Going to give VIA a shot...system reccomendations?

[ddrueding]

There are a few people here whos opinion I respect that reccomend VIA motherboards (Tannin and Mercutio primarily). I've ignored their suggestion, preferring nVidia nForce4 options until now.

I know nothing about VIA's products, haven't read anything about them in ages, so your suggestions are greatly appreciated.

I'm about to build myself a new computer; it's primary demanding task will be photoshop, secondary will be encoding DIVX files. There will be gaming, but I'll take whatever quality comes my way. I will be using Merc's super soundcard so onboard audio is irrelevant. This machine will only have one SATA hard drive (probably a laptop model) and will be using a AMD 3800+ X2 so S939 is mandatory. The video card should have Dual DVI as that new Dell 30" LCD is in my near future. PCI-E of course but SLI is irrelevant. The case will be an Antec P180, 'cause I think it's sexy.

Motherboard requirements:
- Socket 939
- PCI-E
- SATA
- GbE
- Passive cooling
- Available on Newegg.com

Thoughts?

TIA

 

[Mercutio]

Sadly, Newegg isn't selling my favorite Soltek board any more and in fact only seems to stock the usual loathesome suspects (Jetway? ECS? And Abit, which is yucky to me although that particular board doesn't look that bad).

I'm guessing Via's close to releasing some new chipset or other, 'cause supplies usually aren't THAT dry, and KT890Pros don't seem to be widely available right now.

 

[ddrueding]

I'm looking at the HIS Hightech H160XTQT256GDDN Radeon X1600XT video card. I believe it supports dual-link DVI.

 

[ddrueding]

Oh, well. I'll give VIA another try when they have better product in the channel. In the meantime, I'll go with my old favorites. I've dialed back the budget for the machine, as I need to upgrade my server as well (running out of capacity).

Final Spec:
PS: Antec Performance One P150 w/NeoHE 430W
MB: Gigabyte GA-K8N Pro-SLI
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+
HDD: HITACHI Travelstar 7K100 60GB 7200 RPM 2.5"
RAM: BUFFALO 1GB 184-Pin DDR400 (PC 3200) x2
GPU: GIGABYTE GV-NX62TC256DS Geforce 6200TC
HS: Scythe SCNJ-1000
DVD: BenQ DW1655

Server Upgrades:
Another SUPERMICRO CSE-M35T-1B Black 5 Bay Hot-Swapable SATA HDD Enclosure and some Seagate drives to go in it.

I've had some really good experiences with this $50 video card. It runs games suprisingly well and 2D looks great.

Comments?