Will they run on skylake, yes...

The issue is that M$ has decided that they don't want to try to keep up patches for newer processor, so if Windows pre-10 detects skylake or newer, it disables Windows Updates, so you don't get security patches.

There are workarounds currently, but I'm sure M$ will patch them so they don't work. End result, if you want to have Windows, if you're going Skylake, Ryzen, or anything newer than those, go with Windows 10.

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Thank you for the information.
So, if I'm reading this correctly (I'm getting slow in my old age ), it, in theory, would be possible to run winXp or win7 on the latest AMD and Intel processors, but you wouldn't be able to get updates? If so, that is fine. I just use the old winXp installation, as I said, as a backup in time of hardware or software troubles.

I had the impression that the newest, seventh generation, processors from both AMD and Intel wouldn't even boot anything older than win10.
Thanks, again.

I'm not sure if you'll be able to get XP running on one (I suspect it would, but never seen it), but 7 most definitely will run on Skylake, I have friends running Skylake with 7.

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All --

I've a question concerning Dual-Boot -vs- Virtual Machines.

Why would one set up Dual Boot, especially an older version of Windows when one can run Windows in a Virtual Machine ?

I am not knocking it, I just don't understand what one can do with Windows on Bare-Metal that can't be done as a Virtual Machine ?

Thanks.

-- kjh

Usually from what I've seen, for no reason other than licensing. Most of the time the version of windows is OEM that's installed on bare metal, then LEGALLY speaking, to install into a VM, you must acquire a different license key as that key cannot be used. The OEM version is forever locked to the board it was installed on, and while you can get it to activate in a VM, it's not legal per the OEM license. So unless you have retail licenses, or have spare never installed even 1 time for testing OEM licenses laying around, most people cannot legally virtualize their Windows.

Well, as mentioned elsewhere, last weekend the audio ports on this motherboard apparently died. To confirm it was the hardware and not the Slackware64 Linux operating system, I booted over to winXp and confirmed it was, indeed, the hardware.
There have been other times in the past when having windows (or it could be most any other operating system) on another partition has come in handy for similar reasons.

Hmm. To get my own thread back on track, thank you everybody for sharing about your motherboards.

I am going to be patient and wait for Current to be officially released. Then select a Skylake board. I have three candidates tagged.

Looks like the Skylake chips are rather efficient at idle.

Unless some kind of sale appears, I think I am going to stick with an i5 rather than the more expensive i7. No hyper threading but I don't know that I need that, and the i5 will be a huge performance jump from my current system.

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For my school, I'm required to use a program called Lockdown Browser, which completely locks my system down when I take certain tests to try and prevent cheating. There's no window switching, no start menu, no hotkeys, etc. This software only works on Windows and it detects VMs and refuses to run (which means you can't take your test and would fail it).

I'm annoyed by the requirement to use the software, but I believe it is required by the regional accreditation for my online-only degree program to prevent us from needing to go somewhere physically to take a proctored exam. The school would likely lose its accreditation if they didn't use this software or it would force us to find somewhere locally to take a proctored exam (I'm about 2500 miles away from my school).

I also remember reading a post that at least Valve has some anti-cheating technology that may detect if you're in a VM and can kick you off the server. This could be used by other vendors as well, but I don't game much, so I don't really have experience with it.

Also, for those who game, you typically need two GPUs to be able to passthrough one of them to the VM. If you don't have an integrated GPU in your processor (most AMD owners), that means you need to have two discrete cards, which can be expensive.

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How many VMs do you (plan to) run? I bought an 8-core AMD processor precisely because number of cores trumps clock speed when running multiple virtual machines. The Asrock 990 Extreme 9 board I bought for this processor, however, does not have onboard video. I have two video cards - one Nvidia and one AMD. There is no problem whatsoever with the AMD; I don't understand why you are so resolutely set against it. The Nvidia is easy to set up with the proprietary driver. The board has 8 SATA ports. I have a lot of 120mm fans in the case but the system is reasonably quiet.

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One VM on the office system is run every day, but none of the VMs run 24/7. I run them as needed. Sometimes I run two VMs concurrently but often do not have the need. Thus, a four core CPU will be fine, especially since the current CPU is an early generation dual core. If I wanted to run a dedicated VM host like Proxmox I would buy the hardware. I get to play with rack servers at work and I don't need the same at home.

