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.