I can get any motherboard I want for my birthday.....

[demontooth]

up to a limit of around $125 - $150. I am planning on getting an AMD 1600+. Which motherboard would you recommend that uses SDRAM. I was thinking about a Gigabyte. Suggestions please. And if you make a suggestion, please inform me where you saw it.

 

[Huggies]

Don't waste you're time getting an SDRAM motherboard for the Athlon XP, I would suggest getting the Shuttle AK31A + 256MBDDR... I recommend this board not because its the best, but because its a really inexpensive NICE performing motherboard and you can afford to get some DDR ram as well for the same price you would spend on some other board! The board can be found at Newegg.com for $88 shipped or just check pricewatch.com and you'll see a long list of vendors that sell it... If you have some extra cash laying around I would suggest you ask for a Soyo Dragon+ for ur b-day and then buy the DDR urself and you're going to love it, good luck and happy birthday!

John

 

[BrainStorm24]

I built an MSI K7T Turbo Limited Edition and an Athlon XP1600+ 3 weeks ago for my father-in-law. I had not a single problem and the board is red (useless but pretty cool). Since you need a board that support SDRAM I think it's a good choice, you can also go for the K7T Torbo2, I think it is less expensive. That was my first experience with an MSI board and later I bought myself the K7T266 Pro2 plus a Athlon XP1600+ and I'm also very satisfied. The only difference between the 2 boards I think is the PC-to-PC bracket used to make a mini network between 2 PC's included with the Limited edition, the Turbo2 may be cheaper. I paid it 160$ Cnd, I'm sure you can buy it much cheaper in United States (if you are from there) I can't comment on other brands.

Hope that helps!

 

[Hanpan]

Too bad you have a budget. I was about to suggest a nice i860 board with a couple gigs of rdram.

 

[BurnItDwn]

If you insist upon using SDRam you may want to check out the ECS K7S5A Board ... its actually a lot cheaper than your budget, but it performs well with SDRAM, and you can later replace that SDRAM with DDRAM and get more out of it. Its not as fast as the kt266a or AMD760 chipsets, But it seems like a good buy.

 

[gogeeta13]

scrwe SDRAM. Get a k7s5a and go DDR

 

[SonicTron]

Ask for the most expensive mobo, sell it in the for sale/trade forum, then buy a cheapy kt133a or sis735 based board

 

[Athlon4all]

I agree that an XP will just be crippled without DDR.

 

[Daovonnaex]

<< Too bad you have a budget. I was about to suggest a nice i860 board with a couple gigs of rdram. >>

Supermicro? But I digress.
I would recommend the Soyo Dragon+, as it is proven to be fast and feature laden, as well as having great stability. Every site that reviews it gives it great reviews, and it even overclocks well (although you cannot increase RAM voltage). It's a great value for the money, and outclasses more expensive products from Asus and Abit!

 

[Wind]

Epox 8KHA+ around $100.00.

 

[demontooth]

So are you saying that if I plan on sticking with the SDRAM that I should go with the 1.4 ghz AMD instead of the XP?

 

[mboy]

WHat everyone is saying is dont stick with the SDRAM, spent the money and get the DDR. WHy get something that is on the verge of being obsolete . It really is the smatter tmove to get the DDR now, OR get the k7s5a and upgrade to ddr in near future. The performance increase is well woerth it. You wont be sorry!

 

[demontooth]

The problem is, I have 1 gig of SDRAM sitting here looking at me.

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

Sell it, get DDR.

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

jesus christ ddr isnt that big of a deal

 

[Cybordolphin]

I have had excellent luck with my SOYO Dragon Plus. Would recommend it.

 

[demontooth]

<< jesus christ ddr isnt that big of a deal >>



So are they overstating their case a little bit?

 

[cavemanmoron]

DDR prices have gone up a lil,
i have an ECS k7s5a,used 256/133 sdram, and 256/2100 ddr
DDR is faster in any test i tried
about 10-15% faster..
i have an Epox 8kha+ it scores a LOT better in the sisoft sandra
tests in all functions,and it runs my Seti@home a Lot faster,like 45 mins faster per work unit
than the same chip,{1.4 tbird} when i had it in the ECS mboard...

sell the sdram,buy ddr,and epox is cool as well as some of the
others suggested in this thread!!

 

[Jerboy]

Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you,
Happy Birthday dear demontooth, Happy Birthday to you!


I'd go for something with dual setup that can take DDR and SDRAM so you can use the SDRAM for now, but you can switch over to DDR later. Unfortunately they can't be used together.


Anything but K7S5A sounds good.