Best motherboard(s) for building an Athlon 3200+ system?

[Nebben]

I'm looking to build a new computer. I don't know what kind of motherboard to get -- everything else I've basically got figured out.

Thinking about this setup:

Athlon 3200 or 3200+ (big difference in performance?)
Radeon 9800 Pro
512MB RAM
Yadda yadda.


Asus motherboards have been good to me in the past, I've also heard Gigabyte makes good ones for AMD systems these days. However, there are like 150 models per brand and I have no idea what's good to get.

I'd like onboard Dolby audio and Intel Gigabyte Ethernet.

Any recommendations?

 

[Bar81]

Are you going to overclock? If so, how much?

 

[Vette73]

Well there are 2 ways to go....


1. Very little overclocking - Albatron K8X800 ProII - It has a VIA Envy sound card and a 3Com 3C940 Gigabit Ethernet. I own this board and have it hooked up to a reciever and it will play DD and also pass DTS to my reciever. I like this board very well.


2. If you want to overclock a good deal - then look at the Chaintech VNF3-250 You will need to add a Via Envy soundcard (Chaintech has one for $23) and the ethernet is not giga.


The Albatron K8X800 ProII is probable your best bet, unless you want to wait for more boards to come out.
Also you can save some cash and get a 3000+ chip as the 3200 and 3000 run at the same Mhz speed.

 

[Nebben]

I notice the Albatron board supports Athlon 64... I didn't mention, I'm not building with a 64-bit processor, just a regular Athlon XP 3000/3200.

Does this board support both types? Are ones that do worth it? I've heard that some can use either processor, is it worth it for future upgradeability or not really?

 

[Diogenes2]

The two platforms are not CPU compatible..


You can't go wrong with just about any of the Nforce2 boards that are available..

My favorite is the Abit NF7-S, and I also have the Albatron KX18D PROII .. I'm sure others have their favorites also..

 

[will889]

I think the Abit NF7-S is the best SATA and soundstorm capable board. I think the Biostar M7NCD Pro is the best budget board (for stock speeds or close to it). The Biostar doesn't have serial ATA or MCP-T soundstorm, but it is rock solid reliable and has a true 200 FSB jumper (JLCK3) on the board for the barton 3200. Shuttle AN35N is also a good board (budget) but lacks the jumper for a true barton XP3200, and as such has problems running it (but it will overclock an XP2500 very well).

In short. If you don't need SATA and soundstorm, get yourself a Biostar M7NCDP. If you would like to utilize MCP-T soundstorm and have or will get some digital speakers and or a digital decoder, get the Abit. If you ave soundcard lying around that you can use, and have a parallel ata HDD that you want to use - I would get the Biostar - it's extrememly reliable. Might be the most reliable nforce2 ever put out. If you want the best overall motherboard that can possibly run the XP3200 though I think it's the Soyo KT600 Dragon Platinum Edition with cmedia 8738 sound, VT8237 raid (southbridge), Gigabit NIC, 1394 onboard witht he backplate. Extrememly pretty, but also extremely pricey still, and just as fast as the nforce2 boards are. It's the best KT600 hands down, and a much overlooked athlon XP solution.

My Picks----- (Regarding the Athlon XP3200)

Top end
#1. Abit NF7_S/ Soyo KT600 Plat

Budget
#2. Biostar M7NCD Pro