HELP- If you were going to get a Thunderbird... what motherboard would you choose?

[fjorner]

I'm hoping to be getting a Thunderbird system in the first quarter of 2001. May be a bit early, but all you gurus out there, taking into consideration future BIOS updates and models... what motherboard would you use for a 700-800mhz Thunderbird, without overclocking?

At the same time, is the Gigabyte GA 7VM a good choice or not?

 

[Noriaki]

MSi K7T Master
6PCI, 4DIMM, 4X AGPPro, onboard FireWire and SCSI160

If not try the MSi K7T Pro, one less DIMM, no FW and SCSI.

I've used a Gigabyte board before and I had absolutely no complaints, I haven't seen much about their Athlon boards, but I like their boards in general. Especially if that board has Dual BIOS, that's a cool feature to have.

I'd check out MSi though, they make some really nice mobos, they don't have the overclocking facilites of an ABit or an Asus (no multiplier adjustments I mean), but I don't care about that, and you said you don't either.

MSi's website

Edit: They also make a damn fine i815e (The 815E Pro ) if you are looking for a good intel board.

If you're interested in reliablity of MSi, Anandtech's webservers all run on MSi K7TPros and Thunderbirds
If it's good enough for Anand, it's good enough for me.

 

[hungrypete]

if you're not overclocking, most any board will do fine, but a lot of people seem to praise the MSI K7T Pro. I myself would just keep my Asus A7V because I am happy with it, as a lot of people are happy with the Abit KT7. I'm sure the Gigabyte is a decent board, but I have no experience with it. Just be sure and do your homework BEFORE you buy the board so you don't come on here whining about how all your parts are bad and all the companies screwed you. That happens frequently and it's usually just someone who didn't understand what they were getting into. Sometimes it's frustrating to get one of these socket a systems going, sometimes it's a cakewalk. BTW Anandtech runs a couple of their servers with MSI boards, so you know they CAN be rock stable.....

 

[fjorner]

thanks for the help.

did i read correctly in that the MSi K7T Pro has AC97 onboard audio? Does that mean I don't need a sound card? If so, i don't like that... want to get a SB. What exactly does that chip integrated audio mean?

 

[jinsonxu]

MSI's boards are pretty stable, just not that great for overclocking though.

Yes, the presence of onboard audio means that you can go without buying a soundcard. But the integrated audio usually cannot compare with the PCI solutions.

By the way, does anyone know whether the onboard audio takes up bandwidth on the NorthBridge? (I may be abit confused here).

 

[jinsonxu]

If you're getting a new board only in the first quarter of 2001, you could consider getting a DDR capable board instead by then. Maybe get a Dual CPU, DDR MB. Now, that'd give your system a longer life.

 

[midknight]

Don't worry about the onboard sound - yes its usually dire, but it can always be switched off in the BIOS. Besides, its becoming difficult to find a board without it now.

 

[fjorner]

Thanks again for the replies.

Will the biggies (Dell, Gateway, micron, IBM) be selling Thunderbird systems by then, you think? The computer I have now cost me more time and trouble getting it working than actually buying the parts... (in hindsight, I might have done better to spend more time researching the parts)

as a result i'm not looking to assemble my own. rather, i'm looking for some medium-sized companies. So far, Multiwave (mwave.com) and Microshack have very good prices, but they're not incredibly better than comparative dells or microns. I want customizability, but not so much so that I could inadvertently end up with a non-functional incompatable system. Any other suggestions?

 

[hungrypete]

what is the computer going to be used for?

 

[fjorner]

A home computer. I want a 56k for my cheesy single-line apartment, and some power and RAM to make up for it. Haven't had a sound card in years (BIOS problem with the va-503+... too frustrated to fix it), so I'm not a huge gamer. Some games will still work without the sound card even being in there, (pod racer, nfl fever, alpha centauri), so I look forward to hearing those games for the first time, so I want a good sound card, no cheesy onboard. Doesn't need to be a high-end machine, but I own some AMD stock and I want them to do well, , so I'll continue to buy their processors. Also, I hear that the Thunderbird can be extremely stable, and after years with my current jalopy, my #1 concern is having a fantastically stable computer.

 

[hungrypete]

you might consider a geforce2 mx video card, mine is very stable in my duron system. I was also pleased with the low-priced Guillemot Fortissimo sound card, it is great for under $50. These components installed very easily and no extreme measures were necessary. You also might consider a duron cpu instead of the tbird. Tbirds are badazz, but durons are nipping at thier heels, power wise. Also consider spending $50 to $100 on surround sound with a subwoofer. The best sound card in the world (whatever that is) sounds like crap on cheapo speakers. You're gonna be impressed with the newfound power, I went from a k6-3 400 to a duron 650 and was amazed at how much faster certain applications ran.

 

[fjorner]

So you really suggest Durons? I thought that (think back to your ACT analogy days..) Pentium II:Celeron as Athlonuron? Aren't Durons the wimpy versions of Athlons?

Never heard of that sound card. Sounds good. I have a lot of confidence in SB's though.

Well... getting a duron sure would make it cheaper, too.

 

[hungrypete]

durons ARE less powerful than tbirds, but they wipe the friggin floor with a celeron. My duron 650@800 gets comparable SiSoft Sandra scores to my buddies P3 800EB. And this cpu ISNT overclocked as far as it will go, alot of people get the 650s and 700s to 1 ghz. The Live cards are great, but the Fortissimo supports more APIs (EAX 2.0, A3D 1.0, Sensaura) and it's got an optical output jack.
BTW, whats wrong with the sound on your FIC board? I had one once that gave the most godawful feedback through any soundcard. Sounded like it was "in between AM stations" or something. I RMAd that sucker right away...

 

[fjorner]

I've tried my old AWE32, an AMD sound card, and another generic sound card, and none of them will work. I haven't flashed the BIOS, merely on principle. I'm so friggin upset with my computer that I am not fixing it to SPITE it. Besides, I'll be getting a new one soon, and I don't have the time to have a downed computer. It works ok as long as I don't put a sound card in. It won't boot with the AWE32 in, the AMD card gives what sounds like an cycling alien radio transmission (from contact) at high speed, and the other card... don't remember, had a slew of problems. Spent good time on each one, no results. Otherwise, the FIC board has been a good one. I liked it because it took both simms and dimms, and at the time I was upgrading from a pentium I with 64mb of simms. Later, I swapped those out for pc100 dimms all on the same motherboard.

 

[fjorner]

I like what I hear about the Durons. Let me rephrase my original question then in a new thread...