Best AMD MB under 70 bucks?

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Lifer
Feb 8, 2001
35,461
4
81
Had a power supply that thanks to Duke Power's frequent power spikes blew and looks like it took out the motherboard(an MSI K7T Turbo that served me well for years). I replaced the power supply and everything comes on except for the display.

I will not be overclocking it, will be using it for gaming and watching TV on

Solution A
ECS KT600-A
Pro's: 400 FSB, 3 Ram banks, 8 USB, sATA, have owned both K7S5A and L7S7A2, $67.50
Knocks: It's an ECS 1st revision board, no reviews or testimonials, only 4 pci slots, no firewire

Solution B
Shuttle AN35N-Ultra
Pro's: 400 FSB, 3 RAM banks, dual channel, nforce2 board, 6 USB ports, good reviews, $63.44
Cons: no sATA, no firewire, never owned a Shuttle

Solution C
<a target=new class=ftalternatingbarlinklarge href="http://www.msicomputer.com/product/detail_spec/product_detail.asp?model=K7N2_Delta-ILSR&search_text=K7N2">MSI K7N2 Delta-ILSR
</a>
Pro's: 400 FSB, 3 RAM banks, nforce2 board, 6 USB ports, sATA, Firewire, Dolby audio, RAID
Con's: It's a refurb, might not get all the extra's, 15 day warranty, might be DOA, $69.00
 
V

Vette73

Lifer
Jul 5, 2000
21,503
9
0
B then A.

Shuttle is great, I have used several of their boards. But since you said gaming was up there get 2 slabs of Ram and get the B
 
Cerb

Cerb

Elite Member
Aug 26, 2000
17,484
33
86
:( I know the spikes, man.
B or get an L7S7A2. Aside from SATA, the VIA brings nothing to the table...and refurbed.
VIA's KT600 is nice, but the board is way too new to be recommending right now. The Shuttle has some minor sound issues (not lock up type ones, IIRC, but some noise problems), and I wouldn't trust a refurb. The Shuttle, at the moment, would be the most likely to work well for a few years to come.
 
will889

will889

Golden Member
Sep 15, 2003
1,463
5
81
Shuttles niose problems don't exist if you delete the sound driver out of the NVIDA driver package, and the IDE SW driver too. Just copy/paste the whole driver package tho the HDD, the delete audio, and IDE. Then run install setup withing that copy. Problem gone.

KT600 is really not to new - the limitations are lack of AGP/PCI lock, and in this case with the ECS board, the multipliers are probably not unlocked, and voltage (vcore,vdimm,agp) might not even be there, but I would think AGP is there, and vcore, and FSB. I would go with the Shuttle, and load the drivers as advised above, and then download the realtek drivers fresh and load those (AC97).

By the way - that ECS has the ALC655 which is a proffessional grade codec - far better sounding than ACL650 (AC97).
 
Cerb

Cerb

Elite Member
Aug 26, 2000
17,484
33
86
Originally posted by: Hoot
Shuttles niose problems don't exist if you delete the sound driver out of the NVIDA driver package, and the IDE SW driver too. Just copy/paste the whole driver package tho the HDD, the delete audio, and IDE. Then run install setup withing that copy. Problem gone.
Click to expand...
...and the sound works w/ the driver from windows update (only other driver I know of)?
KT600 is really not to new - the limitations are lack of AGP/PCI lock, and in this case with the ECS board, the multipliers are probably not unlocked, and voltage (vcore,vdimm,agp) might not even be there, but I would think AGP is there, and vcore, and FSB. I would go with the Shuttle, and load the drivers as advised above, and then download the realtek drivers fresh and load those (AC97).
Click to expand...
The KT600 might not be too new, but that specific board is.
By the way - that ECS has the ALC655 which is a proffessional grade codec - far better sounding than ACL650 (AC97).
Click to expand...
...if it is properly implemented.
 
V

Vette73

Lifer
Jul 5, 2000
21,503
9
0
No the 655 is just a upgrade of the 650, the 658 is a Pro grade one. I think anandtech said something to that in a motherboard review. So 655 and 650 are about the same, 658 is a higher end one, like the Via 1616
 
Nitemare

Nitemare

Lifer
Feb 8, 2001
35,461
4
81
Originally posted by: Johnbear007
The Soltek NV400-L64

Anandtech Review



AMDMB Review



NEWEGG LINK $76 SHIPPED


read the reviews, this is an excellent board. It also saves you the expense of having to buy expensive matched pairs of ram, like you would for a dual channel board. However, read the reviews for yourself.
Click to expand...

after reading up on dual channel, I doubt I will be using it. A major drawback on this board is only 2 dimm slots, otherwise it looks like a good one as well.

 
J

Johnbear007

Diamond Member
Jul 1, 2002
4,570
0
0
Originally posted by: Nitemare
Originally posted by: Johnbear007
The Soltek NV400-L64

Anandtech Review



AMDMB Review



NEWEGG LINK $76 SHIPPED


read the reviews, this is an excellent board. It also saves you the expense of having to buy expensive matched pairs of ram, like you would for a dual channel board. However, read the reviews for yourself.
Click to expand...

after reading up on dual channel, I doubt I will be using it. A major drawback on this board is only 2 dimm slots, otherwise it looks like a good one as well.
Click to expand...

Hmmm... that wasn't much of a consideration for me, but I can definitley see how it could be a problem for others.

As another vote of confidence for Soltek, I have found their customer service to be superb. I wrote them asking about them adding a certain over clocking feature in a possible future release, and they replied about an hour later with an experimental BIOS for me to try..

These guys are first rate

Whatever you decide though, good luck withyour setup!

 
F

FFactory0x

Diamond Member
Aug 8, 2001
6,991
0
0
why not just find an 8rda+ from the for sale thread for cheap and have yourself an awesome board
 
B

Bonesdad

Platinum Member
Nov 18, 2002
2,213
0
76
Do the shuttle...nice little board.

You can get another shuttle board for $81 from Newegg. The MN31N. Not sure if you are flexible on the budget, but this board has soundstorm. Great microATX board.
 
Skitzer

Skitzer

Diamond Member
Mar 20, 2000
4,414
3
81
I have a Shuttle AN35N Ultra and an Abit NF7-S 2.0 and both are excellent boards. I only paid 70 bucks for my Shuttle and it seems to run just as stable as the Abit. Great bang-for-buck! Of course it doesn't have the features the Abit does but I don't need them for what I do with this system.
 
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