Perhaps my bad luck of the draw, leaving a proverbial bad taste in my mouth? Two of my current boards use Nvidia. My previous office system motherboard was Nvidia too until giving up the ghost. I am now using Nouveau as I don't need any 3D. In the past, many times I updated the drivers only to have them crash my system and then had to revert to the previous version. Just one of those things where the last time I experienced a crash I said, "That's the end of that!" and vowed to never again buy a motherboard with Nvidia video. Since all dedicated video cards are Nvidia or AMD, that leaves me with on-board video, which I like because there are no fans, I don't do games, and the Intel people seem to support really well.

I have two Intel video systems and I never once had an issue with them and never had to install special drivers.

There was a long period years ago when AMD drivers were painful to use. Perhaps those days are long gone. Nonetheless, call me "gun shy."

If there are non proprietary AMD drivers these days that are part of the Linux kernel like other modules, then I'll keep an open mind when selecting a new mobo.

I don't want the fan noise or additional heat of a typical video card. If there are AMD cards without fans then I'll take a look.

What is "reasonably" quiet to many people is noisy to me. I prefer silent and very quiet systems. I am sitting next to three running computers right now and can't hear any of them.

I can tolerate noise. My system is right beside me on the desktop, and yes, there is a constant hum. But when I upgraded it last year my thinking went as follows: I wanted to be able to run whatever I needed to run, in 2016 and in 2026, without hiccup. Video encoding, audio encoding, multiple virtual machines, and so on. That requires a beefy CPU, which requires, for me at least, beefy fans (no water-cooling here, thanks). I understand your reasoning, but I also encourage you to reflect on what your needs might be in five years, not just this year. Your existing system is ten years old. You never know what you will need your new system to deliver in ten years' time. Just yesterday I came across an excellent app for Android. Nothing similar exists for the desktop. So today I set up an Android emulator on the desktop and now I just run the app on my desktop. That's just one virtual machine claiming CPU cycles and memory from the host. There are others too. You might find yourself in the same position in time to come, needing to run virtual machines regularly where now you run them only intermittently. So plan ahead, not just for tomorrow. That's all!

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There are AMD cards without fans. I have one There are more onboard options for AMD these days that might potentially qualify.

About being gunshy: You should always check the driver status of any potential buy. There is even Intel stuff that don't work right out of box. That said, the selection of well supported HW on OSS drivers and increased quite a bit the last few years.

Most of AMD's stuff works great with the included modules in the kernel and X... no proprietary needed. In fact, most of their older cards don't even support proprietary drivers on modern distros because they never updated them to work with the newer X.

As is normal for most things in Linux, if you buy something brand new to the market, driver support will likely be lacking, but I'd imagine any low enough powered discrete card that wouldn't require a fan would be old enough to be well supported by either the radeon or amdgpu drivers, both of which are open-source and included in Slackware 14.2. The same can likely be said of any of AMD's APUs (CPU + GPU in the same chip). You'd likely be able to boot up X without any tinkering of files and have direct rendering working properly.

I've certainly had better luck with AMD than with Intel as far as video is concerned, but my only experience was the Skylake processor I mentioned earlier. My htpc is actually running an APU and is fairly low-powered, but is more than capable of driving my 1080p tv, even decoding h265 encoded video with the CPU (the GPU didn't have support for h265 decoding).

I think you and I live on different planets. I'm exhausted just from reading what you do.

I will look around.

All of these conversations reminded me why I have not purchased a new system in a long time. Researching makes my head hurt.

I will browse a bit to learn more.

No surprise to me. This is how most of these conversations go. Something works great for one person and not for another, and vice-versa.

Huh. I just remembered that I have three systems with on-board Intel video. I plumb forgot about the living room system. Same story though -- no fussing with drivers.

Edit: Which model?

Well shoot me folks.

Based on the feedback in this thread, I started looking into AMD CPUs and APUs. I wasn't familiar with APUs.

Seems there are some good deals?

For example, AMD A8-7600 Quad-Core with Radeon R7 for $65. AMD A10-7860K Quad-Core with Radeon R7 for $100. The A8-7600 can run at 45W. Those seem like a whale of a bargain. Comparatively, CPUs like this probably would be half way to the finish line before my old system even leaves the gate.

Seems many people are using these APUs in media centers and for gaming. Gee, I just want a nice office desktop.

Too good to be true? What am I missing (besides previously being stubborn)?

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