I just want a decent reliable board to build my first AMD 64 Machine. I dont want onboard video, I do play some games, I do not intented to overclock, and I am on a budget 
Cheaper is better.
Cheaper is better.
Building my first A64 Machine
- Thread starter FXGuy3369
- Start date
no overclock? =/
Epox has some NF4 ones that run pretty cheap..
OC = DFI or MSI =)
DFI is the best board for most overclockers, but will not be your fastest board at stock. MSI probably will have one of the fastest boards running at stock speed.
Epox has some NF4 ones that run pretty cheap..
OC = DFI or MSI =)
DFI is the best board for most overclockers, but will not be your fastest board at stock. MSI probably will have one of the fastest boards running at stock speed.
Gigabyte also makes great solid boards. Go with one that hits your price/feature sweet spot. Anything from Asus, DFI, gigabyte, epox, will be fine.
OK I am not a serious gamer I actually just play some warcraft and usually cheapo blizzard games. I dont do any heavy computing of any sort, what are the differences in the different A64 sockets?
If you're getting into an Athlon64 setup, just as everyone's suggested, you'll probably be better off going with a Socket 939 setup, for example:
Motherboard --> ASUS A8N-E
CPU --> Athlon64 3000+ (S939)
Motherboard --> ASUS A8N-E
CPU --> Athlon64 3000+ (S939)
If you don't care about bells and whistles, the Chaintech NF4 Ultra is fine if you plan to use 939 and PCI-E.
if he cares about upgradability, yes.. however he seems to be just looking to build a computer for general use and i think its fair to assume that upgradability isn't an issue. any a64 system will last many years being used for his purposes..
a 2800+ and any halfway decent motherboard will do just fine for your needs.. your main deciding factor will probably be agp or pci-e.. this, again, is really a choice of upgradability.. agp 8x works great and doesn't limit the speed of any current video cards anyway..
strangely, not much cheaper.
im about to build an amd64 rig myself...and im going with an ASUS A8N.nforce4 ultra
http://www2.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813131530
OK......budget varies depending on benefits of spending more. Just for fram of reference I am currently using and XP2600+ with a Shuttle Ultra AN35N MOBO, and have absolutely no quarrels with it. I just haven't built myself a new computer in a while and have a little extra money right now.
OK more frame of reference. I have roughly $400 to spend on just the tower, no monitor etc. I want to buy this case because I am a lime green nut and love it, no comments http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=AT859-GR&cat=CAS So that knocks my budget down to like $340, to buy a motherboard, processor, and a +/- Dual Layer DVD Burner. I have a 512 PC3200 stick of RAM that will suffice for now, I also have a video card that I am decently pleased with its just a GeForce MX4400 128MB card. So if I have money I might upgrade it if not that's ok too. So what do you guys suggest I buy?
Edit: Alomost forgot I need a hard drive. 80GB is fine for me
http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=AT859-GR&cat=CAS So that knocks my budget down to like $340, to buy a motherboard, processor, and a +/- Dual Layer DVD Burner. I have a 512 PC3200 stick of RAM that will suffice for now, I also have a video card that I am decently pleased with its just a GeForce MX4400 128MB card. So if I have money I might upgrade it if not that's ok too. So what do you guys suggest I buy? Edit: Alomost forgot I need a hard drive. 80GB is fine for me
And if you ARE getting skt 939, I suggest the MSI K8N Neo4-F motherboard. It has no onboard video and has an nForce 4 chipset.
I dont know that the price difference is worth it to me for socket 939 right now....... Like I said I dont really have a problem with my Socket A setup now. Just trying toget the most for the money I have to spend.
Currently looking at this:
Case: http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=AT859-GR&cat=CAS $60
MOBO: http://www2.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813157069 $55
CPU: http://www2.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819103452 $120
Hard Drive: http://www2.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822135106 $60
DVD Burner: http://www2.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16827106984 $50
Total $345, with shipping should come out fine.
Case: http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=AT859-GR&cat=CAS $60
MOBO: http://www2.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813157069 $55
CPU: http://www2.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819103452 $120
Hard Drive: http://www2.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822135106 $60
DVD Burner: http://www2.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16827106984 $50
Total $345, with shipping should come out fine.
You already have an athlon XP 2600+. Can you upgrade to an Athlon64(754)? If so, upgrading might be better. That way you can spend more money on perphials, like a nice big screen. If you're not doing heavy computing you probably dont need a completely new system.
If you want reliability, I'd go with ASUS. I dont know anyone who's ever had an ASUS board fail on them. Only problem is that ASUS aren't the cheapest. But their boards really are feature packed. On board FireWire, Gigabit networking, and decent overclocking potential.
Gigabyte and ABit are also fairly decent. Gigabyte offer some feature packed boards at better prices than ASUS, although they wont overclock anywhere near as well, but that won't matter if your not overclocking anyway. ABit boards aren't as feature packed, but they will overclock better than an ASUS board and cost less.
RoD
Looks OKay, although I've never actually owned a chaintech MoBo.
