AGP Motherboard Help

[HDawg187]

I recently purchased a Radeon Sapphire X1950 Pro graphics card. It's quite a beast and I have no complaints about it. However, it's AGP.

I currently have a crappy Asus A7V8X-X mobo with an Athlon XP2500+ Barton core 1.8ghz and the CPU seems to be holding my graphics card back a bit.

I'd like to upgrade my Mobo/CPU/RAM as it's getting a bit dated now although it has served me well in the past.

Because I recently bought the GFX card (and love it) I don't want to replace it already. However, I would like to know if anybody can point me in the right direction as far as a new mobo is concerned.

I need a motherboard that:

Supports a decent dual core CPU
Supports AGP x8

I don't know if such a mobo exists, but if there was one that had an AGP as well as a PCI-e slot that would be magnificent. Although I would be more than happy just to find one that supports dual core and AGP. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks a lot in advance.

H

 

[uri]

On the AM2 front I've found:
http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.asp?Model=AM2NF3-VSTA
though it doesn't has a PCI-E slot which makes it not so good

on the Intel front I've found
http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.asp?Model=4CoreDual-VSTA&s=775
which have both slots though I think the PCI-E is only x4

I've got no experience with the boards but I've remembered Asrock have this kind of solutions, I would recommend you go through they're site, and the most important thing is find someone who uses one of these.

 

[erocker]

Yeah, it's going to be tough but you can still find some parts. I did the same as you and use a Gigabyte k8ns939 motherboard, with a x2 3800 cpu. It works great. I also use Corsair XMS DDR400 ram. I got my mobo off of e-bay and everything else I bought new. The only mobo on Newegg that would work is the Asrock dualvista... which sucks don't waste your money.

 

[reader850]

There isn't much to choose from anymore. I was looking for the same thing, only I want an AGP 939 board. ASROCK had some good combo boards, but apparently stopped making them. The top quality AGP boards (from Gigabyte, Asus, DFI...) are also out of production. If you don't mind going with an AM2 board and buying DDR2 memory, then consider the MSI K9MM-V Socket AM2 VIA K8M800 Micro ATX at NewEgg for about fifty dollars. Great price! It is a VIA board and not very overclockable, but apparently is good quality. With the money saved, buy a better AMD 64X2 processor (they are so cheap now) and you won't need to overclock.

 

[chogo]

There are a couple of choices depending on vendor preferences:

1) Intel socket 775: ASRock 4CoreDual-VSTA LGA 775

Unfortunately the max overclock is around FSB=300MHz for this motherboard but still it should give you a substantial performance boost from your current CPU. Another benefit is that you can reuse your existing DDR memory as this board has both 2 DDR and 2 DDR2 slots although you can only use one type of memory at a time. One other caveat is that the PCIe slot is physically 16x but electronically only 4x.


2) AMD socket 939: ASRock 939Dual-VSTA


Overall, I would recommend the Intel option with say an E4300 CPU for a budget setup with the best future proofing.

 

[erocker]

Stay away from Asrock.

 

[HDawg187]

Thanks so much for the help guys.

I've been looking at the options suggested and have decided to go for the MSI K9MM-V Socket AM2 VIA K8M800 mobo. I've seen a few for sale at decent prices. I checked out the Asrock boards too and noticed quite a lot of bad reviews. Apparently it has problems with vista and specific graphics cards.

I'm not really interested in overclocking to be honest and I don't mind buying new RAM. At least this way I can use my current PC and maybe buy a few components each month and slowly build my new PC over a number of months.

Anybody know what the best processors are that would work with this motherboard?

Thanks again.

 

[Zephyn]

Here is a MSI that supports Agp and is only $50:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2366188&CatId=1533

You can also pick up a Pentium D dual core for about $100:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1645065&Tab=2&NoMapp=0

You'll have to buy a fan and maybe some new memory but youll keep your grafics card ok.

Might be a viable option for you.

 

[HDawg187]

I saw THIS on Ebuyer.com and was thinking of purchasing it. I noticed it's called MicroATX. Sorry to be a noob, but do you think a Radeon X1950 Pro would fit in this case?

I already have an IDE Dual layer DVD Writer and I'm currently using 2 X IDE internal hard drives.

The specs say that it would only be able to handle 2 IDE devices. I guess I'll just have to use my biggest hard drive and my DVD Writer until I replace my IDE Hard drives with SATA ones.

I'll probably get a 2GB Dual channel RAM kit as well to try and squeeze the most out of it.

 

[bobbknight]

I bought this one from newegg last year.
It worked with my Nvidia FX5500 agp card

This is the only place I have been able to find it now. My Egg one was an open box so it was half the cost of this. I like it though, and if I needed another one I would buy this.

http://www.pricegrabber.com/p__Biostar_Group_TForce4_U_Motherboard,__13199041/search=biostar%20tforce%204u

It is a 939 board, so you are limited to what you can get for cpu.