ALBATRON PX865PE PRO II

[dmanharris]

I'm looking at the ALBATRON PX865PE PRO II ( http://www.buyxtremegear.com/mb142139.html ) and am wondering how reliable of a board it is, or if there are perhaps better boards, or boards with a similar feature set available for less money. At this point I'm looking to do a system overhaul, as my prior system was built over 4 years ago, and has reached the end of it's upgrade life. But I'm doing it on the cheap (The whole broke college kid sindrom...) The basic plan is to get a new case, motherboard, processor, and ram now, and let the rest fall into place over time. So any other recomendations would also be helpful as to the best combination. (This is why the featureset is important to me. Until the cash can flow again I'll be limited to the onboard graphics, sound, and LAN. The firewire is also important to me, as a large chunk of my files are currently backed up onto a firewire external drive.)

I'd appretiate any feedback I can get, and any money saveing tips that you may have. The goal is for the basic system to last me for the long term. As grad-school is going to sap any remaining funds out of me.

Thanks a lot,

M. Dan

 

[o1die]

Albatron makes pretty good motherboards. I even got them to replace a newegg.com refurb in only 8-9 days, faster than any other online rma I've used. For the case, I recommend a name brand one with a decent power supply. Antec and enlight make good ones. Newegg has an enlight blue and tan one with 300 watt power supply for $39.95 plus shipping.