Biostar M7NCD

[sodcha0s]

Anybody have or know anything about this board? Is it any good? My girlfriend needs a new mobo and I found this one at newegg for $53.00. She's got a AMD t-bird 800 and only needs a very basic system.... i.e. not a gamer. I figure this board should fit the bill but if it's a problem board I'll look foor something else.

 

[Jeff7]

For a little bit more you could just get one of these - everything is onboard, VGA too. That'd be quite enough for a non-gamer. I've got that board - it's not seen heavy use yet, but it does seem to boot up and recognize the devices and CPU (Tbird 750, modded to work on a 133MHz bus ) just fine. It's got a decent BIOS too - adjustable CPU, RAM, AGP, and if memory serves, chipset voltages too. Could be wrong about the chipset voltage adjustment though; the board isn't hooked up now - it's being used in a project like this.
But it does the usual nForce2 stuff - unlocking proc, lots of RAM timing tweaks, etc.
There's also the
M7NCG Pro - MCP-T southbridge. Differences seem to be then - dual VGA(Pro) vs 1 VGA+1COM, and of course the Firewire, as well as more PCI slots. It is a bit pricier though.
Put 2 of these in there - plenty of RAM for a long time to come, and dual channel to keep the IGP well-fed. If the systems gets too sluggish for her in the future, just pop in a new CPU - the RAM should still be quite adequate then.

 

[sodcha0s]

Thanks Jeff7, but the M7NCG 400 board is micro ATX and I'm not sure if her case will accept a micro board. I'll check it out, that board looks like the way to go.

 

[ScrapSilicon]

Originally posted by: sodcha0s
Thanks Jeff7, but the M7NCG 400 board is micro ATX and I'm not sure if her case will accept a micro board. I'll check it out, that board looks like the way to go.

if it will hold normal ATX mobo(m7ncd) it'll take a microATX as well

 

[will889]

Just look at the stand-off holes after you take the mobo out of the case that she has now - you should see other places for mATX boards - and if you do you should be fine. You may need to get a bad of mobo screws (you can get them at directron.com or Fry's electronics locally if you have one and live in US) The M7NCG 400 that was mentioned above would be perfect for the non-gamer, one of the very few mATX boards that is 'ultra' rated and IGP. IGP (onboard graphics) would be 'more' that enough for a non-gamer, and even a occasional gamer - as it will play most games at 800x600 or 1024x768 without aa/af just fine. You can also registry hack the IGP to use cool bits and overclock the onboard video. That board and the very sticks of Geil that were linked above would be the way to go., or iif She already has a decent video card you could get the M7NCD.