mobo/cpu combo on a budget

[navyjay]

I'm looking for an older motherboard and CPU combo that will give me moderate control/performance and some processor upgrade capabilities later on. The catch is, I only have $200 to spend.

Newegg has a deal for an AMD 64 2800+ with the GIGABYTE "GA-K8NS" GeForce3 chipset all for $173 after rebate. Problem is that I've read this board is horrible with heat dissipation.

I also looked into the MSI K8N Neo Platinum for $130 w/ socket 754 CPU. The reviews for this board seem to make it a much better purchase.

The machine I'm building isn't going to be used for any high performance computing, just a fast linux file/media server.

Any additional products worth checking out or past experiences with these devices?


Jay

 

[navyjay]

Any takers?

 

[Appledrop]

i hear that the a64 2800+ with a chaintech board is good ( i dont know what model) and is bundled for a great price on one of your american shops.

hehe not a very helpful post i know but ehm, consider it a bump if nothing else 🙂

edit: brain wave: it may be called Chaintech VNF3-250 or VN3-250, have a look 🙂

 

[o1die]

Couldn't locate the newegg rebate, but if it's still good, I would go for it.

 

[Peter]

Budget? Now owning one myself, I strongly recommend the ECS 755-A2 board (SiS chipset) plus an A64 2800+ w/ Arctic Silencer 64 Ultra cooler. That's 180 euros as of today, around 200 USD. Look out for bundle deals!

The SiS chipset is particularly fast on I/O, includes a RAID (0 or 1) capable SATA controller, and also, this board has Cool&Quiet working, which is not necessarily understood in this price range. I've used a generic PC3200 DIMM on it, no problem, good bandwidth.

Newegg:
Board $66
CPU $130
Fan/Heatsink $12

UNLESS you're planning to put a SCSI controller on it, that is. There's a problem in the AWARD BIOS that keeps it from booting off those. ECS are working on it.

 

[navyjay]

Well apparently the Newegg rebate's last day was the 1st (probably from Thanksgiving sale). Knowing about the heat problems people have had, I'm not sure I would go for it.

If I wanted to run RAID using several IDE disks, would I need a special PCI card for this or is there a MB out there that will support this? I'm not about to throw away all my HDs I've been able to scavenger over the last couple years 🙂

Since I'm new to the AMD CPU market, what processors am I limited to with a socket 754?

Peter, haven't read too much about ECS's boards, but I'll look into them.

Thanks!

 

[Peter]

Fry's Outpost still runs a bundle deal w/ 3200+ and 3000+ processors "with mainboard" and cooler, 249 and 229 dollars respectively. You get said ECS board.

It has two SATA channels you can RAID - striped or mirrored, both at the same time would require four drives.

Doing RAID on (standard desktop board 33 MHz) PCI is going to be inferior to directly chipset-based RAID, because of that PCI bus being limited to less than 100 MB/s when talking to storage controllers. Chipset internal IDE and SATA, particularly in SiS chipsets, have a way faster path up into the core system.

Socket-754 is the budget platform; there's 32-bit Sempron, and 64-bit Athlons from 2800+ to 3700+ currently. The Sempron doesn't make much sense currently, being only $8 or so less than the A64 of the same clockspeed, whilst lacking half the L2 cache and the 64-bit extensions.

 

[Peter]

http://shop1.outpost.com/catreq/-1558

 

[CraigRT]

Might be wortwhile to look at a Sempron, but I am not sure how much less they are than the 2800+ A64.

 

[Peter]

See three posts up.

 

[navyjay]

Peter,

I found the 3200+ combo for $249 at your link to Fry's Outpost, but the 3000+ appears to be only $200 (Item # 4301885). Is this the same combo you mentioned was for $229?

Also, how do you know the board is by ECS? Is the SiS chipset only available on said ECS boards? The photo isn't exactly hi-res and I can't find a brand/model anywhere in the detailed description.

This may be just the combo I'm looking for.