I am looking for the best mb for a Athlon XP3200+

[Siddhartha]

I am currently using an Asus Asus A7V600X motherbooard but it seems slow to me. Can someone recomend better a mb for my cpu? I am not a gamer.

Details:
A couple of months ago, my system would not boot up. I took it to the shop that built it and they said that it looked like the motherboard had seen a high charge. I had heard a loud electrical crack. So, I used this as an excuse to upgrade to something faster.

I told the shop I wanted a system with a XP 3200+ cpu, 1 gig RAM. They put in an Asus A7V600X motherboard and genre PC 2700 RAM.

This system appears to be slower than my old system. I upgraded the RAM to PC3200 so that I could run it at 400 mHz FSB. This did not improve the performance significantly.

I am looking for a BIOS teaking guide for the mb.

TIA for any help

 

[imported_DaveA]

abit nf7-s or asus a7n8x deluxe 2.00


the abit is known for its overclocking, asus for its stability. had the asus one myself, very stable, not one Blue screen of death in the 12 months i had it.

 

[Mem]

DFI Infinity Ultra which is based on the nForce 2 chipset,has all the features you need,onboard Lan,SoundStorm,S-ATA etc.....good overclocker,solid on stability(I can vouch for that since I`m using one at the moment).


However you won`t get a big jump unitl you go the Athlon 64 route.

This system appears to be slower than my old system. I upgraded the RAM to PC3200 so that I could run it at 400 mHz FSB. This did not improve the performance significantly.

Sometimes a clean install of OS helps,make sure the motherboard chipset drivers are installed.

The BIOS optimization guide might help.

 

[Siddhartha]

Thanks for the replies.

My plan is to build an A64 system soon. But first I would like to get this system straighten out first.

I have formatted the boot drive and installed Windows XP.

 

[TRUMPHENT]

If you already have an XP3200+ running on a 200mhz fsb, stick with it unitl you are ready to build your A64 system. You are virtually at the end of the road with your current mainboard and processor. Even if you had something like an XP2500+, you wouldn't be able to get a satisfying increase in performance for the money now.

I just finished upgrading from a Soyo Dragon Ultra Plus with a 266mhz fsb because I was running an XP2500+ in it. It was underclocked on that board. My new board is the Asus A7V880. It was inexpensive, supports Dual Channel Ram and my XP2500+ is running at 2.2ghz. I had headroom, you do not. Conserve for the future and get there sooner.

 

[Tarrant64]

Asus. :thumbsup:

 

[Siddhartha]

Once again, thank you for the replies. My new system seems as slow, powerful as what I was running four or five systems ago, which had a 700 mHz Athlon.

My guess it is a memory bandwidth problem. Winamp will skip when another app does something. The mouse pointer gets jumpy too. Applications take longer to load up.

This is all compared to my previous system, Athlon XP 2700+, MSI NForce 2 333 mHz mb, and 1 gig RAM.

 

[Rock Hydra]

I like LANParty Motherboards. I use one myself. They are of incredible quality and asthetics: DFI LANPARTY NFII ULTRA B

 

[J Heartless Slick]

Asus a7n8x-e Deluxe?

 

[ChineseDemocracyGNR]

You obviously have a setup problem with your current system, instead of looking for a new motherboard you should try to identify and fix the problem first.

Post your complete setup (with details such as memory and power supply brand, hard disks installed, etc). Run some benchmarks like the memory benchmarks from Everest (google for it) and post the results.

 

[thunderroller]

go for Asus

 

[Siddhartha]

Originally posted by: ChineseDemocracyGNR
You obviously have a setup problem with your current system, instead of looking for a new motherboard you should try to identify and fix the problem first.

Post your complete setup (with details such as memory and power supply brand, hard disks installed, etc). Run some benchmarks like the memory benchmarks from Everest (google for it) and post the results.

Thank you for the replies.

I have installed an Asus a7n8x-e Deluxe motherboard. Once I get the floppy drive working I will report if the issue was the mb or not