Help me pick a new motherboard, please :)

[palidor]

OK. I'm doing a pretty massive upgrade of this computer, which is using the motherboard from hell; Epox 8KHA+. I'm not even going to start on the problems I've had with it. Finally time to move on

Here are the planned system specs:
athlon XP 2000 cpu
1 x 512mb pc2100 crucial ddr
2 x 256mb pc2100 crucial ddr
1 40 gig ata133 drive
1 40 gig ata100 drive
pioneer slot loading 16x dvd-rom
lite on 12x10x32 cd-rw
msi geforce3 ti500 64mb ddr
linksys 10/100 ethernet
antec 400w psu
alpha pal8045 heatsink

- I hate epox and will never purchase another epox product again.
- I plan on doing a lot of gaming.
- Stability is more important than speed.
- I'm not particularly fond of via chipsets due to their bugginess in the past. not sure if that's changed
- I don't need or want onboard sound/video (so no nforce)
- alpha pal8045 must fit with no mods

I am looking to spend about $100 for a board, but I will go as high as $150 if I see one that sparks an interest.

With that in mind, does anyone have some suggestions? I wish I were less busy so I could do the research myself, but I figure you guys will know what's best

Thanks,

Jason

edit: forgot to add, i have no desire to overclock this thing.

 

[SladeZero]

Hey there,

Well...do you know what features you are looking for in a motherboard ?

Such as :
1) USB 2.0
2) KT333 chipset vs KT400 chipset
3) DDR ram settings

BTW - what are you using this for ?? Graphics/Rendering ?? Gaming ??

Well, I will say this. I have used MSI 3 times and and have had no probs at all.
I have had probs with my T-Bird 900Mhz CPU before these boards. MSI is known
for stability and not so much the TOP-END performer. They perform great in my
opinion. I have had the Turbo 1 and 2 and the KT3 boards. They load fine out of the
box. I have heard ASUS to be good too. I have never used them before though.
The KT3 Ultra 2 is selling for $82.00 (RETAIL) on NEWEGG.COM w/ free shipping FEDEX.
BTW- I would stay away from the KT400 chipset boards for right now. There is no real
performance increases and I have heard probs with the AGP 8X on certain V. cards.
With bios revisions that happen often with MSI you will be able to upgrade your CPU yet .
ASUS and MSI are my top 2 votes. If don't want to take my word for it just read some reviews
off of NEWEGG.COM. For the most part if there's a prob these guys will SURE FIND IT.
Get the KT3-Ultra2 ARU (USB 2.0 and something else...forgot what it was)
Hope this helps.

Just my $0.02

SladeZero

 

[Looney1a]

You haven't left us much to choose from. The biggest AMD chipset seller is VIA, but their out of the picture. SIS, ALi and AMD all make crappy chipsets compared to VIA. So that lives nvidia who you also don't like. I think you best bet would be to go with a VIA based asus motherboard. I say asus because you seem to be more interested in stability than speed and asus seem to have a good track record. Or you could srcap AMD and go Intel, which would give you your stablility, as long as you get an intel chipset, but would leave a hole in your pocket. Looks to me your in a bit of a catch 22.

Looney

 

[Vette73]

Look for a board that has the KT333/400 AND the 8235 southbridge. This will give you a updated board, and usb 2.0

some of them are...

ABIT KD7
SOLTEK SL-75FRV
ALBATRON KX400+
Msi KT3 Ultra2(6380E-050)
CHAINTECH 7VJL

But most boards if not all have on-board sound now, but you can turn it off in the Bios is you really don't want it.
But if you are buying new ram get PC2700 (333Mhz) so that way you can support faster FSB down the road if it is needed. But if you do get PC2100 Crucial is a great choice

 

[palidor]

Well, Firewire and USB 2.0 aren't important features to me, because I have no devices that use them (yet?), and don't plan on getting any anytime soon. It wouldn't hurt if the board had them for future expansion I suppose.

I can live with a Via chipset. I was just saying, they've been a bit iffy in the past..

Marlin - I probably would go with pc2700, if it weren't for the fact that I've already got some pc2100 to put in there. Like I said, this is more of a massive upgrade and I am reusing some parts.

This system will have the following tasks: Mandrake 9 for surfing/word processing/chat, Win2k for gaming. Lots of gaming. GTA3. Ut2k3. Warcraft 3. mmm....

 

[CaptnKirk]

By eliminating the Epox series from your list of acceptable replacement boards, the best performance board left is the ABIT series, and for rock solid stability with what you have the KX7-333 would be the best choice. Avoid the KT400 series chips, they actually do not have the performance capability od the KT333, even though they offer more of the 'Built-In' features. I personally do not like built in sound, LAN, etc. I always add the sound card I want for my system, and you can always pick up a 10/100 NIC from CompUSA or BestBuy for about $ 5 with the rebates.

