Help finding good PIII Motherboard

[Goya]

Im looking to upgrade my MB and Processor. I am going ot go with a PIII 800 probably. I dont knwo what MB woudl be best, or if it really matters. I tried finding some comparison sites, but could onlly find info from the manufacturers, a little biased. I have a stick of 100 memory Id like to still use. Im looking at pricewatch to find the setup. Some of the boards on here are amptron p6BAP, shuttle av11, abit va6. If anyone has experience with any of these or can recommend a good board I woudl appreciate it. I woudl like to not have to replace the board for a few years. Thanks

[Goya]

Another ques. 100 bus or 133 bus? Advantages? Slot 2 or socket 370? Differences?

What do ya'll know about the AMD thunderbird or athlon? How do they stack up performace wise? Thanks

[spondylolisthesis]

I'll offer you a suggestion. Think about a socket 370/P3 700MHz/100MHz bus. You have a reasonable chance of overclocking it to between 800-950MHz. You should be able to get one for about $170, but definitely get a boxed rather than OEM, as vendors may have had a chance to find all the overclockable chips in their shipment to sell as guaranteed to run at certain speed.

The advantage to the 100 MHz front side bus is greater potential for overclocking. The BX chipset easily runs at 133 MHz and higher. At this point you probably want the 815 though for upgradeability.

Abit mobos are a good choice for overclocking, as many settings are changeable in the bios (via software) notably fsb settings in 1 MHz increments. They also have pretty good hardware monitoring capability so you can keep track of things.

I have an Abit BF6 (slot 1) PIII 450 oc'd to 633, front side bus @141MHz. Everything runs rock solid and cool (Alpha heatsink with slowed down fans for quietude).

[Paleo Pete]

Don't know much about the Amptron boards, but Shuttle and Abit both have good reputations, and Epox seems to be doing pretty well too. Tyan, of course, has been one of the best for a long time.

CSO (http://www.computersurplusoutlet.com) might be another good place to look.

I don't recommend overclocking at all, CPU's are tested at the factory, and are stamped and sold to run at the speed at which they run with the best stability and leat heat. If the CPU ran better at 600MHz, it wouldn't be sold as a 450. IMHO if you want the extra 100-150 MHz, shell out the extra bucks. I'm sure not going to risk frying a $300 or more CPU for a bit of extra speed, and definitely don't want to put up with the instability that is a definite possibility as well.

Last guy who tried to make his car go faster by strapping a rocket engine to it became small chunks of meat on the side of a mountain. That's about the same thing overclocking does. If your car was meant to run on rocket engines, it would have a couple in it. If your CPU was meant to run at 6000MHz, or whatever, it would have it stamped on top.

i815 chipset and Motherboard Comparisons (http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.html?i=1291)

PC Buyer's Guide Reviews (http://www.thetechnozone.com/pcbuyersguide/hardware/motherboards/index.html)

Motherboard Home World (http://www.motherboards.org/)

Motherboard Rating Survey (http://sysopt.earthweb.com/cgi-bin/newsurvey/mboard/mbsall.cgi) Long list of boards rated.

Maximum PC ( http://www.maximumpc.com/overclocking/) overclocking info

Maximum Hardware (http://www.maximumhardware.com/) Optimization info

Intelligent Firmware (http://www.intelligentfirm.com/) General CPU info

Overclocking Guide (http://sysopt.earthweb.com/overc.html) Good info, terrible spelling and grammar...

I think I just set a personal record for links!

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If you had everything...Where would you put it?

Computer Information Links (http://www.geocities.com/paleopete/)

[StoneDragon]

I've been hearing nothing but possitive about ASUS boards. That's what I went with for my 700 PIII.

[Will Rickards]

My recommendation for now:
Soyo (http://www.soyousa.com) 7VCA (http://www.soyousa.com/sy7vca.html)
The only qualm I have with it is no ATA100 support, only 66... but
you won't find a drive out there today that can max out an ATA66 controller.
I trust anandtech's (http://www.anandtech.com) reviews.
You want a socket 370 because intel is pretty much phasing out slot2
(otherwise known as SECC2). Speaking of intel, I'd stay away from any board based on one of their chipsets (except BX even though it is years old). If you decide to go with a BX board I'd suggest:
Soyo 6BA+100 (http://www.soyousa.com/sy6bap100.html)
Make sure you get a Coppermine CPU that runs at the 133Mhz FSB, these processors often have 'EB' at the end of their model numbers. Definitely buy a boxed processor.

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Will Rickards ~ wrickard@home.com
http://www.willrickards.net