Mobo: ABIT, ASUS, MSI, GB?

[bluemax]

Okay, I'm going a little crazy... want to do a cheap upgrade but am afraid of ECS. Must be cheap to avoid getting in wifey trouble.
Something with onboard NIC and even half-decent onboard sound and video would all be good.
I'm thinking my purchasing (in Canada) will be done on NCIX - Netlink so your selections can be made from there.
NCIX- Motherboards.
I'm aiming for under $150. Close to $100 preferred. AMD is probably the platform to choose due to cheap but fast processors. Hope retail CPU fans are relatively quiet.... SDRAM would be nice to use... I don't own DDR and would like to avoid that purchase for a while.

Suggestions welcome... My brain is tired.

 

[CraigRT]

you don't have too many choices dude.
but what if you can save a few bucks, and buy a stick of DDR on the side?

 

[bluemax]

I'd be better off selling off as much as I can and put together a complete system down the road.
I don't need the 3D capabilities of this Radeon 8500LELE, I just don't game that much in 3D anyways. I just spent several hours playing CIV3... I feel so dirty.

 

[optimistic]

Shuttle AK32A could be an alternative to the K75SA if you can find a vendor in Canada that sells them. Uses both SDR/DDR but KT266a chipset, but seems to have better sound than the ECS.

C-Media 8738:Support 5.1 speakers, C3DX positional audio in 6 CH speaker mode

mwave

 

[optimistic]

M7VIG Pro

Canadian Distributers

 

[bluemax]

Heyyy... SDR and DDR on a uATX board. Pretty impressive. Then I could even sell off this ATX case and get something in a tiny tower. (Portability.)

ProSavage8 will do the job provided it's not too blurry.... 2D aside, it'll perform better than this ancient ATI Rage pro card..... maybe.
ooooo USB 2.0 - very nice.
Game port = MIDI.... onboard audio is passable
But is the VIA KM266 chipset any good? 4-in-1's and all that..... And any idea what this puppy will cost?



I'm awfully tempted just to go with that uATX nForce 220D. (ASUS A7N266-VM) Though I'd require new RAM and the onboard video is pretty lacklustre.

Wish I could just find a nice, not-too-expensive nForce2 with IGP video.

 

[majewski9]

wow those prices were pretty high even if they are using that fake canadian money.