basic motherboard

[rmartin8]

I want to replace a motherboard with an inexpensive, basic one, reasonably up to date, that will serve me for 6-12 months, until more advanced upgrading. I want it to be able to use old memory, i.e, DDR; to be able to use both PATA and SATA hard drives, and have at lest 4 PCI slots. ATX. Does not have to be dual core.

Is such a goal possible?

Thanks.

Randall Martin

 

[VirtualLarry]

MSI K8N Neo4-F

You didn't specify Intel or AMD, but the above is an excellent AMD S939 choice, with 4 PCI slots, PCI-E x16 and x1, ATX, with support for 4 PATA and 4 SATA HDs, and 4 DDR slots. It may be getting harder to find; TigerDirect and CompUSA still carry it. You can drop in a cheap A64 3200+ cpu, or spend a little more for an X2 3800+ (dual-core), or an Opteron 165 (dual-core).

For Intel, I'm not aware of any current C2D boards that support 4 PCI slots, except for the Conroe865PE, but availability of that is limited.

 

[NXIL]

Newegg search for motherboard with DDR400/4PCI slots, Intel:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...tyCodeValue=735%3A7583

Not a big fan of Via chipsets myself, but....

Go down to 3 PCI slots:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...tyCodeValue=735%3A7583

Some better options I think.

Same slim pickings on the AMD side: DDR, 4 PCI slots:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...8247%2CN82E16813186037

Lots of them, both socket 754 (single core only) and socket 939 (still some good CPUs available at a good price).

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...1568%2CN82E16813153052

Socket 939 CPUs:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...3586%2CN82E16819103584

Socket 754 CPUs

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...4230%2CN82E16819103035

Lots of Intel socket 775/478 processors.

I would recommend a socket 939 AMD board with the nForce4 chipset, an inexpensive socket 939 processor, in a combo that fits your budget--if you can get your PCI slot needs down to 3 (onboard options?), that opens up more possibilities.

Graphics card: PCIe? Looks like a lot of the Intel options that take DDR require AGP cards.

HTH

NXIL