Best bang for the buck

[vmfive]

I'm looking to purchase a motherboard and cpu combo for under 100 dollars. Looking at pricewatch.com, I see many options and I'm wondering which would be the best choice. I've decided to go with the Athlon XP 1700 cpu. I'm looking to upgrade my older pc for my brother. This machine will be used for gaming and other general tasks. I don't need any onboard features such as video or lan. Also, I will be looking into overclocking so which motherboard and cpu combo would you guys recommend for under 100 dollars. Thanks for the help.

 

[mechBgon]

Welcome to the Forums vmfive Are there any parts that you're going to want to re-use from an existing system? If so, let us know what you've got, particularly things like the memory (what type & speed it is, such as DDR PC2100 or whatever) and the power supply (what brand, what wattage) and maybe even the video card since some older ones are not electrically compatible with current motherboards.

 

[vmfive]

Thanks for the reply mechbgon.

The system is so old that the only thing I will be using is the floppy drive and the case itself and the PCI ethernet card which is pretty new. The power supply I'm not really sure about right now. I will upgrade if it is neccessary.

 

[mechBgon]

I've had good results with the Asus A7N266-VM/AA at work, where I tend a fleet that includes about 30 of them. I even owned a couple of them myself, one for work and one for home. They're a bit fussy with Windows98, but with Win2000 or WinXP you can count on a pretty smooth ride.

At about $56 shipped from Newegg, they're well-priced and come with high-performance audio that is usually compared to the original Creative Labs Audigy card. They are microATX and do happen to include onboard LAN and onboard video, but also have an AGP slot. One of the things I like is that they are very stable and reliable, judging by the 30 that we have and the two that I owned myself. Granted, it's not cutting-edge or even close to it, but it's cheap, proven, and stable. If you can swing a little more money, get a Shuttle MN31N and make sure to use two memory modules so it can run dual-channel mode, and then you'll have a GeForce4 MX onboard for free, plus USB 2.0 capabilities, overclocking capabilities and more of an upgrade path.

If you did pick the A7N266-VM, you would want unbuffered non-parity (ie, "normal") PC2100 memory (Crucial works well). You could use a microATX case or a full-sized ATX case, and I would vote for a full-sized case with a respected-brand power supply in the 300W+ area so you don't regret it later when you get some whopper top-end video card that pulls 60 watts by itself. Inwin has one with a memory-card reader that I like the looks of: link No, it ain't cheap, but there are two meanings of "cheap," aren't there. Ah so... buy the right thing the first time, is what I think.

 

[novice]

While MechBgon makes a good case for the older Asus board, especially if you want an onboard video solution, I would also throw in a plug for my newest motherboard, the Shuttle AN35N Ultra 400. For about $10 more than the Asus A7N266, you could have a more up to date board, with full support for PC-3200 ram, and better overclocking options. It also has decent onboard audio, onboard 10/100 lan and is a fast, stable board that fully supports all current XP cpu's. The only other concern with the Nforce 2 chipsets is that they are a little picky on ram and do require a good quality power supply, with at least 15A on the 12V rail, for stability.

 

[Cerb]

Just note that audio is a crapshoot on the AN35N. For a $65 board, that's where things are sacrificed (I don't mean muddy sound, I mean interference noise when the IDE channels have some chatter, or lots of noise if you're not playing audio). If you have a PCI soundcard, I would highly recommend it. Otherwise...try another one.
While I can't vouch for it personally, the Gigabyte SiS748 board looks awful nice for a cheapo.

If the AN35N-Ultra is picky about RAM--get Kreton . Works fine at 2-3-3-11 for me (probably 2-2-2-11, but I'm paranoid, and memtest got one error at 2-2-2-11...upping voltage is not an option, IMO).

 

[viperoneusa]

I bought a ecs 755A mobo and it has support for 333Mgz mem but not 400, is there a big difference between the 2, like performance It came with an amd 643000 cpu,

 

[Cerb]

Originally posted by: viperoneusa
I bought a ecs 755A mobo and it has support for 333Mgz mem but not 400, is there a big difference between the 2, like performance It came with an amd 643000 cpu,

The difference is the memory speed support.
If I bought PC3200 RAM I'd say it was a big difference whether it made a difference in performance or not, but that's me.

 

[Texun]

I've used the A7N266-VM/AA and the AN35N-Ultra. Both boards have been exceptionally stable and excellent performers. My pick, if I had to build another inexpensive system right now, would be the Shuttle due to the extra headroom you would have for faster processors and memory. I doubt that you would be dissapointed with either one, they are both very reliable boards for the money.

Regarding the Shuttle being picky about the memory: I didn't know it when I bought it so I guess I got lucky. I am using one 512 stick of Corsair Value Ram with no problem. The Event Viewer in W2K has been clean.