AMD motherboard recommendation

[jaydee]

Right now I have the ECS K7S5A with an XP 1700+, 256MB of PC2100, 40GB ATA-100 Maxtor HD, original Radeon DDR vid card, SB Live 5.1 Platinum, ATI TV Wonder, CD-RW/DVD combo drive, 350 Watt Antec PS running Win2k.

I'm looking to slowly upgrade, and I'm thinking the motherboard is the first to be replaced.

What I'm looking to do with this machine is light gaming, some web design, programming, AutoCAD/ProE, Photoshop, Maple...

Eventually (within 9-12 months) I want to migrate to a SATA HD, Radeon 9500 Pro or better, the best deal at the time for DDR (be it PC2700 or PC3500 or better), possibly a higher rated processor (up to an XP3200) depending upon the price and maybe a newer sound card but probably not.

So I'm looking for a cost-efficient motherboard that will support all the above, have a good on-board NIC and have great stability with solid performance.

Recommendations? I'm looking to buy around Christmas time.

Thanks!

 

[Boonesmi]

for less then $80 you can get any number of good boards that will fit your requirments

personally i would suggest looking at the soltek sl-kt600-rl link

you get killer audio (via vinyl is the best available onboard sound you can get, much better then a soundblaster live)
sata ports that support raid
standard ide ports
supports all current and future socketA cpu's

plus all the normal stuff like usb 2.0 etc, etc

 

[will889]

I would recommend a nforce2 Ulta motherboard that has serial (Asus - MSI) and if your XP1700 is s good one (good stepping) you might get it to 2.3 Ghz stable. Problem solved. Socket A ends at XP 3200 so there is no sense in getting that Soltek basing it on future socket A's. But the Soltek is nice mobo (even if no AGP/PCI lock)--- But if you get a really good ulta nforce2 you might not have to get another processor - as you may be able to run it close to XP3200 anyway.

 

[Canterwood]

Yeah, Nforce2 is very nice. SATA, LAN, Soundstorm audio, all onboard. Dual channel memory etc etc.

 

[jaydee]

Thanks for the suggestions guys, I've checked out the Soltek, it looks pretty good. I'm not too concerned about audio, because no onboard solution will be able to utilize my Live! Drive IR, which means more to me than sound quality (I mean, it doesn't sound bad as it is).

 

[SexyLady]

Hmmm try looking at the MSI 6570 K7N2 ILSR Delta MSI 6570 K7N2 should meet all your requirements and leaves u room for all the upgrades u wish to carry out in the future, i run this board and have built other machines with it also ... its reliable and a great price .... I wouldnt swap it for anything

GL with what ever board you go with