Need Motherboard recommendation

[koolhand]

Co-worker wants to upgrade a machine at work.
I need a recommendation for an inexpensive MB for an AMD chip.

Basically we still want to use the old RAM (PC100, 128 MB I believe), and there's a
30 GB 5400 RPM hard-drive, probably ATA66, old video card (8 MB?). Basically the machine was a PII-233
and it's getting a lit' slow. Mostly used for web access, word-processing application,
occasional Powerpoint, Photoshop type work to edit images for presentations, etc...

Basically, we just want to upgrade the MB & CPU to speed things along a bit as multiple applications
running at the same time really makes the machine crawl...& we're on
a budget, I figure < $100 for the MB, $100 for the CPU/fan/heatsink combo.

So don't really need DDR RAM, etc... will MB that support DDR support PC100 memory?

 

[HowDoesItWork]

I don't think you can plug PC100 into a DDR slot, but I'm not an expert.

Just from a performance standpoint, you might be better off going with an ultra inexpensive mobo, and buying a stick of DDR 2100 or something. I think gigabyte has some KT266A boards for ~$70 bucks and you could pick up a generic stick of 128mb PC2100 for around ~$35. Maybe less memory than you need, but I would think that the better
performance of the PC2100 over the PC100 might compensate a lot.

I know ASUS (and probably some others)made some boards that had slots for both DDR and PC100/133, that might be a choice as you could upgrade the memory later without getting a new mobo.

 

[cr4pz0r]

koolhand, there is absolutely no way that a motherboard that supports both DDR and SDR memory can run PC100 SDRAM memory with an Athlon or an Athlon XP processor that uses a 266DDR front-side bus; such processors will always try to run that PC100 memory at an out-of-spec 133MHz, which may cause stability problems. And since AMD motherboards that support SDRAM are becoming more and more difficult to find, I'd also suggest upgrading your memory to DDR as well.

That said, two of the few motherboards that support either DDR or SDR memory that's currently on the market are the Asus A7A266-E and the ECS K7S5A. But with the ECS, you're limited to using the AMD Duron processors (or try finding an AMD "Thunderbird"/Athlon-B with a 200DDR FSB) if you decide to stick with PC100 memory.

 

[waqasusman]

<< there is absolutely no way that a motherboard that supports both DDR and SDR memory can run PC100 SDRAM memory with an Athlon or an Athlon XP processor that uses a 266DDR front-side bus >>



Well cr4pz0r, I don't think so, though I am not an expert, neither do I have an Athlon yet (but I have been looking to upgrade, a Duron 1.0 + ECS k7s5a)

The 266Mhz Processor will run on that PC100, but the system won't make full use of the Processor's 266Mhz FSB, it will run at 100Mhz bus. (Someone else please correct me if I am wrong)

koolhand, I would recommend you to get the ECS k7s5a board that supports both SDR and DDR, you can keep your PC100 to work on it till the DDR price drops to a level where you can afford to buy one. This board has a lot of happy users, and some annoyed users as well who RMA'ed it after they couldn't make it to work (perhaps some of them didn't work as much as they should have?). But there have been a few issues like ppl using the board for 4-5 months and the board going dead after that. If you go for this board, do buy it from a vendor that gives a 1 year warranty (newegg doesn't). Axiontech.com and mwave.com do provide 1year warranty. The price comes out to be around $70 including shipping on these two websites, as compared to newegg's $63, but $7 are worth one year's warranty.

there are very comprehensively covered topics at OCworkbench.com's k7s5a forums, and ppl there are very helping. (don't have a link right now.)

I am also very tight on budget and I'd like to get this board because it's one of the cheapest boards (perhaps THE cheapest) out there that support DDR. Also, you can use the SDR. Plus LAN, Sound Built-in.

There are a few other solutions like PCChips 830LR, (PCChips is a sub of ECS, PCChips gives oem, 1month or 90day warranty, I'd stay away from that, unless I find some vendor w/1yr warranty) This board is the same as k7s5a, but has additional integrated 56k modem. Price would be around the same $65 mark with shipping.

I won't go for Via chipsets because I've read they have a very bad disk access performance, some guy posted a thread here telling about his observation (and others also posted links) that VIA's Disk access (with some 1ghz+ CPU?) was even slower than Intel BX2 (with Celeron 300)!!!!!!!!!!!!!

There are a few other boards that provide integrated VGA, but either they don't provide AGP slot (if you want to get a nice VGA later on) or they don't support DDR. At least I haven't been able to find one. You're in a similar situation as me, not upgraded for around 3years (PIII 450Mhz + Intel BX2), I think you should buy a decent mobo + CPU, at least buy a mobo that provides you DDR support.

After much research, I am going to buy an ECS k7s5a, a Duron 1.0 Ghz ($55-63 shipped), a VisionTek Geforce 2 32MB DDR ($52 shipped), Crucial PC2100 128MB ($42).

Duron 1.0 doesn't lag much behind Athlon 1.0 (consider the price difference) Perhaps Athlon 950 would beat Duron 1.0 in many applications, but Duron (1.0+) has got SSE, and should run cooler than athlon.
http://firingsquad.gamers.com/hardware/duron1000/page5.asp

Hope this helps!

 

[cr4pz0r]

<< The 266Mhz Processor will run on that PC100, but the system won't make full use of the Processor's 266Mhz FSB, it will run at 100Mhz bus. (Someone else please correct me if I am wrong) >>



waqasusman, I've learned that running the Athlon XP processor on a 100MHz bus is not recommended; the extra features that put the "XP" in "Athlon XP" will be disabled - you need to run it on a 133MHz bus. (BTW, I'm using the actual MHz rating of the Athlon XP's FSB in this post - the "266MHz" figure is due to the DDR effect.)

FWIW, on a 100MHz (DDR200) FSB, an Athlon XP 2100+ will be recognized as a regular "non-XP" Athlon 1.3GHz processor.