You show 2 different ATA speed for the hard drives 100 for one nad 133 for the other. If you put these on a 'Master/Slave' set up on the same channel your combonation will run as a 100 since the default is the slower of the pair. This makes you a candidate to use RAID and to put one of these drives on RAID channel and adding another same brand & size HDD to be the match pair. You would set this up as each being a 'Master' on a RAID-0 if you want fast response. The 133's would be the choice there. because most likely they are Maxtor ( maybe not - but probably ) and would perform very well in that configuration.

With RAID, the IRQ is a shared port on PCI-5, so you DO NOT populate the PCI slot 5 with a card, instead use the position to mount a USB bracket, so you don't loose expansion capability.

PCI positions 1 & 2 are 'Master Buss Channels' - so you should install any USB 2.0 or Firewire cards in them for response control sequencing.

Put a sound card in PCI-3 (Creative Labs Live 5.1)
NIC card in PCI-4 (LynkSys @ BestBuy)
(PCI-5 unpopulated - use USB bracket)
V.92 modem in PCI-6 (Creative Blaster W/ V.44 compression)

And you would be good to go.

 

[KF]

An Epox 8K5a or an ASUS A7N266-VM are good bets. They will meet the technical specs, and have a high reputation.

 

[CaptnKirk]

Here is a link to NEWEGG that will give you a few choices of new boards.
If you need to save some cash the REFURBS give you some of the same boards, or a 4 month old modle for only $ 50 -$ 60. Most of the returns are from people who sent back good boards that would not fit their commercial computers ( Dell, HP, Gateway, Etc.) I've build with 3 of these refurbs and have had 100% sucess. They come in at about 1/2 price and the freight is free.

I only build with ABIT, experience and performance count for something.

 

[palidor]

I'm really not too familiar with how RAID works. I have a Maxtor ata133 40 gig 7200 rpm drive, and an IBM 60gxp ata100 40gig 7200rpm drive. Will I be able to use that with RAID or not?

I also have a WD ata100 7200rpm drive I could possibly use as well, if that would make any difference.

 

[Vette73]

Originally posted by: palidor
I'm really not too familiar with how RAID works. I have a Maxtor ata133 40 gig 7200 rpm drive, and an IBM 60gxp ata100 40gig 7200rpm drive. Will I be able to use that with RAID or not?

I also have a WD ata100 7200rpm drive I could possibly use as well, if that would make any difference.

To run a raid setup the drives need to be the SAME. But I know with teh high-point raid chip you can run the drives off the raid chip just like any other IDE port. So if you are going to run more than one hard drive look for a board that has High-Point raid, Like " Shuttle's AK35GT2R " or just about any Abit KT333 or KT400 board With Raid.

 

[palidor]

I'm about to take the plunge and order the MSI KT3 Ultra2-R(6380E- 060).. am I making a mistake?

There's a refurb @ newegg for $90 and it seems like a nice board.

 

[CaptnKirk]

Before you commit to purchase, you should read this about the VIA 266 Series and then read about VIA 333 Series motherboards. Make the wisest choice you feel comfortable with.

On a RAID system you must match the ATA rating, the GB size, and the RPM speed of the HDD. The BEST way is to use identical brands, but in theroy a 60GB IBM can be matched to run with a WD 60GB - if both are the same RPM and ATA100 rating - how efficently they will work as a pair is going to be the function of the weaker drive.
There seems to be a reason the IBM Deskstar is being nicknamed the DEATHSTAR, maybe reliability could be a player in this naming.

In a RAID-0, the drive pair alternates reading and writing from and to each side of the drive pair, in parcel peices, so each drive carries half the information - kind of like an ODD or EVEN pattern, so either drive only has 1/2 the data, so it can read or write faster, not twice as fast, but 10% to 20 % faster depending on file structure.
If you lose one of the two drives, you lose all information, as you can't retain the missing half, and the remaining half is nearly useless.

In RAID-1, it writes duplicate information to each drive, so there is no speed increase, but there is a backup file so if data is lost from one drive half, the other drive half can restore the missing information from the 'Mirrored' drive assy. This is the redundant storage used in server systems.

 

[MithShrike]

Dude, do not go with a refurbished board. You said earlier that you were looking for stability, refurbished are usually not as stable and you probably won't get a warranty or anything on it. I know you said you don't want an nForce motherboard but seriously, have you read the reviews? All the onboard works like a mofo and you don't have to use the integrated video. I still suggest the nForce because you can get some serious memory bandwidth without upgrading your memory. Speaking of RAID, I wouldn't use it without two identical drives. It can be a pain in the arsenic. Alrighty man, hope that helps. Oh, and one more thing, the KT3 Ultra is a good choice.

