New Builder Mobo Questions

[Salvador]

Hello,
I'm about to build my first pc and I don't have a lot of experience with selecting motherboards. I've always bought from Dell and took whatever they were offering.

Anyway.. I've been doing a little research and it appears that the new DDR boards are coming out. Does it make sense for me to get a board like this or buy the last generation of mobo for a cheaper price?

I know that this kind of bucks what this forum is about, but I'm not a serious gamer (I like to play them on occasion), so I really don't need the latest and greatest. I am looking for quality, upgradeability and stability. I'm also looking for the best bang for the buck setup. I don't want to be penny wise, pound foolish here. I don't want to end up not buying enough and then have to upgrade really soon.

As far as a user, I am sort of a power user. I'm not really a gamer, However, I like Graphics and work quite a bit in Photoshop.

As far as oc'ing goes, I'm interested in it for the same reasons that I want to build my own pc. I want to see if I will be able to pull this off. I also want to get the most for my money. I wouldn't go crazy with OC. Just a little tweaking. I guess what I'm saying here is that I might want some kind of mobo that wouldn't be impossible for me to OC if I wanted. I'm certainly not going to modify the board like I hear that you have to do on the Asus boards before you can OC. Then again, I don't want to rule out Asus boards because I hear they are pretty great.

Because of price, I will probably start out with a Duron chip and possibly upgrade to a Athlon when the prices come down. Should I even be concerned with a high end board for a Duron?

My thinking is that I could buy a good board now with the inexpensive Duron chip and then throw a Athlon chip on the board when prices come down further on the Athlon's. Is this a flawed way of thinking about this? Would I just be better off buying a board for the Duron and then plan on replacing the Athlon and mobo when new technology comes out?

Sorry for all the questions and long post. Please reply to as much or as little of my post as you want. I'm trying to get this mobo thing pinned down. The chips are pretty easy. Just decide which AMD chip I want (Athlon or Duron) and then how much speed I'm willing to pay for.

TIA!

Sal

 

[KJY9]

Salvador,
I don't game much either.
My Primary 'puter is my A7V133 with a 1.33/266 T-bird Oc'd to 1550Mhz running twin 30GB IBM hard drives in Raid.
I can tell you this much....I have never seen rendering in Photoshop move so quickly in all my life.
I too, primarily use my 'puter for work, and I can tell you, there's NOTHING like watching an image render a KPT5.0 or 6.0 plugin in photoshop on my rig.
The 1.33/266 chips are going for approx $200.00 right now and you can pick up an A7V133 for $118.00 at www.newegg.com.
And as for this statement


<< I'm certainly not going to modify the board like I hear that you have to do on the Asus >>


I have no idea what you're talking about there, as I've had to do absolutely nothing to my board, aside from making adjustments in the bios to get it up to 1,550 Mhz.
I wouldn't go with a duron, when the 1.33/266's are so darned cheap right now.
I hope this helps.

 

[Salvador]

KJY9:

Thanks so much for your help.

<< I'm certainly not going to modify the board like I hear that you have to do on the Asus >>

What I meant about this statement is that I've read that you have to modify the Asus boards in order to OC. Someone was talking about it while discussing a Asus A7M266. At least that's how I understood it. The link for the discussion is Here

I was told to try and go with a 266 board because the price of DDR 2100 RAM isn't that much more money than 133 right now. It would keep me from having to buy new ram in the near future. What do you think?

The fastest AMD chips are priced much better than Intel's high end chips right now, however, I've seen a Duron 800 in the neighborhood of $40 and the 1.3's are at $200 like you said. That's a pretty big difference in my eyes. I was thinking that I could buy a good board with 2100 RAM and then swap out the Duron for the faster Athlon sometime in the near future when the prices have dropped more.

Like I said, I'm new to this and can use the help figuring this stuff out.

Thanks again,

Sal

 

[KJY9]

SAL,
If you're going to get a board that supports DDR then wait a few weeks for the ASUS A7V266.
I don't understand your statements though..you say that a 1.33 is too expensive and yet you want a 266 board, which are a good deal more than the others.
If you want a good running, easy overclocking mobo that runs stable, then get the A7V133, it has raid on it, which helps when rendering in Photoshop.
Myself, I'm waiting for the dual Palomino boards for my next upgrade, then my 1,555 will be my slow machine and I'll sell my 1507.

 

[Salvador]

Hi again KJY9,



<< I don't understand your statements though..you say that a 1.33 is too expensive and yet you want a 266 board, which are a good deal more than the others. >>



I didn't think the boards were that expensive and if I could get a few months out of a Duron while the prices fell more on the faster Athlon's, I wouldn't have to upgrade the board or the RAM so soon (just the CPU).

Now that I'm thinking about it, I might as well bite the bullet and get the 266 board, 1.33 chip and the 2100 ram. I will be spending more later if I buy the Duron chip now only to replace it with an Athlon in 6 months. In the meantime, I won't be able to enjoy the system nearly as much and the DDR board might be outdated by then anyway.

Or.. I can buy a board like yours and buy the 133 ram with a Duron chip or slower Athlon? I don't know.. This is all making my head spin.

I'm trying to get the best that I can, but I'm also trying to save a little money because this will be my first build. If it's not so expensive, I probably won't feel that bad if I screw something up. Building your own pc isn't so easy and I haven't even started yet.

Maybe I'll just give Dell a call tomorrow.

Thanks again,

Sal

PS. Which Viewsonic monitors do you have? How do you like them? I was just going to take a look at Viewsonic.