what mobo to go with?

[Jiggy]

hi all im building a new pc soon and need some pointers on a good DDR mobo, for around £150. to support this little lot.

im putting a Athlon xp 1.6 on with a Geforce3 card, sound blaster live 5.1, 40G HD, DVD-rom, CDRW.
O/S win98se.

forgive me, im young. Jiggy http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/biggrin.gif http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/tongue.gif

[andyswork@beci.net]

Jiggy mother board name doest not count, they all are about the same. Find one that will do what you want and go for it. Look at possible expansion. Try for 1 agp and 4 or 5 pci slots, make sure it will take 1 gig of memory or above.

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One day I will be a pro, Thanks Andy

[This message has been edited by andyswork@beci.net (edited 01-09-2002).]

[BigBlue66]

Hey Jiggy,

Head on over to www.tomshardware.com (http://www.tomshardware.com) and read his reviews on motherboards. That will give you a good idea of what to look for. As far as names go, I would not be opposed to Abit, Asus, ECS, MSI, Gigabyte and the list goes on. When you find a motherboard you're interested in, go to google.com and type in the search bar something like the following:

"Motherboard model no, Reviews" (Example: "MSI K7T Turbo2, Reviews")

That should give you a few hits so that you can see more reviews. Also look for 'user reviews'. People who already have them and have used them can be a good source of information.

Cheers,

Big Blue 66


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This space reserved for highly intelligent observations and witty remarks.

[Paleo Pete]

Nope, all motherboards are not the same. Try finding any of the old timers on the forums who will recommend PC Chips boards... http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/biggrin.gif

Asus, Abit, Gigabyte, and Tyan are probably the top of the heap, with Asus and Abit being the favorites from what I've seen in previous topics.

Tha main thing I can think of to look out for is the combination of AMD processor and VIA chipset, especially if you plan to use nVidia video. That combination seems to come up in more posts concerning problems with freshly built systems that refuse to boot than any other.

Check for prices, then look up the motherboards you find on some of the hardware sites. Many have reviews, and those can be helpful. Don't buy a motherboard on the basis of price alone.

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[Jiggy]

thanks for all your help.
after all that looking im going with the gigabyte mobo(GA-7VTXE) with the (via Kt266a)chip set.
its all new stuff, hopefully it will go together with no probs, fingers crossed lol.

forgive me, im young. Jiggy http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/biggrin.gif http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/biggrin.gif

[rond36]

You might want to check out the new board from Iwill (http://www.amdmb.com/article-display.php?ArticleID=144) the XP333-raid supports the new 333MHz DDRSDRAM.

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[iisbob]

..Nope, all motherboards are not the same. Try finding any of the old timers on the forums who will recommend PC Chips boards... http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/biggrin.gif..

Now, now Pete-as one soul i saw in a nother forum once put it; PCChips brings a level of excitement to the PC industry not seen since IRQ's had to all be set manually!

http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/tongue.gif

I would suggest taking a look at the K7S5a from ECS, affordable, and easy to set up and has so far still been unbeat in any benchmarks using DDR and the new Athlon XP's. I 've got it, and am quite happy with it.



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iisbob

Life of a tech-support specialist-
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Customer: "I don't have a right button."
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[Whyzman]

Hi Jiggy,

I've an ASUS A7V133 (no, doesn't support DDR RAM) and my purpose is not to be dissing ASUS. I'm actually hoping that iisbob will take a moment to respond to my concerns regarding the K7S5a.

When I assembled using the forementioned MB I was in contact with ASUS Tech-support regarding the available PCI slots. There are 5 (+ an AGP) on this board, but due to "hardware sharing" the available slots drop off dramatically. AGP hardware shares with slot 1; slot 2 shares with the ATA Promise Controller; and 4/5 share. That really leaves 3 and 4 or 5 as the only really "open" slots.

I'm wondering if other of the MBs are set up similarily?

Oops, slot 2 actually would be open if not using the ATA 100!

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May all your dealings in life be win/win!

Whyzman

[This message has been edited by Whyzman (edited 01-11-2002).]

[BigBlue66]

Originally posted by Paleo Pete:
Nope, all motherboards are not the same. Try finding any of the old timers on the forums who will recommend PC Chips boards... http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/biggrin.gif


Well, I never. http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/biggrin.gif I have had two PCCHIPS boards (M810LMR) for over a year with nary a problem. Maybe I'm one of the lucky ones.

However, I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. (It has integrated everything and only two PCI slots) I have two motherboards on reserve, Soyo and MSI, in case they decide to go belly up on me. Who knows, lately I've been getting the bug to swap out motherboards anyways. http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/biggrin.gif

Cheers,

Big Blue 66


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[Hobit]

Hello Jiggy,
Don't know the exchange rate, but for about $60 plus shipping one can buy an ECS K7s5A which has an SiS735 chip supporting DDR RAM.

The SiS735 chip for socket A (Athlon XP) motherboards has performed better than motherboards with KT266A chipsets in at least two reviews that I have seen. (See tomshardware.com) There are currently four mobos on the market wiiith the SiS735 chip Chaintec 7SID, ECS K7S5A, Leadeck 7350KDA, and Shuttle AS25. All support (pc 2100) 266 DDR-RAM. In addition ECS has a new mobo the K7S6A with a new SiS 745 chipset that supports (pc 2400) 333 DDR-RAM but I have not seen a review or pricing

Good Luck