Which board would you recommend for a Sage server?

[Ruger44]

I have three server class motherboards. I want to use one for a WHS/SageTV server.

The first is a P4 class Tyan board with either a 3 or a 3.2 EE gig chip in it.

The second is also a Tyan board with dual Xeon 2.8 gig Hyper threaded processors and 4.5 gig of ECC memory.

The third is an Asus Socket 939 board with a 3800 X2 chip.

All three boards have dual PCI-X slots and at least 2 pci slots, onboard graphics, and dual gigabit lan jacks. The Socket 939 board has a PCI-E 16 slot that I am not using. I have two PCI-X 4 port and two 8 port sata raid cards to use in the build. I will most likely run at least 0ne and most likely two tuners in the set up. I am leaning towards the Socket 939 board right now, I think it balances power and expandability.

Any and all opinions and or tips would be appreciated. I have read a lot on the boards here and that is why I am leaning towards the Asus Socket 939.


Thanks,
Ruger

[Djc208]

I'd agree with the Socket 939 board. The CPU power is probably very similar but the power draw should be lower. You can still upgrade if you honestly needed more CPU power which should only be the case if you transcode video or want to commercial skip HD-PVR stuff. The PCIe slot also gives you the ability to add any PCIe card (tuner cards, RAID, video, etc.) which are becoming more common.

[autoboy]

You may even be able to use that x16 slot for graphics that you can use with the new GPU accelerated transcoding programs coming out. I would stay away from P4 class stuff also.

[mikesm]

I agree, if you have to use one of these 3, I would go with the S939 model.