I'm looking at maybe buying the S2895UA2NRF version of the below motherboard:

http://tyan.com/products/html/thunderk8we.html' ">http://tyan.com/products/html/thunderk8we.html

Here are the complete specs:

http://tyan.com/products/html/thunderk8we_spec.html' ">http://tyan.com/products/html/thunderk8we_spec.html

I'm going to buy the board now, run 1 Opteron and 1 low end PCI-E card with a 73.4GB Maxtor Atlas 15K U320 SCSI drive. Also I'll be running the Corsair "TWINX2048RE-3200", 2GB Kit REG ECC (2x1GB) for now.

My plans are to eventually install 2 dual-core Opterons about this time next year and then a couple years from now when nVidia releases the NV50E with Shader Model 4.0 and full support for Avalon and all of the other DirectX 10/Next features for Windows Longhorn, to buy 2 of those to run in SLI mode under Longhorn Server x64. OK, kinda got ahead of myself....

Anyway, for now what is the lowest-end opteron processor this motherboard will support just to save some $$$ right now? I'm guessing the 140 right?

Thanks!

-------------------------
AMD Phenom II X4 955BE AM3 (Multi x18.5@3712.5MHz) - 965BE On order!
Thermalright IFX-14 Lapped with AS5 (Not installed)
3 Scythe SY1425SL12H / Silverstone FP33-B (Not installed)
ASUS M4A78T-E AM3 790GX HDMI ATX
8GB Mushkin 996625 DDR3 1600 (7-7-6-18-24 - DRAM 1.86v)
Corsair CMPSU-750HX ATX12V 2.3 Modular
3 74GB WD Raptors in RAID 0 / 1TB WD Black
Pioneer SATA Blu-Ray / Plextor SATA DVD-RW

if anything, go with a 240. you dont lose support from tyan that way if something goes wrong. they list on their site the 'recommended' cpus...
http://tyan.com/support/html/c...n_du...on_opteron.html' ">http://tyan.com/support/html/c...lon_duron_opteron.html
but you are always welcome to fight the norm by going to do something different. but, in my opinion, it would still be better for you to do a 240 instead of a 140

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SYSTEM-1: 2x Viewsonic VX900-2 19"| Tyan S2885ANRF (Rev.A, bios v2.07) | 1x ATI Radeon X800 Pro 256MB | 2x AMD Opteron 248-HE Single-Core CPU | 8x 512mb PC3200 Corsair XMS Series ECC Reg. (CMX512RE-3200LL) | 2x Seagate LVD 36.7Gb U320 SCSI 10,000rpm RAID0 (ST336607LW) | 1x Seagate LVD 36.7Gb U320 SCSI 1

Alright here's what I have so far:

$580 - Tyan S2895UA2NRF Dual Opteron, PCI-E SLI, U320 SCSI
$130 - AMD Opteron Model 140, 64-bit Processor
$68 - nVIDIA GeForce PCX 5300 Video Card, 128MB DDR, PCI-Express
$440 - Maxtor Atlas 15K U320 SCSI, 73.4GB, 68Pin, 3.2ms seek, 8MB cache

and I changed my mind on the memory, for now I'll be running:

$142 - OCZ Enhanced Latency Series Dual Channel Kit 512MB(256MBx2) ECC Registered DDR PC-3200

Total: $1,360

Not too bad for what is still a decent rig that will be wicked sick come dual-core Opterons and NV50E's.

Thanks for the advice on the 240, I'll check the price diff and go from there.

Alex

-------------------------
AMD Phenom II X4 955BE AM3 (Multi x18.5@3712.5MHz) - 965BE On order!
Thermalright IFX-14 Lapped with AS5 (Not installed)
3 Scythe SY1425SL12H / Silverstone FP33-B (Not installed)
ASUS M4A78T-E AM3 790GX HDMI ATX
8GB Mushkin 996625 DDR3 1600 (7-7-6-18-24 - DRAM 1.86v)
Corsair CMPSU-750HX ATX12V 2.3 Modular
3 74GB WD Raptors in RAID 0 / 1TB WD Black
Pioneer SATA Blu-Ray / Plextor SATA DVD-RW

supposedly a price drop is in the coming week or so... you may be able to re-evaluate some costs on the cpu

-------------------------
SYSTEM-1: 2x Viewsonic VX900-2 19"| Tyan S2885ANRF (Rev.A, bios v2.07) | 1x ATI Radeon X800 Pro 256MB | 2x AMD Opteron 248-HE Single-Core CPU | 8x 512mb PC3200 Corsair XMS Series ECC Reg. (CMX512RE-3200LL) | 2x Seagate LVD 36.7Gb U320 SCSI 10,000rpm RAID0 (ST336607LW) | 1x Seagate LVD 36.7Gb U320 SCSI 1

Cool, this is about 2 weeks away anyway. Thanks!

-------------------------
AMD Phenom II X4 955BE AM3 (Multi x18.5@3712.5MHz) - 965BE On order!
Thermalright IFX-14 Lapped with AS5 (Not installed)
3 Scythe SY1425SL12H / Silverstone FP33-B (Not installed)
ASUS M4A78T-E AM3 790GX HDMI ATX
8GB Mushkin 996625 DDR3 1600 (7-7-6-18-24 - DRAM 1.86v)
Corsair CMPSU-750HX ATX12V 2.3 Modular
3 74GB WD Raptors in RAID 0 / 1TB WD Black
Pioneer SATA Blu-Ray / Plextor SATA DVD-RW

Where did you order the K8WE from? I've looked a bit and couldn't find anything.

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Noobgrinder.com' ">http://www.noobgrinder.com/ Gaming

My first GOOD computer was an AMD K6 200Mhz. Ever since then i'm all about the AMD.