Abstract

A new system was built based on the EPoX 8KDA3+, based on the nVidia nForce3 250Gb chipset and an AMD Athlon 2800+ processor x86_64 processor. This hardware is capable of running both 32 bit and 64 bit operating systems and software. The use of Windows XP 64 bit Extended Edition is well documented by its vendor, and is in long-term beta test. The use of GNU/Linux compiled for x86_64 systems is less widely documented, however there is evidence to suggest that both hardware support and software availability for this platform is much more complete.

Various distributions of GNU/Linux compiled for both the conventional x86 and x86_64 platform were installed and tested to assess the level of hardware compatability and ease of setup.

Many thanks to to EPoX UK for their donation of the motherboard and CPU used in this test.

The Motherboard

The EPoX 8KDA3+, released in Q2 2004, was one of the first Socket 754 nVidia nForce3 250Gb motherboards for AMD 64 bit processors to reach the markets. It is also widely acknowledged to be one of the best and most feature-packed boards currently available. The board provides 3 DDR400 DIMM slots, 6 PCI, 2 SATA ports on chip, a Silicon Image SATA controller providing support for 4 further SATA devices, on-board 8.1 sound, AGP 8x, up to 8 USB2 connectors as well as support for legacy hardware such as two channels of ATA-133 IDE, 2 serial ports, a parallel port, a game port and hardware monitoring. EPoX have included their now-standard "Port 80" hardware diagnosis utility, although this is of limited use in GNU/Linux systems. Finally, Gigabit ethernet connectivity is provided by the combination of the nVidia Gigabit network controller with a Cicada PHY.

The board also provides such special features as Cool 'n' Quiet support - an extended power management system allowing the speed and power requirements of the processor to be varied to maximise performance whilst minimising heat output. An integrated hardware firewall is available that will filter data transferred across the on-board ethernet controller. Both coax and optical SPDIF is available.

Since its release, this motherboard has received numerous favourable reviews for its performance and stability. It has been tested both at stock speeds and at a moderate overclock, in all cases equalling or exceeding the performance of competing boards available at the time of review. It has been noted, however, that only a modest overclock is possible when the on-board gigabit ethernet controller is activated.

Under testing all hardware was accessible and could be used, even if the correct device names were not determined by the operating system. The hardware under test was found to be highly stable, even when faced with a low-quality power supply.

Initial System

The system built was as follows:

CPU: AMD Athlon64 2800+ MOB: EPoX 8KDA3+ MEM: 2 512MB Samsung PC3200 GFX: Abit Siluro FX 5200 HD: ATA-100 Seagate U6 with Gentoo for 32bit Athlon-XP installed HD: 2 Seagate Barracuda 80GB SATA drives NET: Realtek 8139-based PCI ethernet controller added for initial installations.

The system started first time with the older Gentoo installation, even without the correct hardware enabled in the kernel. A brief kernel recompile was necessary to include fast nForce IDE support and to activate the on-board ethernet controller using the "forcedeth" module. First impressions were highly favourable, with the system and all its software working at least as well on the new hardware. Users wishing to stick with 32 bit operating systems will not be disappointed with this hardware choice.

SuSE 9.0

The first Linux distribution to be tested was SuSE 9.0. This was the last SuSE distribution to use the older kernel 2.4.x tree, for which the original nvidia network driver "nvnet" was written. The operating system was installed by FTP, successfully downloading, installing and setting up a SATA raid array from the start. Note that explicit nVidia SATA support is NOT included in the default installation, nonetheless the devices worked. Testing of this distribution was short - once it was determined that the hardware would install, the on-board ethernet controller could be started and the system was useable no further testing took place.

SuSE 9.0 is an ideal distribution for those less experienced with GNU/Linux but wishing to use a 64 bit operating system. It works out of the box and performs well enough. It is now rather old, so does not benefit from many of the improvements made in porting GNU/Linux software onto the x86_64 platform.