Which Motherboard for my CPU ?

[Elizabeth]

I have brand new AMD Athlon 3000+Barton processor and I need a motherboard for it. I will not overcloak so I was thinking to buy one of the ASUS motherboards.

It is very important to mention that I also have two sticks
of Corsair Memory(256 megs each) SDRAM DDR400 PC3200 NON-ECC Unbuffered....so the motherboard must be compatible with it.

I was thinking about the ASUS A7N8X or the ASUS A7N8X-E DE LUXE but I am not going SATA/RAID so...I wonder if need the DE LUXE model.

Anybody cares to help?

 

[Flinx]

Lots of people buy those boards. I'm sure the boards takes the Corsair memory. They will even work nicely with the Corsair Value Select or Kingston Value Ram. Nforce 2 is a bit picky for RAM but it sounds like u have good RAM. BTW what are the latencies?

I would take the Deluxe if the price is fair. They used to sell at twice what they commonly sell for nowadays. You might find it useful to have SATA drives one day and the sound is superior ("SoundStorm"). The "Soundstorm" is a bit of a problem under windows98 though.. U'd need to find the right drivers.

I have the ABit NF7-S Rev 2.0 (NOT -S2, which are sucky). I know that this board is also very popular with many people. The NF7 is the lesser model and is also good and not expensive. IMO the ABit(s) is superior for OCing and u might want to do that someday as the processor and board ages.

If you want to spend even less on the motherboard or get additional goodies and still have SATA you might consider something based on the VIA chipset.. KT600 I believe. They run just a tad slower than the Nforce2 and don't have dual channel but are less expensive for more goodies. Just as an example <A HREF="http://www.mikeshardware.com/howtos/howto_connect_ide_hd.html" target="_new">GA-7VT600</A>

The loving are the daring!

 

[endyen]

Yup, the deluxe board is a good choice because of soundstorm. The Abit NF7-S is also a good choice for the same reason. If you have an audigy2, or better, you can go non-deluxe, or NF-7, or if you dont game, and dont want high quality sound, where any onboard sound will do.

 

[Elizabeth]

Thanks for the help guys...makes good sense everything said.

The most important reason why I choose the ASUS board over other brands is because of Toms Hardware revies...it always seem to be in first place.

ANother critical consideration (and this is why I did not choose the NF7-s) is because the ABIT board is specially made for OC and I am not doing that...I want a board whose BIOS settings will detect automatically everything and go with the default settings.

 

[Elizabeth]

ABOUT THE MEMORY STICKS I HAVE..

I am a bit surprise to say the list because when I go to the Corsair website and use the memory selector for the ASUS board... the memory selected is not what I have (which is the Value Select Corsair SDRAM DDR400 PC3200) but the newer CMX 3200XL DDR400 XMS 3200 memory.

Can my Value select work on an A7N8X ?

Is there another board with similar quality that will be more flexible in taking memory?

 

[khha4113]

ANother critical consideration (and this is why I did not choose the NF7-s) is because the ABIT board is specially made for OC and I am not doing that...I want a board whose BIOS settings will detect automatically everything and go with the default settings.

That's the misconception. If it's good for OC does not mean it cannot detect your CPU automatically and correctly. I have used NF7 (no SATA RAID) with my Barton 2500+, and it identified the CPU correctly on its first POST. Other advanced features not only for overclocking but also for improving system performance.
BTW, my comp is using 2 sticks of Corsair 512MB PC3200 Value select w/o problem.

Good or Bad have no meaning at all, depends on what your point of view is.

 

[Nitrom]

yes khha4113 UR right about that

 

[Nitrom]

thanks Wusy...that's the info I was looking for.

 

[endyen]

ABIT board is specially made for OC

Which means that it is a top of the line board, with quality components, otherwise OCing would kill it pretty quickly.
It was designed with the extra stress OCing causes, in mind. That is the first consideration if you intend to OC, but also if you want stable.