If you've been waiting to port your software to RISC-V until having a decent RISC-V system where you can develop on-host, wanting to experiment with the libre processor architecture or even use it as a daily desktop system, or just wanting a Linux system that's not x86_64 / ARM / POWER, SiFive today is announcing a new board today that is the most promising yet. The SiFive HiFive Unmatched is the best RISC-V development board we've seen to date and the closest to being the first "RISC-V PC" for Linux use.

For those building an Intel Core X-series system, the Gigabyte X299X DESIGNARE 10G is the board we have been relying upon for our Cascadelake-X testing over the past two months and it has continued working out phenomenally for being a feature-rich platform while playing nicely with the various Linux distributions and BSDs tested.

For those that have been interested in AMD's EPYC 7002 "Rome" processors for your own server build, more 7002 series supported motherboards have been hitting Internet stores in recent weeks. If you are looking for one of the lower-cost motherboards, ASRock Rack's EPYCD8 motherboards have been refined with 7001/7002 series processor support.

If you are looking to assemble an AMD EPYC workstation, a great ATX motherboard up for the task is the ASRock Rack EPYCD8-2T that accommodates a single EPYC processor, eight SATA 3.0 ports (including SAS HD), dual M.2 PCIe slots, dual 10 Gigabit Ethernet ports,and four PCI Express 3.0 x16 slots all within ATX's 12 x 9.6-inch footprint. This motherboard has been running well not only with various Linux distributions but also DragonFlyBSD and FreeBSD.

With last week's initial launch-day Linux benchmarks of the Ryzen 5 2600X / Ryzen 7 2700X some found the Linux performance to be lower than Windows. While the root cause is undetermined, a BIOS/AGESA update does appear to help the Linux performance significantly at least with the motherboard where I've been doing most of my tests with the Ryzen 7 2700X. Here are the latest benchmark numbers.

When it comes to our AMD EPYC Linux testing the past number of months, one of the most common test requests was to test the Gigabyte MZ31-AR0 motherboard, which is more workstation oriented than traditional server with plenty of PCI Express slots for suiting multiple graphics cards, etc. Over the past month I have been testing out this single-socket AMD EPYC motherboard and overall it has worked out fairly well.

The past few weeks I've had the pleasure of testing the Tyan Tempest S32272NR-C950 motherboard with Atom C3950 "Denverton" processor. Yes, it's been a real pleasure as it's been a few years since last touching an Atom system and this current combination allows for a mighty competent configuration with the C3950 server processor featuring 16 physical cores (no HT) running at a 1.7GHz base frequency and 2.2GHz turbo frequency all while having a 24 Watt TDP.

For those looking at assembling a new system around Intel's 8th Gen Core "Coffee Lake" CPUs, the motherboard I've been conducting most of my Linux tests from has been the ASUS PRIME Z370-A. A few weeks of use with this motherboard, I'm happy with this Intel Z370 motherboard.

One of the latest server platforms under our bombardment of Linux benchmarks recently has been the Tyan Tempest HX S7100 (S7100AG2NR) motherboard which at the moment is paired with an Intel Xeon Silver 4108 processor. This ~$430 Xeon Scalable processor has eight cores plus Hyper Threading to yield 16 threads, a low 1.8GHz base frequency but with 3.0GHz turbo, 11MB L3 cache, six-channel memory support, AVX-512 capabilities, and has a 85 Watt TDP.

If you are looking to build a small HTPC system, NAS / network device, or other petite system, the ASRock Z370M-ITX/ac is a bargain motherboard for Intel's new Coffee Lake LGA-1151 processors. This brand new motherboard retails for around $130 USD while offers dual Gigabit NICs, dual HDMI + DisplayPort, 820.11ac WiFI, 6 x SATA 3.0 ports, and a M.2 slot all within a mini-ITX form factor.

For the past few weeks that I have been testing the AMD Threadripper 1950X on Linux, I have been using the Gigabyte X399 AORUS Gaming 7 motherboard. Overall, it's been a pleasant experience and is running fine under Linux. Here's a quick summary.

Two weeks back I picked up the ASRock AB350 Pro4 for a low-end AMD Ryzen motherboard for use with some of the Ryzen 3 CPUs and it's been working out well for those wanting a Ryzen Linux system and not looking to spend much money. With it working out well for my purposes and currently being on sale, I figured I'd pass along this quick recommendation for those wanting to assemble a budget Ryzen Linux system.

For those drawn by the performance of AMD's Ryzen processors for its performance/value and thinking about building a Kodi/HTPC media box for the living room, a Steam Linux gaming PC / DIY Steam Box, or just want a small form factor PC, Gigabyte's AB350N-GAMING WiFi is a mini-ITX motherboard that plays fine with Linux and offers a lot of functionality for its small size.

The motherboard I've been testing the past week paired with the Ryzen 7 1700 is the MSI B350 TOMAHAWAK, a board in short supply that will set you back only $110 USD.

