Any good 754 boards with PCI-E support and at least some AGP support?

[Alexey Romanov]

I need to buy a new board and a processor. Processor is Athlon 64 3000+, these are the requirements for the board:

Socket 754 (or 939, but I'd prefer to avoid it);
PCI-E;
Either a decent integrated video or able to work with Sapphire Radeon 9000 Pro for a while;
Support for at least 3 IDE and 3 SATA devices;
At least 3 PCI card slots, more would be better
DDR400 memory with little compatibility;
Overclocking, SLI, Firewire, wi-fi not needed.

So far I am considering MSI K8N Neo3-F. Any other possibilities?

 

[GreenMonkey]

The Neo3-f is a good choice, but keep in mind that the AGR slot only supports certain AGP cards...

The list is here, and I don't see your Sapphire 9000pro on it.

http://www.msi.com.tw/html/products/mainboard/agr/7135agr.pdf

MSI neo3-f review:
http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=1806


I chose the Gigabyte GA-K8NE...3 PCI slots, 2 PCI-e 1x slots, 1 PCI-e 16x,..2x PATA (4 devices), 4 SATA...I particuarly liked that it had 5.1 sound with spdif out.

I know the socket 754 memory controller can be finicky with DDR400. I'm running the same 2x 512MB Corsair Value Select cas2.5 modules I ran on my Gigabyte K8N pro.

 

[Alexey Romanov]

ATI Radeon 9000 Pro is there, however.

 

[GreenMonkey]

Yeah, you're probably OK as Sapphire was basically OEM boards for a long time. Still, something to keep an eye out for possible problems.

 

[keeleysam]

I'd go for a board with built in video, such as nVidia's GeForece 6150 boards. They are better than a Radeon 9000.

 

[Agent11]

biostar has a pci-e board out that has an agx slot for agp cards.. I think it was 939 could be wrong.

 

[grooge]

These pseudo AGP port are using the PCI bus and will be slow as hell. If you really need to have both, the only real solution is the Asrock 939 dual sata2. It has real PCIe and AGP, because the ULI southbridge has AGP lane in.

The board is cheap, and perform good. You should avoid all other solution. I have the Asrock and it has been rock solid since the first start.

 

[Jhhnn]

I suspect that keeleysam is right about the 6100 chipset video. Integrated video has come a long way.

This board is supposedly full-featured, with overclocking options, etc-

http://www.biostar-usa.com/mbdetails.asp?model=tforce+6100

Other than that approach, the mentioned asrock board is the way to go...

 

[GreenMonkey]

Just bite the bullet and buy a PCI-e card. Not like your 9000pro is really very good.

Geforce 6200 cards have been available at $30-$50 after rebate lately. Wait for a deal on one of them for cheap.

 

[Zap]

I'd also recommend a Geforce6100/6150 chipset board because that IGP is going to be fairly competitive with a Radeon 9000. However, OP wants 3 PCI slots and that isn't going to happen on the typical mATX board with that chipset. Heck, even some full ATX boards are dropping down to only 2 PCI slots.

If going for a Geforce6100 chipset board, I'd recommend the Biostar Tforce series.

 

[Alexey Romanov]

Originally posted by: grooge
These pseudo AGP port are using the PCI bus and will be slow as hell. If you really need to have both, the only real solution is the Asrock 939 dual sata2. It has real PCIe and AGP, because the ULI southbridge has AGP lane in.

The board is cheap, and perform good. You should avoid all other solution. I have the Asrock and it has been rock solid since the first start.

And I would prefer it if it was available in Moscow.

Originally posted by: Zap
I'd also recommend a Geforce6100/6150 chipset board because that IGP is going to be fairly competitive with a Radeon 9000. However, OP wants 3 PCI slots and that isn't going to happen on the typical mATX board with that chipset. Heck, even some full ATX boards are dropping down to only 2 PCI slots.

If going for a Geforce6100 chipset board, I'd recommend the Biostar Tforce series.

I don't want an mATX, actually ATX will do.

 

[furballi]

mATX is also a little small for me. Often, boards with build-in video tend to be a tad slower than one with a AGP or PCI-E card (all else unchanged). However, this deficit should not be noticeable with normal use.