Can someone recommend a motherboard.......?

[MoboMojo]

I'm looking to upgrade my son's PC this week. Have already decided on an Athlon64, 3200+, 939 socket processor. Planning on getting some Corsair Value Select 3200 RAM (1GB). He already has an Ultra-X Connect 500W power supply and case.

So now the question comes down to a reliable mobo that supports both AGP video and PCI video and uses the NForce4 chipset. Is there a mobo out there that supports both types of video cards and NForce4?

Also, he will keep his current hard drive and OS (he uses WinXP home). I have not done a system upgrade in a few years (although I used to do lots of them), so I wanted to know if there are any pitfalls for upgrading the mobo, chipset, processor, etc 'in place' without having to reinstall Winxp on a re-formatted hard disk?

TIA

 

[GuitarDaddy]

As far as I know there aren't any mobos that support both types of graphics cards, you will have to choose one or the other.

I personally like Asus boards, A8N-e NF4 for PCIe or A8V NF3 for AGAP, but any of the NF3 or NF4 boards will likely perform about the same.

I would highly recommend formatting the HD and doing a fresh install of Windows. It is possible to do a mobo upgrade without it, but more often than not you run into problems and having to do it anyway. IMO its best to back up your critical data on disk and start from scratch.

 

[Rike]

Originally posted by: GuitarDaddy
As far as I know there aren't any mobos that support both types of graphics cards, you will have to choose one or the other.

I personally like Asus boards, A8N-e NF4 for PCIe or A8V NF3 for AGAP, but any of the NF3 or NF4 boards will likely perform about the same.

I would highly recommend formatting the HD and doing a fresh install of Windows. It is possible to do a mobo upgrade without it, but more often than not you run into problems and having to do it anyway. IMO its best to back up your critical data on disk and start from scratch.

Well said! A for you.

And let me say that a fresh install in the only way to good with a new build. Anything else is just asking for trouble. I know some people swing it, but I think they're a little nuts.

 

[imported_Kensai]

WelI believe the A8V is based on the Via chipset..

 

[fierydemise]

A8V is Via A8N is NF4 Ultra, personally I like Epox's NF4 Ultra board or if you want to get a Via board check out Soltek's K8T890 board

 

[Rike]

Originally posted by: Kensai
WelI believe the A8V is based on the Via chipset..

It's a good chip set. I built an Asus A8V 2.0 w/ an A64 3500+ for my father-in-law. It's been very stable and he's been quiet happy with it.

 

[The Pentium Guy]

So now the question comes down to a reliable mobo that supports both AGP video and PCI video and uses the NForce4 chipset.

PCI or PCI-e ? . If you want upgradability go for PCI-e

 

[MoboMojo]

Right now, he has a regular PCI video card (his old computer did not have an AGP slot), so that's why we were looking for a board that would support regular PCI video on boot-up. I have a spare Geforce TI4200 that I would give him, but that card needs an AGP slot.

 

[MoboMojo]

I personally like Asus boards, A8N-e NF4 for PCIe or A8V NF3 for AGAP, but any of the NF3 or NF4 boards will likely perform about the same.

Does the A8V/NF3 have bios settings for easy oc'ing? I've read in many posts that the 3200+ cpu's can easily handle 20% oc'ing, so I want to be sure that an NF3 chipset has the capability for oc'ing.

TIA

 

[11427]

You should not have any problems using an old PCI video card in a new MB (I use an old PCI Radeon 7200 32mb SDR card in my A64 system). Now if you want a board with PCI-e and AGP, there are a few of them out there too like the Biostar NF4UL-A9, dunno that I would count on it as an overclocker though.

 

[The Pentium Guy]

There are nforce4's with AGP??

 

[akugami]

If you get a mobo with the Radeon chipset you can get onboard video that is pretty decent so long as you're not expecting to do hardcore gaming on it.