Hardware Question

Hi, I am not new to Linux but am new to Linuxcnc. I am currently building a cnc router and I am determined to not run it via a windows machine. I have poked around this forum for a little while and i know most was suggesting going with an Atom based build, but Atom's are getting hard to find and rather pricey if you can find one.
I did find some AMD based hardware that still had a parallel port, has anyone used any ASRock MB's with a dual-core cpu? I suspect if i cant find an acceptable MB with a parallel port then a Mesa card is the way to go?
Also what distro should i be looking at for the upmost performance, this box will be used solely to run my cnc.

A board without a parallel port can still use a PCI or PCIe parallel port card to add a parallel port (or 2). But Mesa hardware starts to look very appealing at that point because a 5i25 only costs about $60-70 more than a typical parallel port card. Also don't overlook the fact that many boards that at first glance don't have a pp may have a header somewhere for attaching one.

Thought i posted this already, guess i didnt....
I have found an Atom 2550 with a pico80 psu, 2GB ram and a SSD. Will put it all in a M350 (small) case.
This should be a good low latency setup to run Linuxcnc right?

andypugh wrote:

Atoms were cost-effective and gave good latency a few years ago, but I wouldn't go out of my way to find one now.

I haven't bought a new LinuxCNC motherboard for a few years now, but I would suggest looking for 12V power input and fanless.
There is a board-finder here:
www.mini-itx.com/store/category?type=motherboard

Thanks Andy, I have been looking at some 12v fanless options and just putting it all in my sealed controller box.

I am new to LinuxCNC and have just put together an an ASRock J3355b-ITX with two 4GB DDR3L crucial memory CT51264BF186DJ. Hard drive is a 120GB SSD SanDisk. I am seeing servo thread Max Interval = 1018337, Max Jitter = 15619, Base thread Max Interval 43190, Max Jitter 19855. I assume this is acceptable right? This board has a parallel port. Cost was $55 at Newegg.