Which motherboard...

Author
Discussion

davidd

Original Poster:

6,443 posts

283 months

Tuesday 24th June 2003
quotequote all
I'm about to upgrade one of our pcs, looking at shoveing an AMD 2400xp, 180GB NDD 512Mb DDR ram and some other bits and bobs. As this is an upgrade I already have other bits such as a firewire card, lan etc, etc. I'm not sure which motherboard to get, I'm currently running an asus which is excellent but will not support the new processor. I'm after something with at least 4 usb ports (and cables and plugs etc), support for the processor, ram and an agp slot and I'd like it to be pretty current!

Anyone got any recommendations? oh and I don't really want to spend more than about £70 before VAT..

www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?action=c2hvd3N1YmNhdGVnb3J5X3NlYXJjaA==&cat_uid=14

Cheers

D.

>>> Edited by davidd on Tuesday 24th June 10:17

nevpugh308

4,398 posts

268 months

Tuesday 24th June 2003
quotequote all
Actually, this is a good question. There's a lot of talk about components being "compatible" for maximum performance. How do you go about choosing a mother board that works best with a certain CPU or a certain type of RAM and so on ?

beano500

20,854 posts

274 months

Tuesday 24th June 2003
quotequote all
Read all the reviews in PCW and Micron Mart until you're so confused you just go for the cheapest one?

Last one I went for was an Elite - they seem to be rubbished by just about everybody - but not given me any t-r-o-u-b-l-e....!"£$%^&*...yet..._)(*(*&^%.... uh oh!....

plotloss

67,280 posts

269 months

Tuesday 24th June 2003
quotequote all
Gigabyte 7DX family I have had great results with.

Only around £50 for the entry level as well...

beano500

20,854 posts

274 months

Tuesday 24th June 2003
quotequote all
Trying to be a bit more helpful(!)

I found a good reference book "PC Hardware in a Nutshell" Robert Bruce Thompson and Barbara Fritchman Thompson published by O'Reilly and they have a website with their latest recommendations. Some of it seems common sense and they don't have any more of an axe to grind than anyone else out there....

www.hardwareguys.com/picks/motherboards.html

....oh and they're quite good at covering compatability issues (although like everything else it's out of date by the time it's written)

davidd

Original Poster:

6,443 posts

283 months

Tuesday 24th June 2003
quotequote all
Thanks for that, they are recommending the Asus board which is nice but a little expensive.

I more or less know what to buy, I'm just keen to get some opinions, I have put a posting on the overclockers uk forum (a bit like someone coming on here and asking 'I'd like to buy a car but I have no idea what to get'. So I'm expecting the odd flame.

Any other suggestions?

D.

big_treacle

1,727 posts

259 months

Tuesday 24th June 2003
quotequote all
I recently upgraded my pc with new processor, motherboard, memory, hard disk & gfx card. practically a new computer!!!

anyway, the way i went about it was to pick a processor at the top of my price range. got an Athlon 2600+ 333FSB. Then found a motherboard that matched it (and had 8x AGP support for gfx card) - Asus A7N8X Deluxe nForce2. then found some fast DDR memory for a fair price. then got the biggest HD i could afford & made sure that would be compatible, followed by a graphics card that was good for games. did a bit of backtracking as i learnt a bit more and ended up with more memory, different gfx card chipset & so on. now have a pretty decent set up. Also, email the support guys at the shop you intend to order the stuff from and ask their opinions & take with appropriate pinches of salt.

its a tricky one as there's a million different combinations of stuff to get & it depends on how much cash you have etc etc. for asus boards, i seem to remember that if you go to the Asus website and do a search for a particular muthabord, they give you a list of compatible & tested bits of hardware. but i only found this after i had bought it all!

davidd

Original Poster:

6,443 posts

283 months

Tuesday 24th June 2003
quotequote all
Big_treacle...Which graphics card did you go for? How are you finding the Asus board?

TIA

D.

adam1330

1,822 posts

262 months

Tuesday 24th June 2003
quotequote all
I brought an Asus A7N8X Deluxe a few months ago. I got this one because all the reviews I could find on N-Force 2 m/boards said this was the one to have. I am running an XP 2400+, Abit Siluro GF4200 ti, and I am very pleased with it.

big_treacle

1,727 posts

259 months

Friday 27th June 2003
quotequote all
davidd said:
Big_treacle...Which graphics card did you go for? How are you finding the Asus board?

TIA

D.


The Graphics card I got has the worlds longest name:

Gainward GeForce4 PowerPack! Ultra/750-8X XP Golden Sample

Seems pretty good. Comes with the GeForce4 Ti4800SE chipset and 128MB of DDR.

Asus card seems fine too. Does everything I need and has all the worlds expansion ports etc.

cheers

Stew