Hi guys,
I’m new to this forum but I was drawn in by the talk about the Asus K8N-DL motherboard. I just recently bought one, but I haven’t had time to check it out yet. I’m still waiting for my case to arrive, without the case I can’t build the damn thing and test my new rig. I don’t have an E-ATX case, which is annoying…
Here’s my old setup:
AMD Athlon 64 3200+ processor (2.1GHz)
Asus Motherboard (I don’t know the model; came with a barebones I bought cheap from Time)
1GB DDR400 PC3200 SDRAM
200GB Maxtor HDD (7200rpm)
Nvidia GeForce 5 Series
Time case (probably the ugliest looking cheap plastic thing I’ve ever seen)
I’ll spare you the other parts like DVD drive and stuff, it’s not relevent. I built this machine purely for sound design/music production. I thought it was quite good at the time (we’re talking years back) and it’s served me well. It doesn’t really compare with todays computers though, you could and probably should call it pathetic. It has a 64 bit chip that’s probably being wasted in a 32 bit environment, which is a shame. With the stuff I’m trying to use it for nowadays, it just dies on me, I really do tend to push it. If I’m very moderate it can handle the tasks. I like to compare it to a person on a pushbike trying to race a Ferrari; it’s very fitting.
Here’s my new rig (just waiting for the case):
CM stacker 832 case (a work of art IMO, I love the industrial look)
CM iGreen PSU (600w) [probably not the best PSU, but cheap; It’s all I need]
Asus K8N-DL motherboard
2 AMD Opteron 270s (2Ghz)
Seagate Barracuda SATA II HDD, 500GB (7200rpm) [16MB cache]
4GB registered EEC (PC3200) DDR400 SDRAM
GeForce 6 series Graphics card (not even sure if this will work until I get the case; I have half a dozen other graphics cards anyway)
Sony floppy drive (I didn’t have a black one to match the case)
Windows Vista Ultimate 64 bit (Yes I bought Vista OEM, It’s about time I bought it; after using countless “ungenuine” versions of XP, plus I need 64 bit)
32-inch flatscreen LCD TV (rather 2 monitors or 1 big TV; I chose this [It’s sweet for movies/music videos])
I guess it’s kind of similar to Narwhal or Lonewolfz rig, albeit less powerful. I’m intrigued as to whether anybody can give me an insight into how well this will work. Hopefully I’ll be running it on a 64 bit OS, if not XP pro. Considering my last setup, this is a massive leap for me. Bearing in mind my old setup can almost handle what I’m throwing at it, surely this one will breeze through the tasks. I could always buy another 4GB of RAM, that would be 8GB; can’t see a reason for needing that much for what I personally use the computer for (it’s a good thing to know I can have 8GB in the future). The good thing about Opteron chips is the overclocking; Any idea of what kind of speed or percent I’ll be able to raise it with a decent watercooling sytem (if need be)?
I’d really appreciate some knowledge from first hand experience; using the same board and chips 
