Motherboard w/ or w/o isa slot

[evergreen96]

Okay gang,


I have a question. And this is my situtation
I planning to get a NEW MB that I can Overclock a Duron/Althon CPU. Should I pick a MB that support at least 1 ISA slot. (I know that ISA slots are being pharse out now). The only problem is that I have a internal BTC 56k Speakerphone hardware based modem on Rockwell chip (or is it Lucent chipset) that works just as good as my other Diamond Multimedia SupraExpress 56k hardware based modem.

Should I just bite it (sell it) and get a new PCI (hardware/software) modem or just reused my modem.

Suggestions:

PS If i bite it I am mostly likely to get a software based modem......

What the best win modem out there using Lucent chipsets? Price? :Q

 

[AmdEmAll]

I believe that ISA uses more cpu and bandwidth. And it is slower. I would just toss that modem and get a PCI one. But it doesnt really matter if you have ISA on your motherboard. Just dont use it

 

[TheMasterGhost]

The best t-bird duron MB with an ISA slot is the ABIT KT7 it is the second best MB according to anandtech.
On your second question, from my experience, I would not get a software modem but that?s just me. Had a bad experience with the one and only one that I have ever used.

 

[TheMasterGhost]

Oops double post

 

[rnimz]

If you have a nice 56k hardware modem, I would say get a board with an ISA slot in it, its worth the added stability of having a hardware based modem, and besides and cpu usage used by ISA would be greatly outweighed by a software modem. (I do dial-up tech support, and you are much much better off with a hardware modem, trust me.). Besides most of the good boards out there are available in a version that has one or two ISA slots. If you don't have a ton of money to spend I would suggest the Epox 8KTA2, which supports multiplier adjustments (if you like to over clock), and also from what I have read is pretty stable. But since you should be able to find a board with an ISA slot for the same price its worth it to keep your old modem. Just my two cents.

 

[HellRaven]

I faced the same problem except mine is a 3com hardware ISA modem. Luckily I saw that Abit was wise enough to include an ISA slot in the KT7 series for those of us with 1 old ISA device. The KT7 is an excellent mobo anyway, especially for overclocking, but having one ISA slot pushed it over the Asus board since at the time I bought it, Abit and ASUS were the only ones with multiplier manipulation.