 

[SuperSix]

I can understand your VIA/Epox frustrations.. Why not an Intel platform?

 

[palidor]

a few comments:

i didnt order the refurb board . i would have, actually, but i noticed that it doesnt come with anything besides just the board.

yes, i'm ordering a raid board.. but i don't plan to use raid with my setup right now. i'll just have it in case sometime down the line i want to set up raid.

i still havent made up my mind i guess.. but i do like the msi board. it's tough, cause when you go to like the amdmb.com forums to look at boards, all you see are posts about problems that people have (cause thats all they go there for).. so it scares me

 

[palidor]

Originally posted by: SuperSix
I can understand your VIA/Epox frustrations.. Why not an Intel platform?

$$$$$

 

[Mem]

OK. I'm doing a pretty massive upgrade of this computer, which is using the motherboard from hell; Epox 8KHA+.

The Epox 8KHA+ is an excellent board & probably the best KT266A board,infact mine is a year old and rock solid in gaming etc,it also won the most reliable board survey at a German site,it sounds like yours is faulty so don`t put all the Epox 8KHA+ in the same boat,however I`ve alway had good luck with MSI boards as well so the MSI KT3 Ultra2-R is a good choice IMHO.

 

[PeZzmania]

My Opinion...if you are buying a completely new system - go for Pentium. AMD will be financially troubled over the next two quarters.

 

[PUNKtotalled]

Originally posted by: PeZzmania
AMD will be financially troubled over the next two quarters.

Who cares?

Once the CPU is in your case, it doesn't matter if its builder is in financial trouble!

Palidor, be aware that not all board will accept your pal8045. Asus and Abit boards will accept it for sure.

 

[Mem]

cause when you go to like the amdmb.com forums to look at boards, all you see are posts about problems that people have (cause thats all they go there for).. so it scares me

99% of problems are user error in setup one way or another, then add possible faulty parts, remember you won`t see people posting that don`t have problems and there`re lots of those around .

 

[IQJUMPuw]

I think 3 best KT333 boards are:

MSI KT333 Ultra2
Gigabyte GA-7VRXP
Abit KX7

All 3 of them will fit Alpha PAL8045. I've owned 2 GA-7VRXPs and 1 MSI KT333, and they are both really good. I would choose GA-7VRXP, because I like the OnBoard LAN and bunch of other features. And everyone says that Abit is the best overclocker out there.

Have fun with your new system my friend. =)

 

[palidor]

Thanks for all the input guys

I am still looking into the MSI board... but after reading up a little bit more I am actually considering getting an Intel-based board for stability..

What do p4-2ghz's go for anyways? about $150 or so? i've never even looked at an intel cpu before.. are they socket A or what? can i use a pal8045?

 

[Vette73]

Originally posted by: palidor
Thanks for all the input guys

I am still looking into the MSI board... but after reading up a little bit more I am actually considering getting an Intel-based board for stability..

What do p4-2ghz's go for anyways? about $150 or so? i've never even looked at an intel cpu before.. are they socket A or what? can i use a pal8045?

Intel and AMD CPU's have noting to do with stability. It is in what parts you use, i.e the board maker, sound card, video crad, etc...

I am running a Dual amd setup with on-board sound, a TV/Radio tuner, USB2.0 PCI card, 3 Slabs of 256mg Ram, Radeon 8500, and a 64bit/66Mhz dual port ethernet card and it is 100% Stable even with all that.

So match up the parts, drivers and OS together and you will have a good stable system no matter if you use AMD io intel.

Right now the best bang for your buck is a Athlon XP system

 

[KF]

Originally posted by: PeZzmania
My Opinion...if you are buying a completely new system - go for Pentium. AMD will be financially troubled over the next two quarters.

This is an interestingly backwards way of looking at things. AMD prices are at an all time low. Performance versus price is at an all time high. So... don't buy AMD?

Looking at it in parallel from the Intel side. Intel is in deep do-do. They are laying off thousands upon thousands of employees. Their stock is in the tubes. They can't get much over $200 for near top-of-the-line processors. They bet on the future of RDRAM and lost big. Don't touch an Intel processor. Right...?

If AMD wasn't so great and so cheap, I would be thinking about those $200 P4s myself. You are not going to see a buying opportunity like this very often, if the past is a guide to the future.

 

[CaptnKirk]

What the H3LL do stock market prices have to do with choosing a CPU ? There are a lot of other really good companies out there. who's Stock Prices are tanking, not because of their product quality, but because a bunch of CEO theives and their cronies are doing a smash & dash for the cash.
The public is not buying stocks, but selling them to dump investment capital - because they don't understand the market, and are being eaten by the sharks.

Most people are too ignorant to know how to deal in the stock market,
and they're too stupid to vote, because they don't study the issues.