The chipsets sucks (Score 1)

I have a bunch of 939/940 systems around from back when
there were actually decent chipsets to be had for the platform.
With decent I mean "stable" and "also runs under Linux". AM2
has just continued a trend that's started in 939s prime.

- VIA's K8Xnnn series worked great for me but now it's even
    more outdated then your proverbial Debian release. Even
    that I could live with if a selection of boards were
    actually available. The local equivalent of pricewatch
    lists a whopping 3 boards, all with the antique south bridge.

- ATIs chipsets look good on paper but there have reportedly
    been some Linux compatibility issues. I'd rather let that
    fruit ripen a bit more. Then there's the ATI-AMD merger
    which might end the life of and support for the current
    chipsests very apruptly and prematurely.

- had mixed but generally good experiences with ALi products,
    but since nVidia has bought them the compile-yourself driver
    sources have become progrssively harder to find.

- Leaves nVidia, and a choice between binary blob drivers that
    intermittently refuse to see the onboard LAN or
    reverse-engineered open ones that have the same problem. Add
    to that the less-than-stellar SATA and the never-dieing
    accusations of data corruption.

When my server died a few months back I borrowed a nice nVidia-
based board from a friend and did a test installation: the onboard
LAN could not be convinced to stay up even a day ... what fun on a
headless machine. At which point I switched to Intel.

AMC CPUs and Intel chipsets, now that ...