suggest christmas mobo

[seti920]

Hello all. I'm tasked with selecting parts for my brother's christmas gift, a motherboard/cpu/ram upgrade.

Use: Papers, web browsing, casual MP3 playback....nothing too intense. He has been using a PII 233Mhz for the past five years. So, anything will be an improvement.

Requirements: Accept AMD socket A processor

In his words "high bus speed highly attractive"

Price - US $100 and under.

The computer will likely go another several years without a major overhaul, so stability is important.

I intend to use DDR ram and an AMD XP 2000 or so.

So far I've found two boards that look very respectable, the MSI KT333 Ultra and Epox 8K5A2.

Can someone recommend other boards, or offer insight?

Thanks.

 

[seti920]

Hello all. I'm tasked with selecting parts for my brother's christmas gift, a motherboard/cpu/ram upgrade.

Use: Papers, web browsing, casual MP3 playback....nothing too intense. He has been using a PII 233Mhz for the past five years. So, anything will be an improvement.

Requirements: Accept AMD socket A processor

In his words "high bus speed highly attractive"

Price - US $100 and under.

The computer will likely go another several years without a major overhaul, so stability is important.

I intend to use DDR ram and an AMD XP 2000 or so.

So far I've found two boards that look very respectable, the MSI KT333 Ultra and Epox 8K5A2.

Can someone recommend other boards, or offer insight?

Thanks.

 

[BDawg]

Asus P4PE

 

[Bleep]

You will get a lot of different advice on this so here is mine.

I have a great respect for Biostar boards and the one for your needs is the M7VIQ TCWO has this for $59.00. Have al look at the specs I think it will fill the bill for your needs.

Bleep

 

[BowlingNut]

the msi board you are looking at is a great one
i've got the kt4 (almost exactly the smae, but kt400 chipset, which basically adds agp8x suport) and i love it
the kt3 ulra-2 and ultra-c are great boards

also heard very good things about the epox boards, cant go wrong with either of them
asus also has a rep for being very stable

not much experience with anything else,just try not to listen to intel fanboys

 

[seti920]

Bowling nut - thanks, it helps a lot to hear from someone who has actual experience with the board.

As for listening to Intel fans....Santa's budget can't handle it, so it's a moot point!

Thanks all.

 

[AMDBOY]

seti920, I like the 2 choices you have been looking at so far. I have both, MSI & Epox boards and and very satisfied with both. One thing I found, was that it didn't pay off for me to be "an early adopter" on boards when they first came out. I found that sometimes (often) the first generation of a mobo or chipset has a few bugs that need to be worked out. These boards you are looking at are excellant performers & are now mature enough that you shouldn't have too many problems with them. They give you a good value/performance ratio. Also, if your really cheap like me, you will be pleased with the performance you can get with the Epox 8K5A2+ and an Athlon XP 1600+ AGOIA stepping core. Epox 8K5A2+.Athlon XP 1600+ AGOIA stepping.. The only reason I suggest this CPU, you can get it up from 1400 Mhz to 1750 Mhz easily (with the Epox board) for only $53-$57 @ Newegg. (A steal IMHO). What REALLY prompted me to respond though.....you may want to be ready to purchase around Black Friday( day after Thanksgiving). Some of the best deals of the year(a few). My opinion, get the some of the best performing (CAS2) RAM you can afford. PC2700 or higher. Good luck on yor new rig.

 

[Softballslug]

MSI-6390 would be a good start. Onboard video, sound and lan. Uses DDR Memory (2 slots), 3 pci slots, 1 agp slot. Houses amd xp up to 2000+..

Currently it is about $62.00 over at www.newegg.com <B>
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