Asus vs. Abit upgrade

[pagaldil01]

Any help would be appreciated concerning upgrading my setup. I currently have an ABIT KT7-RAID, Athlon 800 mhz thunderbird, 512 PC133 Mushkin RAM in USBSilver case with 300w PSU. For some reason my USB ports will no longer work.

I have decided to upgrade my rig, but I need some help deciding. System is mainly used for work (spreadsheets, dvd playback, etc). What components will I need to upgrade (Motherboard, CPU, RAM, and PSU)? I'm currently looking at the ASUS A7N8x deluxe or the ABIT NF7 -S. After reading the current posts, I'm leaning toward the A7N8X. I do not have much else in my system except Pioneer Slot DVD, 52X CDRW.

Thanks in advance for your help, I'd be lost without anandtech forum members!!

 

[HiTek21]

I was sitting on the same boat as you between the NF7-S Rev 2 vs the Asus A7N8X Deluxe. I had two ABit boards die on me so I decided to go with Asus and I have no regrets. Pick up a Barton 2500+, some Corsair XMS 3200C2, and a Antec True430w psu and you will have one kick a$$ PC. If you want to overclock you'll need to upgrade heatsinks, my suggestion is the Thermalright SLK800 or Alpha PAL 8045 you can get some serious OCing done.

 

[Fallengod]

Cept intel is far better.

 

[pagaldil01]

Thanks for the suggestions, anyone else? I think ASUS will be best, but I'm having problems with the power supply choices. Any recommendations that are budget minded. I know not to skim on the psu, but the one that came with my colorcase case was decent. Its a 300watt (no clue what brand). Any suggestions for retailers would also be great, I see that excaliberpc seems to be a favorite for many.

 

[Macro2]

The Asus A7N8X deluxe is the best board I've ever used and that's going back 13 years and a lot of machines.

Intel has nothing on this combo.

Try an antec or sparkle or...PS... 300-350w is likely all you'll need but need more info. from you on that. try newegg.com

Some time ago someone put up this link for 300w liteon PSs that were made for compaq servers. They got good reviews. Only 18.99
Text

Oops, SOLD OUT, sorry

 

[pagaldil01]

I currently have a 300watt PSU. I have a CDRW drive, DVD drive, 1 Matrox hard drive, 1 Western Digital hard drive in regular IDE setup. I have 2 fans running in addition to the heatsink fan. Anyone else have any recommedations on the PSU? I really liked the past recommendation for 18.99. That would be the ideal price range.

 

[pagaldil01]

I currently have a 300watt PSU. I have a CDRW drive, DVD drive, 1 Matrox hard drive, 1 Western Digital hard drive in regular IDE setup. I have 2 fans running in addition to the heatsink fan. Anyone else have any recommedations on the PSU? I really liked the past recommendation for 18.99. That would be the ideal price range.

 

[Macro2]

Is your current setup not running well?


Anyway, check out the Sparkles on Newegg. the 300w's start at $22 and the 350w is $38. The 300w's are quieter...one 300w is quite powerful, I don't remember which but you can look at the spec sheets.

 

[pagaldil01]

I currently have a 300watt PSU. I have a CDRW drive, DVD drive, 1 Matrox hard drive, 1 Western Digital hard drive in regular IDE setup. I have 2 fans running in addition to the heatsink fan. Anyone else have any recommedations on the PSU? I really liked the past recommendation for 18.99. That would be the ideal price range.

 

[cmdrdredd]

newegg.com is great
mwave.com is great
googlegear.com is great

I'd go for the Cheaper deal causethey likely will perform the same for you. As was mentioned earlier Intel is much more popular now than ever and wouldn't be a bad idea to keep an open mind to Intel's offerings as you can likely get a cheap 2.4Ghz CPU to go to 3Ghz without any fancy cooling and with a cheap $109 Motherboard. Just a thought.

 

[Schadenfroh]

i like my asus a7n8x deluxe

 

[wicktron]

Abit NF7-S

 

[pagaldil01]

Any other PSU suggestions?

 

[Macro2]

Sure, Sparkle or Antec.
Try newegg,com

 

[NokiaDude]

I love my Abit AT7-MAX 2.

 

[pagaldil01]

I have everything decided... only one part left, the CPU. Any problems with the AMD Athlon XP 2500 Barton core? It seems like the best value.

I'm going to match it with the ASUS board and some Crucial PC2700 ram (cant afford the more expensive PC3200, unless someone has suggestions).

 

[Macro2]

RE:"Any problems with the AMD Athlon XP 2500 Barton core? It seems like the best value."

Nope, it's a good choice.

You can run PC3200 and the FSB at 200 and turn it into a Barton 3200+. Think twice about getting PC2700 ram even if you end up with one stick of PC3200. You can always add another stick later and go dual channel.