CPU: one web page says Opteron only, the other says both
Opteron only and Athlon.

Its hard to get the data to do head-to-head comparisions; different
chipsets are targeted at different audiences and each audience looks at
different data.  For example, the nForce Pro boasts CRC ECC on the PCI
channels, in addition to solid 24/7 running, reliability, etc.  The 590
boasts great overclocking.  I don't overclock.  At times I've run a box
24/7 only powering down for hardware changes, at others (like now) I
turn on, do stuff, then turn off.  If two boards cost basically the
same, I'd rather the one where the cost goes into reliability and
longevity not overclocking headroom and gimmics.

Doug.