Time to upgrade the old motherboard...

[Korporativ]

So i'm looking for suggestions I guess. I'v got around $400 to spend, would like to not go over it but can if need really be, but it would be nice to have some left over for a better vid card too i guess. I'm going to be needing new ram, motherboard, processor, probably power supply(using a 350 watt sparkle atm). So far what I was looking at are the MSI Delta ILSR, and the Asus A7N8X DLX motherboards with a 2.5GHz AMD(barton core i believe?) and 2 chips of 256meg PC2700 Kingston ram, then probably go with an AMD reccomended power supply. Anyone got any other suggestions? I know motherboard manufacturers and ram brands change who is king of the heap from time to time. Also, are there any serials i should be looking for to get better chipset revisions, or is that the right core to get on the processor? Also will that PC2700 be decent stuff? I'm mainly running games&rendering things and figured spending the money on upgrading ram+motherboard+CPU is a better investment than a new videocard.(People on the vid card forum said that even the GF3 Ti200 cards bottleneck on my old 1.4 ghz). Reccomendations of what/where to get em are much apreciated.

 

[Schadenfroh]

1. asus a7n8x deluxe $130
2. 2X Cosair pc3200 512mb $166 for both
3. 2500 Barton $93
4. your current Geforce3
5. your current powersupply

Total $389 with free fedex

The 2500 barton should be able to hit 3000 levels easily. the reason i say to stick with your geforce3 is that it can run everygame on the market, expecially when paired with the specs i just listed. wait for doom3 and get something that will run it for cheap.

 

[Korporativ]

So that PC 3200 ram is really worth it for me at the min? Also, the Asus is worth it over the epox board eeh? Lastly, what ever happened to A-Bit?

 

[Insane3D]

Are you planning on overclocking at all?

 

[Schadenfroh]

Originally posted by: Korporativ
So that PC 3200 ram is really worth it for me at the min? Also, the abit is worth it over the epox board eeh? Lastly, what ever happened to A-Bit?

abit quit making their own boards, they are now using ECSs fab plant, ECS is on par with PC chips IMO

 

[Insane3D]

Originally posted by: Schadenfroh

Originally posted by: Korporativ
So that PC 3200 ram is really worth it for me at the min? Also, the abit is worth it over the epox board eeh? Lastly, what ever happened to A-Bit?

abit quit making their own boards, they are now using ECSs fab plant, ECS is on par with PC chips IMO

Hmmm...Abit seems to be making some fine boards lately...on the Intel and AMD side. In most cases, they are better than their Asus counterparts. ECS making their boards is not a bad thing, since ECS is not designing them. That is where the problem arises...

 

[Peter]

BS. ECS does all of Shuttle's manufacturing and much of their design work too, and until they sold that business to ASUS last week, they've been making Apple's entry level notebooks too.
ECS engineering is pretty solid quality, else they wouldn't be selling so much to large volume OEM customers.

 

[Insane3D]

ECS engineering is pretty solid quality, else they wouldn't be selling so much to large volume OEM customers.

Absolutely correct. You don't have success in the OEM market if you make crap...plain and simple. The problem in past years with Abit was they had great engineers, but a not so great production line. Now, with outsourcing to a proven, high volume manufacturer like ECS, they have the best of both worlds.

 

[Korporativ]

So Abit hasn't really made an entry into the AMD realm worth mentioning above the ASUS, MSI and EPOX boards? But to answer teh question, yes I plan to overclock the chipset eventualy. Perhaps not at first but I tend to not be satisfied with the basic performance after a while. So if i plan to overclock yes the PC3200 ram would be valuable. And my guess is the Asus board overclocks better than the EPOX? I had an EPOX back in the day on my old AMD 400MHz and while it was an okay board, I found the board to occasionaly throw fits if it didnt completely love the peripherals.

 

[Insane3D]

Originally posted by: Korporativ
So Abit hasn't really made an entry into the AMD realm worth mentioning above the ASUS, MSI and EPOX boards? But to answer teh question, yes I plan to overclock the chipset eventualy. Perhaps not at first but I tend to not be satisfied with the basic performance after a while. So if i plan to overclock yes the PC3200 ram would be valuable. And my guess is the Asus board overclocks better than the EPOX? I had an EPOX back in the day on my old AMD 400MHz and while it was an okay board, I found the board to occasionaly throw fits if it didnt completely love the peripherals.

Ok my friend, quite few things have chnged since the days past as far as the best and worst motherboard makers. Epox, Asus, and Abit are generally considered the top brands at the moment...for the enhusiast market. For overclocking, the Epox and Abit boards generally overclock better than the Asus boards. This is not to say the Asus boards do not o/c well, just the others tend to go just a bit higher at more agressive timings and such.

The best bet for your upgrade, IMO, is to look at the NF2 boards from Asus, Abit and Epox and decide which one fit yours needs. All three manufacturer's boards will allow you to overclock down the line if you decide to. The three models that you should look at are the Asus A7N8X-Deluxe, the Abit NF7-S Rev. 2.0, and the Epox 8RDA+. Here are some links that are a nice place to start to do a little research.

Asus A7N8X Deluxe Reviews @ Neoseeker

Abit NF7-S Reviews @ Neoseeker

Epox 8RDA+ Reviews @ Neoseeker

 

[Korporativ]

alright, finaly made up my mind on what I want.

2X Cosair pc3200 512mb
Epox 8RDA+
2500 Barton

Now, can anyone suggest a decent heastync for the DDR ram and good CPU heatsynch&fan ? I know this part is a little OT but hehe wrapping it all up. Going to order from newegg aswell, they seem like a really good company.