What motherboard would you recommend?

[pyrocraig]

I am planning on upgrading my board and chip. I was wondering which of these you would recommend....if there is another board you think I should wait to get or just another board in general pls post your opinions....thx.

Aopen AK77-333 VIA KT333

Gigabyte GA-7VRX VIA KT333

Shuttle AK35GT2 VIA KT333

EPOX EP-8K3A VIA KT333

MSI MS-6380E KT3 VIA KT333

 

[GAZZA]

Pyrocraig , what is it your upgrading from ?

Are you in favour of upgrading with the Athlon cpu's ?

What is your budget for the upgrade ?

Also what kind of features are you looking for in a motherboard , like usb2.0 , raid,etc......

I wouldn't be able to reccomend any of those boards without at least doing a feature comparison as well as price, you might also want to do a search on this forum as well as others when you have narrowed your list down to a couple to see if anyone has any issues with them.

It's getting hard nowadays to pick a easy winner , just too many to choose from .
I'm going through the same scenario choosing a P4 mobo

 

[KGB1]

Dude... wait for KT400 with dual DDR memory controller (like the nVidia/Rambus) and AGP 8X. Dude get a 266A if you need it bad, its the same as Kt333, just cheaper, Athlon cant take advantage of the 166 when itself is at 133. (well unless you overclock)

 

[pyrocraig]

Right now I have a abit kt7-raid with two 30gb 75gxp ibm drives on raid with ati 8500 xgamer sound card and 512 of crucial with a 850mhz athlon and a fongkai case not sure what model off the top of my head....I wanna upgrade and give my ram, board, chip and case to my mom and build a new system....looking right now at no more then 500 for a case board cpu and ram......I want raid and usb2.0.......also what do you guys think of the lian li pc60usb case.....it's expensive kinda I just don't know another real good case for modding......also I was looking at the abit at7 but I don't need really firewire or two more raid ports......hope this helps.....I definitly want to go with amd for now.....thx

-Craig

 

[cr4pz0r]

pyrocraig, if you have to buy a new motherboard, remember that you can't use your existing PC133 SDRAM in a new KT333 (or KT266A) motherboard! That means that you'll have to buy new DDR266 (PC2100) or DDR333 (PC2700) modules in addition to a new KT266A or KT333 motherboard. Also, which processor at which speed are you planning to upgrade to?

 

[pyrocraig]

I know I know........thats why I need to buy ram too.......I am looking at around 1.6ghz to 1.7......anyone with experience with these boards leave some feedback...thx

-Craig

 

[pyrocraig]

BUMP

 

[CrazySaint]

The Athlon XP 1800+ (1.53GHz) is currently at the price/performance sweet spot, costing ~$100 for an OEM (add $5-10 for retail), but you can get a 2100+ (1.73GHz) for ~$200 for either OEM or retail. The actual performance increase from a 2100+ over a 1800+ is ~6-12%. As for motherboards, you should consider the following boards:

Asus A7V333 RAID, USB 2.0, Firewire, CPU Overheat Protection, C-Media 8738 6-channel sound (many claim they like it as well or better than a SB Live!) ~$140

MSI KT3 Ultra-ARU RAID, USB 2.0, C-Media 8738 6-channel onboard sound ~$115

Gigabyte GA-7VRXP RAID, USB 2.0, Dual BIOS, PCI128 onboard ("PCI onboard" uses a PCI master) sound, some people have complained of BIOS problems with it, Rev. 2 of this board due out mid/late June will include CPU Overheat Protection and hopefully fix any BIOS problems ~$110

You can get PC2100 RAM cheat at both newegg.com and googlegear.com. Consider using good PC2100 instead of PC2700 RAM unless you plan on overclocking, as the performance increase is nominal at best.

 

[optimistic]

Epox.

Epox has a very good track record with their KT266a boards.