Decisions,decisions

[Duffy Sullivan]

I'm currently using a P3 500 on a motherboard with 100MHz FSB and PC 100 SDRAM (ASUS P2-99).I am ready to upgrade and change over to an Athlon system.The biggest decision in the process,to my mind,is which motherboard to go with, and also which type of RAM it should support.That is, should I focus on DDR or just load it up with PC 133? Performance is key.I'm not really building on a tight budget.On the other hand I don't want to pour money into the project to reap relatively meager gains.I'm looking for the best motherboard I can get that will support a 1.5 Athlon CPU or faster,with the fastest FSB available.Of course it has to be rock solid stable and run cool! anyone have any ideas? The main reason I want all this power is to run the latest PC games.This machine I have now is starting to struggle;even with a GeForce 2 and 256 SDRAM.

[diurnal]

I like the way you talk man. Well I would defintely go with a asus board I think there the most stablest. the one you should get is the A7A266ALIDDR/SDRAM board. It will go to 1.2 gig but I think it will go higher, you should check it out on the asus web page. Its ddr and I think you will see a signficant difference from pc 100 to pc2100. I seen test with the ddr board that have a frame rate of 178 that is outstanding. I have not seen a 1.5 gig athlon but ive seen a 1.4 but I would recommend you go to tcwo.com and get your equipment and get your ram at crucial.com. This companies are professionals and have the best prices and service. they will take anything back if it breaks

[yawningdog]

If you want a 1.5 ghz athlon, you must have a 266 mhz fsb as this chip (is it out already?) does not support the 200 mhz bus. As mbs go, Asus is top of the line, no question, but I can't see paying the extra money if you don't have to. I recommend the Aopen AK-73pro-A

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He thrusts his fists against the posts but still insists he sees the ghosts.

[JL275]

Don't know if its out yet, but the Abit KG7-Raid looks like a super board. Granted some people have had problems with the chipset, but I think the new Bios irons out these "older" bugs.

[Musashi]

I have a question .. I also was looking at the A7A266 board but the A7V133
happens to have Promise controller and usually the HD is the bottle neck nowdays right? (im pretty much a noob!)

here are the urls of the 2 Mobo's http://www.asus.com/products/Motherboard/socketa/a7a266/index.html http://www.asus.com/products/Motherboard/socketa/a7v133/index.html