For those looking to purchase a newer Intel Z270 motherboard for use with the new Kabylake processors, the ASUS PRIME Z270-P is what I've been using the past two weeks for my initial Kabylake benchmarking. So far it's been working out great and haven't run into any issues.

The MSI X99A RAIDER is a sub-$200 LGA-2011 v3 motherboard. I've been using it for almost two months now on one of the daily Linux benchmarking systems and it's been running great.

The past few weeks I've been testing out the MSI X99A Workstation motherboard courtesy of MSI Computer and it's been working out very well across a spectrum of open-source Linux (as well as BSD) use-cases for those in need of a LGA-2011 v3 motherboard.

Last month I shared my thoughts on the ASUS E3 PRO GAMING V5 motherboard as a $140 board supporting Intel Xeon E3 v5 CPUs via the Intel C232 chipset. That motherboard was nice, but if your budget is stretched thinner, the ASRock E3V5 WS sells for a little more than $100 and works quite nicely under Linux.

If you are looking for a low-cost LGA-1151 motherboard for an Intel Xeon E3 v5 CPU, the ASUS E3 PRO GAMING V5 is a sub-$150 ATX motherboard using Intel's C232 chipset while supporting USB 3.1, an M.2 slot, and other features normally reserved for the higher-end products.

Recently I picked up the ASRock C236M WS motherboard as a micro-ATX board for supporting Skylake LGA-1151 Xeon processors. This motherboard has been running nicely under Linux.

For the past month and a half I've been battering the MSI C236A Workstation motherboard with an arsenal of benchmarks and various workloads on Linux and BSD. This MSI motherboard for Xeon E3 v5 "Skylake" processors has been working out great.

With having my first Skylake motherboard fail on me recently, a sub-$60 Gigabyte H110 motherboard, for its replacement I decided to spend a few bucks more and ended up going for a nicer MSI Skylake motherboard. For those curious, here are a few words I wanted to share this weekend about my experience so far with the MSI B150M Mortar.

When recently buying the Intel Pentium G4400, a ~$60 Skylake dual-core processor, for Linux testing I was also looking for a Skylake motherboard that wouldn't cost an arm and a leg. The motherboard I ended up pairing for this Pentium G4400 in the test lab was the Gigabyte GA-H110M-A, a micro-ATX board using Intel's H110 chipset.

Since I started delivering my Skylake Linux tests back in August, I've received many inquiries from Phoronix readers curious about what motherboard I've been using, etc. Long story short, all of my initial Intel Skylake Linux testing has been done with the MSI Z170A GAMING PRO motherboard, which has been working out well.

For those in the market for an LGA-2011v3 motherboard this holiday shopping season, a very reasonable and affordable choice is the ASRock X99 Extreme3. For just over $200 USD you can get this DDR4-3000+ motherboard that supports Thunderbolt, ten Serial ATA 3.0 ports, 18-core Xeon processors, three PCI Express x16 slots, and numerous other connections for offering a feature-packaged motherboard at a modest price compared to other LGA-2011v3 motherboards.

While Habey may not be a household name to most Linux desktop users, they are known in the embedded world and do produce Linux-friendly systems and motherboards. Habey recently engaged with Phoronix and today we are checking out our first Habey motherboard: the MITX-6771 that's a mini-ITX motherboard with Intel Bay Trail quad-core SoC.

For Intel Core i7 5960X Haswell-E Linux testing I originally bought an MSI X99S SLI PLUS motherboard as it was one of the most interesting, lowest-priced boards available at the time of the Intel X99 chipset debut. While I initially ran into some problems, those issues have now been confirmed to be isolated, and with a replacement X99S SLI PLUS motherboard I have been stressing it constantly for the past few weeks on Fedora and Ubuntu. The X99S SLI PLUS has now proven itself to be a reliable motherboard that's still among the least expensive X99 ATX motherboards on the market.

Now that the MSI X99S SLI PLUS is running great on Linux, I've been working with the company towards some other Linux improvements along with some other interesting Linux hardware reviews to come thanks to our renewed cooperation. One of the items I've been voicing has been regarding better supporting Linux users with regard to a smoother BIOS/UEFI update process. Well, there is a utility they support for updating your MSI motherboard BIOS from the Linux desktop!

Last month following the launch of Intel's Core i7 5960X Haswell-E platform I ran into a rather odd situation with the first system assembled using the X99 chipset and eight-core, $1000+ processor: the motherboard failed. Coincidentally it happened at the same time as another motherboard failure at a fellow review site. Fortunately, since then, there's been no other major reports of failures with Intel's new platform. MSI has been helpful in this matter and I've since received a new MSI X99S SLI PLUS to confirm there's no fundamental issues with their board.

This weekend I was planning to publish the first Linux benchmarks for Intel's incredibly powerful Core i7 5960X Haswell-E processor with X99 motherboard and DDR4 system memory. Unfortunately, all I can tell you now is that it's smoking, quite literally!