Hi all,
hope this is the right place to post - at least it's about hardware
i am looking to build a workstation-class machine.
at this point i'm considering the tyan Thunder n3600B (http://www.tyan.com/product_board_detail.aspx?pid=595)
or tomcat n3400B (http://www.tyan.com/product_board_detail.aspx?pid=613)
i'm strongly leaning toward the n3600b, since for just an extra $100, i get an extra cpu socket, and quadruple the maximum ram. to start with, i'd stick in a quad-core cpu and 8g of ram, leaving plenty of upgrade room if i need more.
now, i am not really very familiar with the range of products available in this area, nor with how well ubuntu would play with these, so i'd appreciate some help and input from those "in the know" (it's been about 5 years since i last built a machine from parts, and haven't really kept up with what's out there since then).
some questions: are there mobo-makers other than tyan that make similar-capacity motherboards, and if so, are they better/cheaper/etc (tyan is really the only one i found...)? would the two-socket mobo work just fine with only one cpu, or does it require both cpus to be present? if it supports registered ecc ram, would it also support unregistered nonecc plain vanilla (and thus, cheap) ram? would ubuntu have any trouble supporting this hardware? would i need to recompile the kernel to have ubuntu grok 8g of ram or more (i recall seeing posts on the forum to this effect at dapper-time, is it still the case now)? i have a bunch of plain old PATA disks - can they be hooked up to the SATA mobo and work without giving me any trouble?
also, any other thoughts and advice would be appreciated.
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