which board to go with ?

lreid · March 31st, 2003, 12:42 AM

I am thinking about upgrading my mobo and processor. I currently have a xp 2000 w/ asus a7v333 512meg pc 2100, ti 4200 64 meg card. I want to make a 2nd machine but dont really know which board to go with. I want usb 2.0, firewire, ata133, ect
It will be used for gaming, photoshop, quark 5.0 and web work.
Should i go with p4 aor amd new barton? I also want a mobo that can overclock easly.

thanks, les

pinoy87 · March 31st, 2003, 03:17 PM

go with an nForce2 chipset. Officially supports 333mHz FSB and 400mHz FSB so it can support the next generation 400mHz amd processors. Also it has on board 5.1 Dolby Digital encoder and is the fastest amd mobo out there by a considerable margin on 3dmark2001se. Also it supports DualDDR which doubles the memory band width. If you want to overclock, any nForce2 mobo overclocks well but EPOX has the most features on overclocking and is the cheapest.

Always stick with AMD. AMD could eat Intel for breakfast, lunch, and dinner if they wanted to. This is because the Thouroughbred B 2800+ clocks at 2.25gHz but the new Barton 3000+ clocks at 2.167gHz which is essentially a Thouroughbred B 2700+ with the doubled L2 cache from 256kb to 512kb and the 3000+ beats 3.06gHz pentium 4 proven in Maximum PC to outscore in terms of 3dmark2001se even when the pentium 4 had rdram. So with this in mind AMD could have simply have doubled the L2 cache of the Thouroughbred B 2800+ and beaten the 3.06gHz pentium 4 even more. I rest my case.

silicond17 · March 31st, 2003, 07:22 PM

We haven't seen any official 400mhz fsb XPs, and until then, the nForce2 supporting 400mhz fsb in my opinion is bs. nForce2 may support 400mhz fsb, but what about the manufacturers that developed the board to run at 333mhz fsb? We will soon see...

Anyway; USB2.0, ATA133, firewire. Sounds like you would like a new SiS746FX or SiS748 board. They both have 8X AGP, IEEE 1394, ATA133, USB 2.0, DDR400, and 400mhz fsb official support. The SiS746FX is rated for 333mhz fsb, but will run at 400mhz fsb. The upcoming SiS748 will be the first OFFICIAL (that means it was designed and developed around 400mhz fsb) to support the new 400mhz fsb standard. And we have already seen at CeBIT the SiS748 running with DDR400 @DDR480. Pretty spiffy if you ask me. That means the SiS748 will probably be able to run at 450-480mhz fsb in sync with the right equipment.

But if you want the SiS748, you're going to have to wait. SiS just released it at CeBIT, and motherboards haven't popped up yet. We should expect to see them in April; and buy them in May. I think the SiS748 will be well worth your wait, though.

cracked · March 31st, 2003, 07:24 PM

http://www.aopen.com/products/mb/ak77-8xn.htm

check this out. i am thinking of getting it.

drew

EndobioticChaos · March 31st, 2003, 07:39 PM

You want a good overclocker? Go with one of the Epox boards, like the 8RDA, 8RDA+, or 8RGA+. I'd avoid the AOpen board... in my experience they've proved less than desirable, though others have liked them.

ibcolder · March 31st, 2003, 07:58 PM

Stay with ASUS, go with a P4PE. It includes all you've asked for, plus Serial ATA Raid, 6 channel audio with optical I/O, gigabit ethernet, separate processor and bus overclocks by 1MHZ step, even (selectable) speaking error messages. P4's rock

pinoy87 · March 31st, 2003, 08:08 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by silicond17
We haven't seen any official 400mhz fsb XPs, and until then, the nForce2 supporting 400mhz fsb in my opinion is bs. nForce2 may support 400mhz fsb, but what about the manufacturers that developed the board to run at 333mhz fsb? We will soon see...

In http://www.tomshardware.com/mainboar...force2-02.html
scroll down to the chart on the site above.

The nForce2 chipsets on all mobo's have been proven to run 400mHz by overclocking the CPU's.

In http://www.tomshardware.com/mainboar...force2-14.html
near the bottom of the chart under set up the Abit board can reach 237/474 FSB in increments or 1mHz but has no CPU multiplier settings. But Asus can only go up to 211/422 FSB but has multiplier settings from 6.5 - 17.0. In a previous review the Epox reached the I think 206/412 mHz and it has a lot of features and is under $100. Was rated best value and popular among overclockers.

silicond17 · March 31st, 2003, 08:47 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by ibcolder
Stay with ASUS, go with a P4PE. It includes all you've asked for, plus Serial ATA Raid, 6 channel audio with optical I/O, gigabit ethernet, separate processor and bus overclocks by 1MHZ step, even (selectable) speaking error messages. P4's rock

P4? Try Athlon XP. The AMD Athlon XP time and time again runs flat over the inferior Pentium 4. And for the cheaper price, you get better performance with AMD.

BTW, that reminds me that ECS' L7S7A2 is now available in the U.S. It has DDR400, SATA, USB 2.0, Firewire (IEEE 1394), ATA133, 8X AGP, 6-channel sound, and LAN. The ECS L7S7A2 has been proven to run stabile at 400mhz fsb also. (See OCWorkbench SiS Warriors Forum) Is there anything I missed?

And all of that for the price of $68. Beat that.

http://www.cdrexpress.com/cgi-bin/we...YES&CODE=PHOLD

http://www.ecsusa.com/products/l7s7a2.html

eagle1 · April 2nd, 2003, 12:01 AM

ECS always put out good products at bottom-low prices.!

But I would have to suggest an N-Force 2 mobo with an Athlon XP too.!
If you are going with the P4 route, be sure to read on about SiS new chipsets for the pentium platform.
You can go to tomshardware.com and check it out.!

jdurbin · April 2nd, 2003, 12:34 AM

I'm another vote for nForce2. I have the Epox EP-8RDA+ but there are many other very good nForce2 boards out there. They all have similar performance so let features and price guide your decision.

The EP-8RDA has been around $93 at newegg but they recently had the EP-8RDA+ for $99. That is a steal. The difference is onboard LAN, Firewire and six channel sound instead of stereo.