Any "better" mobo for SB & Linux

BusError · 8 Jun 2011 at 14:40

I'm shopping around for a new mobo, and I'm wondering wich one would be better for linux. Ie:
+ I don't need/care about all the windows crap apps they give, BIOS/EFI should be fully functional.
+ I need all the peripherals to work properly (ethernet etc)
+ I need the board voltages, cpu speed etc working too.
+ Good overclock of course!
+ Extra points for 2 gigabit ports

With my current Gigabyte, all works; is it the same with the P67, Z68 etc boards these days ?

inSilica · 8 Jun 2011 at 16:04

Not sure what you're getting at?

Hardware is almost always as good as the software that runs it. If your planning to OC than your most probably NOT going to use on board intel graphics, cause I'd imagine you will have an OC'd monster GPU aswell.

If I'm correct in above assumption, than you don't have any issues. There are more motherboards online now for Sandy Bridge, just see mobo section here on OC, pick one with the features you want and buy it.

If you are after particular features than maybe post in motherboards (http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/forumdisplay.php?f=2), someone can help you out.

If you are concerned with Intel graphics...

according to phoronix, sandy bridge issue seems to be solved upstream? .. somewhere ...

and apparently it runs faster on linux than on windows.

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=intel_snbsds_compare&num=1

some latest tests on Fedora 15
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=fedora_15_snb&num=1

example of problems, if you weren't clear about it:
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=intel_sandybridge_linux&num=1

Otherwise, for particular SATA controllers etc... sound etc... these are going to depend on your kernel, your linuxFU skills and a whole bunch of reading ... or they will work out of the box...

BusError · 8 Jun 2011 at 23:31

Actually I do distro building and lots of developmemt, so the CPU is important, but the graphic are useless to me; in fact, I use a nVidia 240 (fanless!); it still does OpenGL for compositing.

The question I was asking was about says, the board voltage regulator chipset, the usb3 controllers etc. I build my own kernel, I just don't want to have to carry a patch and hack in around.

Right now I pre-selected a P8P67 Deluxe board, anyone using one for linux ?

BusError · 9 Jun 2011 at 18:18

I finaly went for the P8Z68-V ; the 2 LAN of the Deluxe made it cost about 60 quid more!.
Now I have to shop for a nice PCI-e gigabit ethernet with >8KB Jumbo Frames and I'm set!

And yes, well have to see what of the "goodies" are supported. I already seen than AVX is in gcc 4.6, so thats good

BusError · 16 Jun 2011 at 16:56

I installed my board today, so far, no problem. The driver for the chipset for voltages/fans is not in the 2.6.38 kernel, but it's available as a standalone driver. Everything else worked out of the box (haven't tried bluetooth, but I read it works too)

Currently playing with the overclock. One thing to note id that the kernel has no clue about turbo boost factors; it still claim to run at 3.4Ghz even tho I (very very easily!) run at 4.5 now. I haven't found a reliable tool to tell me the 'true' frequency of the CPU :/

dodgem · 16 Jun 2011 at 19:29

Let us know if you find any good tools for reading the mb and cpu clock speeds - would be interested to use that

BusError · 16 Jun 2011 at 22:21

Well so far the only tool I found is i7z, and that isn't working here. Also even powertop doesn't show me even the speedstep speeds..

so not terribly helpful at the moment; hopefully I'll find something better later. On the other hand linux works /very/ well on it. I have idle temps of mid 20s in gkrellm, and doing builds with -j12 gets me to 55 or so, never more. Quite a beast!

BusError · 19 Jun 2011 at 11:02

So I'm still a bit stuck on this one, I haven't found anything that works as expected. The machine DOES turbo properly, and works as planned, but it's a bit sad to be missing half of the CPU stats!

In any case, I'm very happy with the mobo/cpu bits, I even had to /lower/ the minimum fan speed that the bios thinks is safe to 300rpm, because the cpu runs so cool at Idle (down to 22C, thats barely warmer than ambiant!) that it almost stalls the 120mm fan !