Help me choose a motherboard

[FNP90]

I haven't built a computer in a few years, so I'll need some help here. The computer will be used for some lite gaming and possibly video / audio stuff and the Internet. I want a fast stable system. I would like to run an Intel CPU, a 3.2 or a 3.4. I'd prefer a MB with 5 PCI slots and one that will take 4GB of dual channel DDR. Are gigabyte boards any good? I have never ran one but I hear good things about them plus, I thought it would be good to try something different. I'm not into OCing and would prefer something stable and easy to set up. I've had ASUS and Intel boards in the past, I'm using an Intel board now and I've never had a problem with it. I wouldn't mind if the board had SATA on it but I'm not going to be using one of those drives right now, I have plenty of nice ATA133 drives to choose from. Any recommendations? If you need to know something more, just ask. Thanks

 

[Gamer X]

get an athlon 64 and an nforce 4 ultra board,much better

 

[amol]

Originally posted by: Gamer X
get an athlon 64 and an nforce 4 ultra board,much better

ummm, i believe he said LITE GAMING

you don't need an athlon 64, not EVERYONE is a gamer :roll:


sorry, dont know about the motherboard, but i can tell you that there's no point in getting a P4 thats more than 3GHz . . . the actual performance increase is very minimal

 

[Gamer X]

ummm, i believe he said LITE GAMING

does that mean that he will play HL2 or Far Cry LITELY?

you don't need an athlon 64, not EVERYONE is a gamer

athlon 64 is a better solution anyway.

 

[Icepick]

Originally posted by: FNP90
I haven't built a computer in a few years, so I'll need some help here. The computer will be used for some lite gaming and possibly video / audio stuff and the Internet.

A Pentium 4 will be better for video encoding. It will be good enough for lite gaming. You'll be fine with a 3.4 Pentium 4. You can get a Prescott 3.4GHz for around $300.
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=19-116-173&depa=1
Don't bother with the new 6XX series as the extra 1 MB of cache doesn't add enough to the performance to validate the extra cost.

 

[imported_markj]

Originally posted by: icepik
A Pentium 4 will be better for video encoding. It will be good enough for lite gaming. You'll be fine with a 3.4 Pentium 4. You can get a Prescott 3.4GHz for around $300.

I'm in a similar situation as FNP90. I'm considering an Athlon64 (possibly 3200+ or 3500+) and new Mobo (currenlty running a 3yr old 2.4ghz P4.) I will be doing some minimal video encoding, in addition to more frequent audio recording and mixing (I'm a bassist) though it will be primarily for internet and basic business use.

Is the Athlon 64 really a dropoff from the P4 when it comes to audio or video encoding? (not in comparison to my current setup, of course...but comparing new Athlons to say a 500 series P4 around 3.2ghz.) I was under the impression that the A64 was supposed to be a better multimedia performer.

Thanks,
-Mark

 

[Icepick]

The Athlon64 will crush the Pentium4 at all games and even in the Mozilla Firefox tests I've seen. The only areas where the Pentium 4 are better are audio and video encoding. In most other apps the Athlon64 can match or surpass comparably priced Pentium 4's.

 

[imported_markj]

Originally posted by: icepik
The Athlon64 will crush the Pentium4 at all games and even in the Mozilla Firefox tests I've seen. The only areas where the Pentium 4 are better are audio and video encoding. In most other apps the Athlon64 can match or surpass comparably priced Pentium 4's.

That may mean I need to stay in the P4 family... I'm not a gamer, and I do need video (minimal) and audio (moreso) encoding and editing.

Do you have any idea how much of a dropoff there is between the Athlon64 and P4 in those areas? Is there a site you can recommend where I can take a look at a comparison?

Thanks,
-Mark

 

[crazyeddie]

Tom's Hardware - The Mother of All CPU Charts Part 2

Tom's hardware did an exhaustive side-by-side comparison of a very wide array of CPUs (both Intel and AMD) just back in December 2004. They compared almost every modern CPU from both manufactures in a huge variety of benchmarks including gaming, graphics, applications, video, sound, and synthetic benchmarks.

You can actually compare Athlon 64s to comparably priced P4s, Semprons to Celerons, and even compare an Athlon XP 2400+ to an Athlon XP 2800+ to decide whether or not it would be worth the money to upgrade and sell your old chip on EBay.

Very extensive, but very informative.

 

[Icepick]

This article contains benchmarks of P4 6XX and 5XX series and Athlon 64.
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2353

Here's an excellent article with more benchmarks comparing P4 5XX series to Athlon 64.
http://techreport.com/reviews/2004q4/athlon64-fx55/index.x?pg=1

 

[FNP90]

Originally posted by: Gamer X

ummm, i believe he said LITE GAMING

does that mean that he will play HL2 or Far Cry LITELY?

you don't need an athlon 64, not EVERYONE is a gamer

athlon 64 is a better solution anyway.

The games I play are Ghost Recon, the Rainbow Six series, GTA series and Operation Flashpoint. I'm not a hardcore gamer that plays everyday. What I'm more interested in is video and audio.