Best STABLE Chipset for Duron? Suggestions...

[rwalterk]

I'm upgrading my buddy's PC, but want to keep costs down. Duron 900 or 950 looks good price-wise; trying to pick a stable yet value priced motherboard to go with it. He currently has a 333, so I don't think he'll care about 5% performance differences between competing chipsets. Just need something relatively hassle free.

Oh yeah, also taking recommendations on heatsink/fan, and whether or not using a CPU shim is a good idea for Duron.

Thanks in advance.

 

[thraxes]

Stable and cheap....

well there are many that would argue the stable part but they are cheap: ECS K7S5 I haven't had any problems with the 3 I built though, all running like clockwork.

I think there is at least one cheapish VI KT266A board out there but I can't say anything about that particular chipset... never used it after I got burnt (businesswise) many times by it's predecessor KT133. Since I lost money because of the bugs in those chips I am not touching VIA unless I really have to.

Another thing to look out for are NVidia Nforce boards, but they aren't out yet. In some OEM machines in europe you can find them.

So it's either the ECS which will really fit nicely into a small budget and they are generally relatively reliable (One of the larger OEM chains in Germany use it as their main DDR-Athlon board)... Otherwise I'd wait and see how much the NForce boards will cost.


cheers

 

[NelsonMuntz]

I would agree with the ECS K7S5A and I would add the Shuttle AK31A as an alternative. The Shuttle is the better performer by virtue of the KT266A chipset but it does cost about $20 more. I just put a system together based on the Shuttle AK31A and a Duron 900 MHz and it is running like a champ now.