Need Value Mobo for 1800XP + 3xSDRam

[JoshGuru7]

I am upgrading a system for a friend and am trying to find the best value (cheap but not *cheap*) mobo that can support an 1800XP and three 128 MB sticks of PC-100 memory he wants to carry over. This system will be used entirely for gaming and will *not* be overclocked in any way ever. He is not a tinkerer or particularly computer knowledgeable, and as the Iwill kk266 i bought for myself last summer has given me a good bit of trouble in bios issues, i'm currently looking more at Asus/Abit/Soyo. While price is the driving factor a "set up and forget" motherboard is a requirement as I don't want to spend the next year doing tech support on his computer. Some of the lower end chipsets i have looked at don't mention whether they would support an 1800XP.. This is definitely the chip that he wants so it would need to support this.

Any help is appreciated,
Josh

 

[Buz2b]

A good/inexpensive option would be the MSI K7T Turbo2. It has 3XSDRAM of PC100 or PC133, supports up to XP2000+ and is a breeze to set up. You can check out the entire list of stats on this page. NewEgg has them new for $73.00. Although I do not see them now, I picked one up as a refurb from NewEgg for under $50 for my wife's system. Using XP, setup was a "no-brainer".

 

[Peter]

ECS K7VZA v3.x does that trick too, and goes for some $50 new - if you find a place that still has them.

But watch out: On either board, you cannot run the XP processor (133 MHz CPU bus) while the RAM bus is at 100 MHz. The VIA chipsets don't support that, only CPU/RAM 100/100, 100/133, 133/133. It seems none of the other chipsets supports CPU/RAM 133/100 either, so you must either rethink your CPU choice and use either a Duron or one of the few remaining 100 MHz bus Thunderbirds, or use better RAM.

regards, Peter

 

[tenoc]

The best approach is to tell your friend he needs to get DDR ram to go with the
upgrade. The 1800+ will run at 100 on the fsb but it's a waste of power and money.

If he's fixated on this processor, he needs the proper ram and mobo to go with it.