PC mobos....decisions, decisions
Right now I'm lookin to build a PC over winter break. The system will be based off an Athlon XP processor. Here's what I'm looking at putting together:
Athlon XP 2600+ 333FSB
80-100 GB 7200RPM hard drive
512 MB PC3200 DDR RAM
Radeon 9500 Pro 128MB
nForce 2 MCP-T motherboard
Sky Hawk black all aluminum case
52x24x52x CDRW
16x DVDROM
floppy, zip
Now the tricky part is deciding on what mobo to go with for the 2600+. I probably wanna go with an nForce 2-based mobo, but some of the KT400 look pretty good in comparison.
Here's what I want for features:
AGP8x
Firewire/USB 2.0 onboard
Gigabit Ethernet (many dont have this)
S-ATA
onboard 5.1 surround sound
etc.
Right now I'm looking at the Asus A7N8X pretty seriously. I originally saw the Soyo KT400 Dragon Ultra and had heard good things about it for the Athlons, but someone told me Asus and Abit have faster boards with all the features. There are also Gigabyte & MSI boards as well which I dont know how good those are.
Any suggestions on what I should get?
Athlon XP 2600+ 333FSB
80-100 GB 7200RPM hard drive
512 MB PC3200 DDR RAM
Radeon 9500 Pro 128MB
nForce 2 MCP-T motherboard
Sky Hawk black all aluminum case
52x24x52x CDRW
16x DVDROM
floppy, zip
Now the tricky part is deciding on what mobo to go with for the 2600+. I probably wanna go with an nForce 2-based mobo, but some of the KT400 look pretty good in comparison.
Here's what I want for features:
AGP8x
Firewire/USB 2.0 onboard
Gigabit Ethernet (many dont have this)
S-ATA
onboard 5.1 surround sound
etc.
Right now I'm looking at the Asus A7N8X pretty seriously. I originally saw the Soyo KT400 Dragon Ultra and had heard good things about it for the Athlons, but someone told me Asus and Abit have faster boards with all the features. There are also Gigabyte & MSI boards as well which I dont know how good those are.
Any suggestions on what I should get?
Comments
The one to look at are:
Abit
Asus
Chaintech
Epox
Anything from these guys and you cant go wrong.
The Asus board is probably the best out of all of them however. And its only $144 on Newegg. I would go with that.
I sugjest you read this article <a href="http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.html?i=1759&p=1"; target="_blank">http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.html?i=1759&p=1</A>;
And make your final decision.
[ 12-19-2002: Message edited by: dstranathan ]</p>
[edit: i've removed the offensive link]
[ 12-21-2002: Message edited by: thuh Freak ]</p>
I've got the A7V333 and I couldn't be happier. Its not as high end as the one you want but it still rules.
Everything it comes with is great, including the booklets and software. Their PC Probe software is sweet. You can find out the RPM of all your fans, the temps of your mobo and cpu. All this and it even comes with a little sticker that says "Powered by ASUS" so you can stick it on your case and be the envy of all your friends
I bought a soyo before i bought my epox board and the soyo would never boot, not even post.
the gygabyte card is great but do not have a gigabit ethernet only a normal fast ethernet (the MSI has one).What is impressed with the KT 400 is the number of features in the mobo :
- ATA ,133 and raid ATA 133 controller
- 3 firewire ports
- 6 USB 2
- 6 way audio channel
- PS2 for keyboard and mice
- classical serial and parallelar (only usefull if you own an old printer)
- 5 PCI slots
- AGP 8X
- 3 DIMM slot supporting unofficialy DDR 400, but the best choice is DDR 333 CL2
The Asus card is great (as always). The MSI card is good also, the Gygabyte has dual bios in it.
The Nforce 2 is more performant with dual bank memory. Perhaps is has less features built-in in the mobo but it's the only mobo who is performant like a DDR ram mobo from Intel. If it does not cost 150 $ more than the KT 400 , i would have buy one ( but i don't think there is such a difference if you buy this mobo in retail).
My personal advice will be to buy a nforce 2 card with an athlon 2400.
