[plug] DFI Motherboards - Sound

[Craig Ringer]

Leon Brooks wrote:

> I'm installing a server at the moment. The cheap ASUS _server_ mobo is 
> capable of running twe PCIe-16 graphics cards (each with two heads) and 
> includes 8-channel sound. Not to mention optical audio I/O, 8 SATA 
> sockets (2 of them external) plus the usual PATA, 2 PS/2, 10 USB2, 2 
> FireWire, parallel, serial, and games ports.

Well, I'd call that a workstation board personally, but that said it 
sounds pretty nice.

What I think of as a server board tends to stick to basic peripherals, 
but supports gobs of RAM, one, two or more CPUs, high speed I/O 
interfaces (SCSI, SATA, PCI-X and or very recently PCI Express), and has 
things like on board "lights out" management support, serial console 
access to BIOS, etc.

For that sort of thing I still go for Intel boards - but for anything 
else, I tend to go AMD or these days even VIA (mmm, thin clients). I've 
noticed little reliability difference between desktop Intel boards and 
desktop AMD boards - I've had a few of each die on me, and the majority 
run just great.

I'm wondering if a Tyan dual opteron board with dual core CPUs might be 
the way to go once the Pacifica-enabled Opterons come out. I'll be 
curious to see how that stacks up against the Intel / Xeon equivalent.
I'd be very intersted in hearing the experiences of any of the folks 
here with Tyan server boards.

--
Craig Ringer