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As I have gotten into an upgrading craze, I have started looking at new motherboards. I have looked at the ASUS A7V600 mainboard. So far, it looks like a real decent Athlon motherboard with support for 400 MHz FSB.

My question is, what other boards should I possibly consider before wading onto eBay to make my purchase? What I am looking for is something with 400 MHz FSB support, which should accomodate my CPU upgrade needs into the foreseeable future.

Soyo makes both Pentium and AMD motherboards. I have one of each. I really have been happy with them for the price, and the driver support on the webpage is nice.

Take look and see if anything suits your needs.

http://www.soyousa.com/

I am not a fan of VIA-based motherboards. Try getting something with the nForce 2 chipset.

I have had great success with ASUS based motherboards. ASUS is a pretty solid manufacturer. Right now, My AMD 2400 system revolves around the A7N8X motherboard with the nforce chipset. I agree with Phongn, try and get an Nforce 2 chipset motherboard if possible.

I use this site to council me with motherboards and such.

http://www.tomshardware.com/

Go for the Leadtek Winfast K7NCR18-D Pro. Its a DAMN fine mobo. (and it supports DDR400)

phongn wrote:I am not a fan of VIA-based motherboards. Try getting something with the nForce 2 chipset.

Presently, it looks like the nVidia nForce2 just barely beats the VIA KT600 chipset. Is there anything wrong with the VIA from a reliability standpoint? (I've only used VIA chipsets in the past, so I have nothing to compare them to.)

GrandMasterTerwynn wrote:

phongn wrote:I am not a fan of VIA-based motherboards. Try getting something with the nForce 2 chipset.

Presently, it looks like the nVidia nForce2 just barely beats the VIA KT600 chipset. Is there anything wrong with the VIA from a reliability standpoint? (I've only used VIA chipsets in the past, so I have nothing to compare them to.)

Nforce 2 has greater features then the KT600 (the ICE DD encoder is sweeet) and the performance of the KT600 still doesn't hold up. Reliability is also not up to nVidia's standard largely because KT600 is a new chipset and Nforce 2 has been on the market for a year.

GrandMasterTerwynn wrote:Presently, it looks like the nVidia nForce2 just barely beats the VIA KT600 chipset. Is there anything wrong with the VIA from a reliability standpoint? (I've only used VIA chipsets in the past, so I have nothing to compare them to.)

Other than they have a shitload of problems that they can never seem to weed out.... (remember the 686B debacle?)

GrandMasterTerwynn wrote:My question is, what other boards should I possibly consider before wading onto eBay to make my purchase? What I am looking for is something with 400 MHz FSB support, which should accomodate my CPU upgrade needs into the foreseeable future.

A7N8X-Deluxe is teh bomb! I've got one and can't fault it. A beautiful example of fine craftsmanship.

Hethrir wrote:

GrandMasterTerwynn wrote:My question is, what other boards should I possibly consider before wading onto eBay to make my purchase? What I am looking for is something with 400 MHz FSB support, which should accomodate my CPU upgrade needs into the foreseeable future.

A7N8X-Deluxe is teh bomb! I've got one and can't fault it. A beautiful example of fine craftsmanship.

Oh balls, you managed to say it before me. Anyway, yes, that one. It's easily my most favourite one i've ever had.

Vertigo1 wrote:Other than they have a shitload of problems that they can never seem to weed out.... (remember the 686B debacle?)

Yep, especially when combined with the SBLive! it had a ton of problems.

I have the DFI Lanparty NFII Ultra, it's a really nice board based on the nForce2 chipset. It's got a load of features and Tom's Hardware had some nice things to say about it.

Bah just get an nForce 3 board with the new Athlon-64

CmdrWilkens wrote:Bah just get an nForce 3 board with the new Athlon-64

Pshht, I don't need an Athlon-64 yet! Not to mention I've already ordered a new Athlon XP chip as it is.

Update: I managed to find an A7N8X Deluxe motherboard (the rev 2.0 one that supports 400 MHz FSB and comes with all the bells and whistles.) I shall go with that one and see how things turn out.

Thanks for all the input folks!

GrandMasterTerwynn wrote:

CmdrWilkens wrote:Bah just get an nForce 3 board with the new Athlon-64

Pshht, I don't need an Athlon-64 yet! Not to mention I've already ordered a new Athlon XP chip as it is.

Update: I managed to find an A7N8X Deluxe motherboard (the rev 2.0 one that supports 400 MHz FSB and comes with all the bells and whistles.) I shall go with that one and see how things turn out.

Thanks for all the input folks!

Just remember to use the integrated sound; it is FAR superior to any add in sound card, including the Audigy2.

The Kernel wrote:Just remember to use the integrated sound; it is FAR superior to any add in sound card, including the Audigy2.

Bah, fear the M-Audio Revolution (yes, yes, it's not a gamer card, so sue me)

phongn wrote:

Vertigo1 wrote:Other than they have a shitload of problems that they can never seem to weed out.... (remember the 686B debacle?)