The athlon 2400 is 150 $ cheaper than a 2600, you will be able to upgrade it late.And if you love overclocking the 2400 can easily reach more than 2,13 ghz (buy a very good cooling CPU device). The 2600 is only 70 $ cheaper than the 2700, which is more interesting with his 166 mhz front bus (wich made a difference in benchmarks).
For the graphic card : two choices :
- the radeon 9700 pro, or 9700 if you can't (9500 pro possible, but not my first choice)
- the geforce 4TI 4200 (the best quality ratio avalaible) and easy to overclock (with most good companies you will be able to reach the specification of a 4600).
The 4400 and 4600 are not good choices, they are too expansive( better buy a radeon 9700 for nearly the same prize).
Last point : dont buy 400 mhz DDR RAM : they are not officialy supported by the mobo's companies. There is very few CL2 DDR RAM and even CL2.5 PC 400 mhz DDR RAM are slower than CL2 333 mhz DDR RAM.
Buy a high qualitie 333 mhz DDR RAM with CL2 of latencie : on a nforce 2 card it will rock.
It's just my advice, after 6 months or reading everything about the subject in the web and in the specialized newspapers.
<strong>WTF someone band this piece of sh*t in the above post......</strong><hr></blockquote>
yes, band him
whatever that means
I'm going to take...
Motherboard: Abit NF7-S (nForce2)
Athlon XP 2000+ (upgrading this one later for better price on 2800+)
HD: Maxtor 80 GB / 8MB Cache / ATA 133
RAM: 2 x 512 MB PC2700
Graphic Card: Gigabyte Radeon 9700 Pro
Optical: Yamaha CRWF1 & Samsung 16x DVD
and a floppy
The Abit motherboard is the best !
<strong>WTF someone band this piece of sh*t in the above post......</strong><hr></blockquote>
sorry if u didn't like my joke. i realize the link was a bit more off-color than you likely expected. i removed the link so it wont bother anyone else.
but still, why not go to some pc forum for pc advice. this place is appleinsider; i always thought of it for apple related discussions [with the exception of ao & fc]. i could understand if you were asking advice on building a mac [tho i dont know if all parts are avail independantly], but i dont see why you'd look for pc advice here. it seems out of place.
<strong>
sorry if u didn't like my joke. i realize the link was a bit more off-color than you likely expected. i removed the link so it wont bother anyone else.
but still, why not go to some pc forum for pc advice. this place is appleinsider; i always thought of it for apple related discussions [with the exception of ao & fc]. i could understand if you were asking advice on building a mac [tho i dont know if all parts are avail independantly], but i dont see why you'd look for pc advice here. it seems out of place.</strong><hr></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.techtv.com/screensavers/macintosh/story/0,24330,3411914,00.html"; target="_blank">http://www.techtv.com/screensavers/macintosh/story/0,24330,3411914,00.html</a>;
If you're buying a render box for 3d, the Athlon's better FPU will serve you well, but otherwise the similar costing P4 will be faster, and it has higher memory bandwidth, which is great for stuff like photoshop and after effects.
Anyway: on topic.
I would not buy anything bit Abit, Asus, or Intel. Obviously that limits you to the first two since you want an Athlon. Check newegg.com. They have good prices, good selection.
[ 12-23-2002: Message edited by: Splinemodel ]</p>
Athlon XP 2700 333FSB = $328
Athlon XP 2600 333FSB = $284
Pentium 4 3.06 GHz = $654
Pentium 4 2.8 GHz = $364
512 MB PC3200 DDR400 RAM = $134
512 MB RDRAM 1066 = $190
The P4 needs all the bandwidth it can get.
<strong>Right now I'm lookin to build a PC...</strong><hr></blockquote>
Er... Are you lost? This is a Mac forum. <img src="graemlins/oyvey.gif" border="0" alt="[No]" />
HyperThreading will trickle down, so expect further improvement. In the $250+ range, Intel wins, IMO. <$250, AMD starts looking sweet.
get the AOpen board with the vacuum tube! <img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" />