Best Athlon XP mobo for around $50

[Bagheera786]

Any suggestions about a mobo that will meet the following critera:

AMD Athlon XP based
Very Stable
Onboard Sound
Around (hopefully less than) $50

Thats it - overclocking is unimportant, RAID, S-ATA, PCB color, etc. are all unimportant. Even chipset is unimportant. It can be KT266 or whatever, as long as it's stable at stock speed. ANy ideas??

 

[Peter]

The usual suspect in that area is ECS K7S5A. SiS 735 chipset, LAN onboard (usually, there are units without it), 2- or 4-channel onboard sound, DDR and SDR RAM slots, runs CPUs up to XP2600+.

It's getting a bit old now, not having USB 2.0, DDR333 or support for the 166 MHz bus CPUs - but it's a solid board, matured as far as it gets (been around for well over a year now).

Athlon DIY rule #1: Use quality RAM and a strong power supply unit.

 

[Bagheera786]

Thanks. When you say it doesn't support the 166Mhz CPUs, do you mean that it runs on a 100 MHz bus? or what?

thanks again, I'll see if I can find one of those.

 

[Mudfud]

I had my brother get me an MSI K7T 266 Pro2-A with a retail XP1700 from Fry's a while ago. They were out of the 1700, so they gave me a retail 1800. All for $100. You might watch the Fry's ads for a deal like that and then sell the CPU if you don't need it.

 

[render]

KG7RAID for $47

add either $7.95 or $12.50 sound card. very stable board indeed.

 

[Peter]

Originally posted by: Bagheera786
Thanks. When you say it doesn't support the 166Mhz CPUs, do you mean that it runs on a 100 MHz bus? or what?

100 or 133 MHz CPU bus. At 100 MHz, you can use PC100, PC133 SDR SDRAM or PC1600, PC2100 DDR. WIth 133 MHz bus CPUs, it's PC133 or PC2100.

regards, Peter

 

[Bagheera786]

Thanks for the suggesstions, y'all. Now that I have several suggesstions, I'm left to try and pick between them. Sigh - buying stuff for other people is always a tricky business, I guess.

well, thanks again, and I welcome any further suggesstions.

 

[antmanbee]

KG7RAID

This is a good board at a good price but does not have onboard sound.

 

[Bagheera786]

yeah, I'll probably go w/ the ECS board....

 

[Zap]

I've seen the Shuttle AK32L priced similar to the ECS K7S5A. The Shuttle board is actually very similar in that it has both SDRAM and DDR slots. It does NOT have onboard LAN. Just another option to confuse ya!

 

[dejacky]

I'm using an ECS K7S5A motherboard currently. Listen, it's a stable and mature board that's also very fast.

-dejacky

 

[Bagheera786]

Thanks for all the suggesstions - I put in an order for the ECS board @ newegg just a few hours ago...wish me luck