new fedora desktop box

[Jonathan Berry]

On 1/12/06, Jon Shorie <jshorie at medinaco.org> wrote:
> I am going to be setting up a new fedora desktop box and want to be able to
> run 2 monitors on it.  I am leaning toward the following:
>
> Gigabyte GA-K8N-SLI Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 SLI ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail
> Qty:    1

This is a nice board.  I have the Pro-SLI version, which basically
means it has IEEE 1394b on it.  It seems to work very well with Linux
and FC4.

> MSI NX6200TC-TD128ELF Geforce 6200TC 128MB 32-bit DDR PCI Express x16 Video
> Card - Retail
> Qty:    2

You have to be careful with the TC => Turbo Cache cards, as Edward
mentioned.  From what I could find, it looks like this card does
indeed have 128 MB onboard memory, but I am not certain.  I can say
this for certain, though, this card does not support SLI mode.  You
need at least a 6600 for that.

> AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Venice 1GHz FSB Socket 939 Processor Model ADA3200BPBOX -
> Retail

A good processor.

> and 4 512mb sticks of Corsair PC 3200 Dual Channel DDR memory

Nice RAM, though I would suggest thinking about a 2x 1 GB matched set
rather than the four 0.5 GB.  Shouldn't be that much difference in
price and you can upgrade later to 4 GB :-D.

> I know that the motherboard has 2 pci-express 16 slots, so I can physically
> hook up both video cards.

No, you cannot.  It has two PCI Express x16 slots, but only for use
with SLI.  If you look at the motherboard manual (which I have in
front of me) you can use one as a x16 in non-SLI mode, or two in SLI
mode as x8 slots.  This may be different for different motherboards,
but you need to check that.  Also, SLI does not give you four video
ports to work with.  One card does not produce a video output.  You
cannot even have dual monitors on that one card when in SLI mode. 
See:
http://www.slizone.com/page/slizone_faq.html#s7

> What I am wondering is whether I will be able to
> use both of them under Fedora 4 (or 5).

The binary nVidia driver for Linux does support SLI, if that is what
you want.  It also supports dual monitor setups, though they may be
tricky to get working at first.  I have not really played with it, but
it should work.  Again, SLI and dual monitors do *not* work together
(right now, at least).

> Any suggestions would be appreciated.

I think there are motherboards out there that have multiple x16 slots
that can be used non-SLI if that is what you want.  Look at
motherboards and go to the manufacturer websites, download the manual,
and make sure it does what you want.  If you only want two monitors, I
recommend just using one card with two ports on it.  They almost all
have at least two ports now (even the above), so that should work just
fine.  Do a little more research and be sure to dig deep here.  Let us
know if you have more questions.

Depending on what you want for graphics, I suggest either a 6600 or
6600 GT card.  Get the GT if you want to do 3D intensive stuff,
otherwise save the money and go for the 6600.  That way, you can
upgrade to SLI if you want later (if you stick with the above
motherboard).  If you are not interested in SLI or that much with 3D,
you might consider a plain 6200 (not the TC version).  Just know only
get one, not two.

Jonathan