Gigabyte 990FXA-UD3 and Asus M5A99X EVO R2.0 Compatibility

I’ve been looking at the Gigabyte 990FA-UD3 and Asus M5A99X EVO R2.0 motherboards as a replacement motherboard. The only concern I have is that after Googling around, there have been reports of the AMD SB950 chip not behaving nicely with Linux (USB and network problems). What I can’t tell is if these issues are a thing of the past or if they are still a problem.

Has anyone here had any experience with boards that have the AMD SB950 chip on them to know if they play nicely with OpenSUSE?

Even better, has anyone tried the 990FXA-UD3 or M5A99x EVO R2.0 with Opensuse 12.3 or 13.1 to know if those boards specifically play nicely with OpenSUSE?

You can rest assure with the 950 chipset. I’ve installed opensuse on four different boards, flawless, and of as now I’m running
open suse 12.3 on Gigabyte 970 DS3 (Rock solid) and 13.1 on Gigabyte 970XA-UD3. I don’t recon any of the problems You
are reffering to. I always install the DVD-iso with a USB2-stick. Never a problem for me.

I’d take the Gigabyte anyday because of the VR’s and dual BIOS.

Good Luck.

I just installed openSuse 13_1 to a GA-970A-UD3 system (SB950 south bridge)
I only have 2 hours into the install so take my comments like a grain of salt.
I am experiencing network issues and usb mouse does not work (tried 2 mice and various usb ports)
Light comes on in the both mice for a second then goes out, no functionality.

The network issue is I can ping the card on the ip address but I can not ping any other device on the network.
I use static IPs everywhere and pretty sure my settings are good.
I plan on disabling sound on the mobo and installing an intel or d-link NIC (or both) tomorrow.
I will try remember to post the results
I have had trouble with Realtec nics in the past (very very slow file read times over the lan using SAMBA)
There is probably a work around for this but easier just to put a different NIC in.

I have not looked for fixes, driver updates etc.

Anyway just my 2 cents

Do want to add.
Still a fan of Gigabyte boards.
They generally run well for me.
Probably installed 40 - 50 Gigabyte PCs (mainly Windows, but some openSuSE systems too)

Found review of the Gigabyte GA-970A-UD3 at the following link.
Gigabyte GA-970A-UD3 Motherboard Socket AM3+ | Linux Hardware Guide.com

read the comments section

It states to enable IOMMU in bios to fix USB and NIC issues
Will be trying it tomorrow

Follow up to prior post,

enabling IOMMU in bios fixed the USB 2.0 issue and the network issue
I lost USB 3.0 though.
I do not currently have a need for USB 3.0 so this is not a big issue for me other than I wonder what else might not be working

System is currently updating so I will see if that fixes anything.

update finished and verified I already have the most current bios

did not help with the loss of USB 3.0 ports.
otherwise everything else seems ok (usb 2.0 working, network card working)