Gigabyte or Microstar (MSI)?

[kevmev12]

Hello all. I am in the process of building a new computer and I need some advice in regards to motherboards. I have the Athlon XP 2000+ in mind when it comes to CPU, and I already have a Kingston 512MB 266MHz DDR PC2100 ValueRAM. I have done a lot of research and read a lot of articles and came up with 2 motherboards that are rated quite highly in the socket A category: the Gigabyte GA-7VRX and the MSI KT3 Ultra. I don't need RAID hence both these motherboards are the models with no RAID function (the GA-7VRXP and the MSI KT3 Ultra-ARU are the ones with RAID). They are both within my price range (under $200 Australian dollars), USB 2.0 is optional for me, and I have no desire to overclock anything. Onboard sound is also a non-issue as I have bought a Creative Live! DE 5.1 SE so I can hook up the Sony DVD-ROM to the sound card digital input socket. The main issue for me with these 2 motherboards is basically reliability, speed, how much room to upgrade in future (at least 1.5 years down the track), and which brand is best. I am sort of leaning towards the KT3 Ultra due to the review I read in an article from this site, but they tested both the motherboards with the RAID function. If anyone with experience with either or both these 2 motherboards, or anyone with an opinion on either of these boards reply, I would greatly appreciate it since I am going to buy one of these boards on sunday.

Finally, I also need to get a video card. I am looking for one that is quite cheap (around AUD$200) but is good enough to play all recent games. I was considering a GeForce 4 MX440 from whatever brand but I read a very favourable review for the Xabre 400. It seems to perform much better than the GeForce 4 MX 440 at a very attractive price. Any comments, ideas, opinions on this matter?

Thank you very much for reading this long post, and I thank whoever replies in advance.

 

[Mem]

First welcome to AT forums, the question on MSI or Gigabyte well they are both very good brands so you can`t go wrong with either IMHO,as to your graphics card question,I think the GF4 TI4200 are very good buys but I don`t know if they are in your price range.

Btw you are allowed to bump your post every 8 hours,but my reply will do it for you .

 

[DAPUNISHER]

I agree with Mem, they are both fine boards by solid companies, however, I think you are SOOL if you are looking for a current board to be upgradeable in 18months as AMD won't be using the sktA much longer. As to the vid card, I like SiS and what it's doing in the low-end graphics arena I have the SiS AG315T in my AMD box for my family and it's great for a 35$ card and the DVD play back on my big screen TV is excellent. I would definitely choose the Xabre over MX440 as it has a more advanced feature set and the MX440 is a DX7 card. However, in that price range, if I were looking for a card at the moment I would buy the ATI RADEON 8500LE 64MB DDR CRT/DVI/TV and it can be overclocked to true 8500 speeds. Also, it is higher performing than either of those cards. I don't know what kind of prices you can get on it where you are at but here in the U.S. it's 87$ bulk packed.

 

[RONType1]

hehe... i am pondering this same exact question I just want stability and reliability and maybe some mild overclocking every now and then... but i am currently leaning toward the cheapest in price