If you want reliability, I'd go with ASUS. I dont know anyone who's ever had an ASUS board fail on them. Only problem is that ASUS aren't the cheapest. But their boards really are feature packed. On board FireWire, Gigabit networking, and decent overclocking potential.
Gigabyte and ABit are also fairly decent. Gigabyte offer some feature packed boards at better prices than ASUS, although they wont overclock anywhere near as well, but that won't matter if your not overclocking anyway. ABit boards aren't as feature packed, but they will overclock better than an ASUS board and cost less.
RoD
upgrading to a A64 from my current is going to require changing mobo, cpu, and hd anyways because I want SATA, also I really like the new case So there really isnt much difference in just building a new one.
So there really isnt much difference in just building a new one.agreed, but you can get good OC's out of gigabyte to, recently though with the Nforce4 SLI it hast, except for that awesome reference board
I was considering this Asus A8N-E Nforce 4 Ultra motherboard initially in my thread over here at Anandtech but please be aware that this board does NOT have any built in FIREWIRE support so if you need that in the future you will have to purchase an add-on PCI/Firewire card like thid $20 Koutech at NewEgg !
I agree with the "camp" that a reasonably-price Socket 939/PCI-E nForce4 (or maybe even VIA K8T890 ???) based mobo along with an Athlon64/Socket939/"Winchester"/3000+ like this one at NewEgg may be a good platform on which too start.
Don't forget to first pick a reliable, stable P/S.
You MAY want to consider a motherboard like thsi MSI K8N Neo 4-F which uses the NON-ultra version of the nForce 4 chip but offers a lot of "bang for the buck" at $98 delivered.
One of the EPOX boards to which DLeRium is probably referring is this Epox NForce 4 board which has been suggested to me in my new system build and is available over here at NewEgg for $124.99 delivered.
I like this combination. However, may I make a few suggestions for possible substituitions?
First, the case you want has a "generic" P/S which has a very weak 17A rating on the 12V rail. Assuming this rating is even accurate under typical operating loads it is less than optimal. May I suggest that you consider swapping that P/S with XClio 450W P/S which has dual 12V rails (each of which offers as much Amperage capability as the single rail on the P/S providied with your case which can be had for $59.50 delivered.
The ASRock K8Upgrade-1689 motherboard you selected has the ALI M689 chip which can be very difficult to set-up and keep running. The board also lacks Gigabit LAN (it has 10/100 Mbps LAN), lacks onboard Firewire, although its Realtek ALC850 onboard soundchip is fine. May I suggest this MSI K8N Neo4-F Socket 939/nForce 4 motherboard which offers Gigabit LAN, SATA 150, RAID, onboard Firewire and Audio, and plenty of USB 2.0 ports. It is on sale for $87 delivered.
It would, of course, require a socket 939 Athlon64, not the Socket 754 Athlon64 so you could substitute your choice with this Athlon Socket 939/"Winchester" Core/3000+ CPU for $146 delivered !
You may also want to consider this NEC Black 16X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 4X DVD+R DL 16X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 24X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM 2M Cache IDE DVD Burner which is available for $55.99 delivered from NewEgg and is on their TOP 10 seller list.
These additions/substitutions would bring the cost of your system up to a reasonable $469.00 DELIVERED which would provide you with a reasonable fast, reliable platform which would not become obsolete for a long while and would allow you to add other peripherals down the road (if you should so desire) utilizing the newer technologies like PCI-Express. You could even upgrade you CPU down the road if you so desired.
I realize this extra $124.00 may seem steep NOW, but I think it would REALLY "pay off" down the road.
Plus you would still be using that "rock-on" cool case and the WD SATA 150 hard drive "dawg".
Case: Coolermaster = $91.49
MOBO: Chaintech nforce ***ultra*** or Epox nForce 4 standard for $95 or MSI nForce 4 standard $87
CPU: Athlon 64 3000+ 939 = $147
Hard drive: 160 gig for 33.49
DVD Burner: NEC 3520A = $56
91.49 { or $60 if you use the GREEN case
}85.50
147.00
40.00
50.00
$413.99 - $345 = +68.99 but much nicer rig or only +$37.50 more if you buy the case from Computer geeks but use all the above mobo, cpu, etc.
1. Socket 939 has dual channel memory
2. Socket 939 has the newer sata 300 with hot swapping
3. Nforce 4 ultra
4. dual core CPU ready !!!!!
Buy quality today will save you money tomorrow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I edited the DVD so it's $6 more but either the Liteon or Nec will get the job done. If you use DVD+RW a lot I would get the NEC since it can do 8x.
TRENDING THREADS
-
Discussion Zen 5 Speculation (EPYC Turin and Strix Point/Granite Ridge - Ryzen 9000)- Started by DisEnchantment
- Replies: 25K
-
Discussion Intel Meteor, Arrow, Lunar & Panther Lakes + WCL Discussion Threads
- Started by Tigerick
- Replies: 23K
-
Discussion Intel current and future Lakes & Rapids thread- Started by TheF34RChannel
- Replies: 23K
-
-
Facebook
Twitter