Kev - hope I'm not taking your thread too far off topic by asking this here...
I've got a system with an AMD64 on that A8V board, pretty much like you have. After the Linux experiment, I'm trying out WinXPx64. It installed easily, and I can run MS applications like Office 2003. The crappy old video card I had needed to be replaced because when moving windows around the screen, the newly positioned window would take ½ second to paint. A secondhand Radeon 9600 fixed that - I got the Radeon because all Radeons from 9550 on have 64bit driver support.
Now whereas I have no trouble running MS applications, it's a different story with non-MS applications. Eg. HP does not yet have 64bit driver support for its printers, programs like eBay Auction Intelligence don't run, and there are various other problems.
Is there an emulator available to provide a 32bit interface? WXPx64 looks good, but it seems to be ahead of its time in terms of available 64bit support.