[plug] realplayer and via onboard audio

[Michael Hunt]

> All in all, I think that older VIA boards have a problem with AGP slots,
> maybe an interrupted resource or something similar. I'm about to get an
> upgrade soon and being an AMD person, could anyone recommend a a 'mobo'
> that they know doesn't have sound problems?
>
> seeya then! :)
> anarchist tomato

I think the VIA chipsets have got a lot of flak and I'm not sure if it is
warranted or not. I have noticed two things that would probably make me go
to a an AMD chipset over the VIA though.

1. A good hardware friend won't touch a VIA chipset board as he has had to
many problems.
2. ABIT's BIOS updates for its VIA based boards mention a lot about "fixed
problem caused by VIA chipset". (I'm pretty much a fan of ABIT so I'll
mention my bias here, up front).

You will probably find that many of the problems with VIA can now be fixed
by flashing your ROMs to the latest BIOS, but considering that this chipset
is used for the lower end of the market it maybe worthwhile spending the
extra $50-$100 on an AMD based one. (also benchmarking shows that the AMD
chipset perform overall better than the VIA)

A-Bit KG-7, for AMD CPUs is $299 ($359 for RAID) at
http://www.austin.net.au/

Gigabyte GA-7DX AMD761 SocketA DDR ATX Mainboard $269.50
Gigabyte GA-7DXR AMD761 SocketA DDR ATX Mainboard $308.00 (Raid version) at
http://www.simline.com.au/

Now interestingly enough the raidless version of the Gigabyte comes with
only two memory slots with the raid version coming with three. Both ABIT's
come with four.

On the other hand Gigabyte's mainboards come with dual bios chips and
onboard sound chip which could/couldn't sway a decision to it. (See below
for some info from Linux Buyers Guide #13
http://www.thedukeofurl.org/reviews/misc/linuxguide13/printable.shtml Power
User Rig section))

"Probably the two biggest features in questions on the GA-7DXR are the
on-board audio and IDE-RAID. The IDE-RAID is Promise's FastTrak 100 Lite
(which supports either striping or mirroring, not both), and is also
supported under Linux through either the kernel drivers in kernel 2.4.10+ or
Promise's closed-source drivers.

The on-board audio is Creative's CT5880, otherwise known at the Sound
Blaster 128. This chip is well-supported under Linux and has good output. No
complaints here. "

The choice is up to you, but for me the ABIT is looking like the more
promising board