New mobo

[Deleted member 3023]

I'm planning to build a new comfuser soon, & would like some help in deciding on what mobo to go w/. Should I go for one which supports an AMD AthlonXP or an AMD Athlon64? I know I do want a mobo w/an AGP port, a few PCI ports, handles DDR2700/3200 memory, a FSB of 400, & onboard sound doesn't really matter. I don't want to have to upgrade again for a few years. Also, what's this about PCI Express?

 

[Crashman]

You should read all Tom's motherboard articles for the past 3 months.

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>

 

[endyen]

After you have finished all that reading, go get an Asus K8N-E Deluxe board (socket 754 for A64) and get the fastest chip you can afford for it, without taking enough from your budget to prevent you from getting the best graphics card you have ever had. The A64 3200 is nice.

 

[xeenrecoil]

Heya Corey;

I only have one piece of advice for you stay away from MSI. bad mojo man.

 

[Deleted member 3023]

Yeh, not many of my friends have had good experiances w/them either.

 

[Deleted member 3023]

O.K., I've narrowed it down to these:
The ECS K7VTA3 V6.0 found at>
http://www.ecsusa.com/products/k7vta3_6.html

The ECS K7VTA3 V8.0 found at:>
http://www.ecsusa.com/products/k7vta3_8.html

The ECS N2U400-A found at>
http://www.ecsusa.com/products/n2u400a.html

The Asus A7N8X found at>
http://www.asus.com/prog/spec.asp?m=a7n8x

The Asus A7N8X-X found at>
http://usa.asus.com/prog/spec.asp?m=A7N8X-X&langs=09

The Asus A7V8X-X found at>
http://www.asus.com/prog/spec.asp?m=a7v8x-x

Only diff I can see between the K7VTA3 V6.0 & K7VTA3 V8.0 is this-
Storage Support: 2 x UDMA133/100/66 devices {K7VTA3 V6.0}
Storage Support: 4 x UDMA133/100/66 devices {K7VTA3 V8.0}
This is Hard Drive & not CD storage, correct?

Anyone have any suggestions?

 

[o1die]

I have the ecs N2U400-A board, and it performs ok, but has no overclocking options. I suggest one of the abit nf7 series if you want socket a cpus, and get the barton over the sempron. The ecs k7vta3 is the least desirable board in any version. Only 1 out of 5 I tried posted every time.

 

[Deleted member 3023]

I'll be getting an AMD AthlonXP & I won't be overclocking, but other-wise, how does your N2U400 perform o1die? What do you mean the k7vta3 didn't "post" every time?

 

[o1die]

Fry's electronics let me exchange the k7vta3 (version 6.0 with 2 dimm slots) 4 times, until I got one that actually posted consistantly with a duron 1.6, which it recognized correctly with the latest bios. Some would post the second time, after I used the reset button on the case. I tried 2 power supplies (both name brand) and 2 video cards. They just didn't work well. Version 5.0 with 3 dimm slots had fewer problems. I used one for my brother's system with an xp1800. The n2u400 (with nforce2 chipset) performs fine at the default settings, but most people overclock to take advantage of the barton or mobile barton's potential speed. It really doesn't hurt the cpu, unless you run with too much voltage or heat. I'm currently running a p4 "c" series with a 30% overclock. It runs faster than the fastest current cpu that Intel offers, and only cost me $150.