Time to upgrade my ABIT BH6 board, need your recommendations!

[Petey00]

Hello,

The title says it all. Need to retire my good old ABIT BH6 board. I currently have a Celeron II 533 oc'ed to 824. I am looking for a board that'll last me for another 2 - 3 years. What are some of my better options?

Thanks in advance

 

[Henry Kuo]

hmm, i815? maybe the cusl2?

 

[Petey00]

Thanks, that's definitely on top of the list right now. The only bad thing being it's quite pricey and I really do not need the onboard video/audio.

 

[Henry Kuo]

true, that board is really pricy. But I think most (at least a lot) of boards have on-board sound with them.

I haven't reviewed a lot of i815E boards yet, so maybe you can read our i815e roundup for a bit more idea

 

[CraigRT]

get an Asus CUV4X, none of those dumb onboard things and it's very stable too, also quite a good price, alot less than a CUSL2, and it's S370 too.

if i were to get a board soon that would be the one. that or the SY-7VCA from Soyo.

 

[Jeff H]

Petey00, I'm not one to recommend &quot;wait for the next best thing, it's just around the corner!&quot; If you do that you'll never buy a thing <g>. However, unless you absolutely need to do something mobo-wise soon, this may be a good time to wait.

Why? Because two things are just around the corner, so to speak. First is DDR SDRAM boards for the Athlon/Duron platform. Second is a new 815 chip from Intel, the EP, that drops the pathetic on-chip video, adds USB2.0, ups the memory limit from 512MB to 1.5G, and provides ATA100 drive control. The good news is it's supposedly less $$ than the 815E.

Another option would be to plunk an FC-PGA P!!!-850 on your BH6, then go to one of the 815EP boards when the show up. Just a thought <g>!

 

[oneeighty]

According this intel roadmap:
http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/00q4/001012/index.html
The Almador (i830) replaces i815E in about one year from now. It may or may not have DDR support, but will definately still have onboard video, so says the article. But where are you seeing this EP chipset Jeff?

Edit: Okay I found the news on the EP chipset:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/1/14244.html
It says initally there will be no USB 2.0, but a later upgrade to ICH3 will include that. And these are coming out in December. Cool deal. Yeah, I'd wait for that.

 

[Goi]

Do you exclusively want only Intel solutions? If not, I'd recommend an Abit KT7 or Asus A7V coupled with a Duron or Tbird...its the most bang for the buck and offers comparable, if not greater performance than its intel counterparts.

OTOH, I don't think your current system is even near obsolescence. I have a C2 566 clocked at 850 or 875.5MHz(depending on my mood) and personally I think it'll last me at least till early 2001. In your case I'd recommend waiting for a more substantial upgrade.