SATA OK? (and other questions for a new system

[Evan Leibovitch]

[ Now that the list is back up, let me re-send something that I tried 
sending last week... ]


Hello all,

I'm shopping for a replacement system soon, mainly server purposes for the home network (Samba, Hylafax) but occasionally some KDE desktop stuff and maybe even as a boot server for a thin client.

So far it looks like it'll be an Athlon 64 mounted in an MSI or Asus mobo mounted in an Antec Sonata2 case, 2GB RAM and a Geforce 6200 video card. There are a few remaining questions:

1) How important is it (given the above tasks) to spend $170 more to expand the RAM to 2GB?
2) Is there real value to doing HTML/DNS caching (Squid) for my other home systems?
3) What are the pros and cons of using Serial ATA drives as opposed to good old ATA-133 drives?
4) Would the use of PCI Express for the video instead of AGP cause me grief?
5) Is Nvidia still better supported by X than ATI at the low end ($75 cards)

Any help is appreciated. Thanks!

- Evan



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