"cheap" AMD XP mobo - with SATA?

[Davegod]

I'm looking for a cut-down mobo, since I dont need onboard sound (I have Audigy), nor dual or gigabit eithernet (1 is all), dont need firewire... But one thing I do want is SATA connectors.

I've seen A7N8X-X, which looks perfect - except for lacking SATA! All the other ones I've seen are similarily featured, including the missing SATA The "deluxe" NF2 boards i like (NF7-S, A7N8X-D etc) are all still nearly their original price, around £80 to £100 (Asus A7N8X-X meanwhile is £55).

BTW, it must be ok with my 3x 256mb sticks of PC2100 Crucial RAM - two identical, one not. I know some nforce2 boards had problems with their PC2700, dunno about PC2100 though? CPU is a 2400xp.

Other things I would quite like, but not hung up on:
- auto slowing/speeding fan when cpu temp is low/high,
- quiet northbridge (preferably no fan),
- overclocking not a priority, minor oc ability would be nice (esp. multiplier),
- not willing to trade stability for the fastest board possible, but do want a decently quick mobo.

Current mobo is a KT266a, I take it is actually worth the upgrade considering I'm ditching my GF3ti200 for a 9800pro, and this mobo isnt letting me overclock at all - though might be the ram, since i can only try upping the FSB on this mb. (ignore the possibility that I might well be doing it anyway to use current mobo for another PC)

Yeah I realise there's not actually any performance benefits from using SATA over PATA

thanks

 

[MDE]

You could just get a PCI SATA card and use it with the A7N8X-X. All of the onboard SATA ports on nForce2 boards are on the PCI bus anyway so don't get hung up on saturating the PCI bus with the SATA (I have no problems with the NF7-S's SATA capturing a file from a PCI TV card onto a SATA drive).

 

[Davegod]

the PCI SATA cards are about half the differnce between a A7N8X-X and NF7-S when shipping is counted, GBP£30 is a well worthwhile saving, but when it's like £15 cheaper I might aswell go for the deluxe boards and have a decent backup sound etc.

though thanks as it is a nice option - especially if I do decide to stick with this mobo but want a new HDD.

 

[DieHardware]

ASUS A7V600 has SATA, and should be around the same price as the A7N8X-X.

 

[Davegod]

ooooo didnt see that one, yeah it is same price as the A7N8X-X and looks quite nicely featured. Will look up some reviews etc to check opinions, performance, stability etc. thanks

 

[Davegod]

hmm looks like everything is there that i want, except

http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.html?i=1845&p=4

Despite the complete BIOS, there is one glaring omission on the ASUS A7V600 ? there is no fixed PCI/AGP Frequency option. In fact, there has not been a PCI/AGP fix option on any KT600 board that we have tested so far. Frankly, this is why the VIA KT600 boards do not overclock well. It is also unforgivable given that all of VIA?s major competitors in all markets ? NVIDIA, SiS, and Intel ? offer PCI fix options in their current chipsets. This is just another example of why VIA has been losing market share so rapidly in the Athlon market. It is hard to believe that VIA continues to ignore this very critical Enthusiast feature in every chipset they make.

Not really a major issue since I doubt I'd oc too heavily anyway, but I'd rather oc with the pci lock on :/

performance in the bechies there dont look good though, bottom in about everything maybe not going to be a difference though considering I'm running slower ram/cpu than anand was anyway.

 

[Boonesmi]

Originally posted by: Davegod
hmm looks like everything is there that i want, except

http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.html?i=1845&p=4

Despite the complete BIOS, there is one glaring omission on the ASUS A7V600 ? there is no fixed PCI/AGP Frequency option. In fact, there has not been a PCI/AGP fix option on any KT600 board that we have tested so far. Frankly, this is why the VIA KT600 boards do not overclock well. It is also unforgivable given that all of VIA?s major competitors in all markets ? NVIDIA, SiS, and Intel ? offer PCI fix options in their current chipsets. This is just another example of why VIA has been losing market share so rapidly in the Athlon market. It is hard to believe that VIA continues to ignore this very critical Enthusiast feature in every chipset they make.

Not really a major issue since I doubt I'd oc too heavily anyway, but I'd rather oc with the pci lock on :/

performance in the bechies there dont look good though, bottom in about everything maybe not going to be a difference though considering I'm running slower ram/cpu than anand was anyway.

ive used several asus a7v600 boards in recent builds... very rock solid, trouble free setup... and also very good overclockers (true it doesnt have agp/pci lock, but it does have all the voltage tweaks you could want, and it has full range of multiplier adjusment) it does have all the dividers needed so assuming you run 100mhz, 133mhz, 166mhz, 200mhz, etc then the pci and agp stay totally in spec

my current system is an a7v600 running an athlonxp 2500+ at 200mhz fsb with a multiplier of 11.5x (so just slightly faster then an xp3200+) and even though the xp2500+ has not been "unlocked" the board still allows full multiplier adjustment

 

[WalkingDead]

Asrock K7S8E+

$57 shipped w/ free t-shirt from newegg. It should be only slighly higher price in the Europa. If I am you, I wouldn't touch anything with via chipsets w/ a 100ft pole.