Yep, especially when combined with the SBLive! it had a ton of problems.

Not just that. They also had the habit of corrupting any data on the secondary controller. That meant alot of coasters if you burned anything.

phongn wrote:

The Kernel wrote:Just remember to use the integrated sound; it is FAR superior to any add in sound card, including the Audigy2.

Bah, fear the M-Audio Revolution (yes, yes, it's not a gamer card, so sue me)

Does it have a DSP capable of Dolby Digital on-the-fly encoding?

The Kernel wrote:Does it have a DSP capable of Dolby Digital on-the-fly encoding?

Alas, no, but it sounds really, really good

Well AMD terminated their XP line of processors. So IIRC the only processors for XP that you can get with support for a 400Mhz fbs is the 3+ and 3.2+ processors.

So looking for a future upgrade in the XP line is a futile venture, and would either stop there, or save up for the 64 line of processors.

ShinjiGohan wrote:Well AMD terminated their XP line of processors. So IIRC the only processors for XP that you can get with support for a 400Mhz fbs is the 3+ and 3.2+ processors.

So looking for a future upgrade in the XP line is a futile venture, and would either stop there, or save up for the 64 line of processors.

HAHAHAHA!!!! Are you serious? AMD did NOT terminate their line of XP, Barton/Throuoghbred chips. You think everything is Athlon 64 now?

ShinjiGohan wrote:Well AMD terminated their XP line of processors. So IIRC the only processors for XP that you can get with support for a 400Mhz fbs is the 3+ and 3.2+ processors.

So looking for a future upgrade in the XP line is a futile venture, and would either stop there, or save up for the 64 line of processors.

Boy, I don't know what universe you come from, but you can still get Athlon XP chips for brand new in this one! Athlon-64 won't go mainstream for another three to five years at least, not when they haven't hit the limits of 32-bit technology.

GrandMasterTerwynn wrote:

ShinjiGohan wrote:Well AMD terminated their XP line of processors. So IIRC the only processors for XP that you can get with support for a 400Mhz fbs is the 3+ and 3.2+ processors.

So looking for a future upgrade in the XP line is a futile venture, and would either stop there, or save up for the 64 line of processors.

Boy, I don't know what universe you come from, but you can still get Athlon XP chips for brand new in this one! Athlon-64 won't go mainstream for another three to five years at least, not when they haven't hit the limits of 32-bit technology.

That's pushing it a little. I imagine that AMD will phase out the K7 core sometime late next year, although Paris may be its spiritual sucessor. I know that we don't need 64-bit anytime soon, but K8 is meant to succeed K7, so it will be phased out eventually. Just not until they can sell K8's for < $50

That's pushing it a little. I imagine that AMD will phase out the K7 core sometime late next year, although Paris may be its spiritual sucessor. I know that we don't need 64-bit anytime soon, but K8 is meant to succeed K7, so it will be phased out eventually. Just not until they can sell K8's for < $50

I agree mostly, but how about the Duron? The new 1.6G Durons are pretty good value for money ($40 for something that can outperform a 2.6G Celeron), and I don't see them cutting it that soon.

Is Soundstorm really as good as they say? Better than a Audigy 2? I found that hard to believe. How about against VIA Envy based cards?

Ypoknons wrote: I agree mostly, but how about the Duron? The new 1.6G Durons are pretty good value for money ($40 for something that can outperform a 2.6G Celeron), and I don't see them cutting it that soon.

The Celeron is for people that want a cheap Intel box and don't care about performance. If anything the performance of the Duron hurts AMD since the low-end enthusiast market will snap them up instead of the more expensive Athlons. That's the same reason they pulled the Duron off the market in the first place.

Any enthusiast that buys Intel knows that the best price/performer is an overclocked 1.8-2.4 P4. These chips are ridiculously easy to overclock and they fit the midrange enthusiast market quite well. AMD owns the low-end enthusiast market, and Intel has no plans to compete with them there.

Is Soundstorm really as good as they say? Better than a Audigy 2? I found that hard to believe. How about against VIA Envy based cards?

The Nforce2 APU is a much better DSP then either the Audigy or the Envy based soundcards. It can perform Dolby Digital real-time encoding, something that was thought impossible before they released it. This is a huge boon for people with 5.1 systems as people with a Creative or Via card would have to use matrix surround systems unless they had material specifically recorded for 5.1 (DVD's and a handful of games).

Now, the Nforce2 doesn't have as good of output codecs as the Audigy or Via (it still has to use an external chip for that) so you could argue that the Audigy and Via sound somewhat better. However, I have noticed that this is almost impossible to notice, and if you are really concerned about it you can wait until nVidia releases their sound card based successor to the Nforce2 APU (Q1 2004) that will work in any motherboard. It should have high quality DAC's as well as all the new features that people have come to expect from current gen sound cards.