Unsure of what motherboard to get

[BraindeadGuy]

Hi, I'm currently looking at building my own system, which I'll start to get my act together when I get back in the states at the end of the year. I want a pretty good motherboard for a P4 (2.8 Ghz is what I'm looking at right now) with an AGP 8x slot (because soon games will start to take advantage of that) as I am also planning on investing in the 9700 Radeon (forgive me if I've butchered the spelling).

I saw the ASUS P4S8X 533FSB DDR AGP8X LAN SND USB2 and thought it looked fairly decent. Does anyone have any recommendations on what is out now (or may be coming out in the next couple months). Price is somewhat of a concern, as always, but the current prices for the stuff should be dropped down by January-February.

I'm sure I'll have plenty of posts in here or in other threads as I'm planning on building this from scratch (no case or anything like that) so your input and help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks

 

[buckchoi]

Well if you want AGP8X then there isnt much choice but to go a motherboard with the SiS 648 chipset.
Whether the Asus one is the best I couldn't say but Asus seems to usually put out good products even if they are a bit more expensive than the other brands.

 

[Vette73]

There are two chipsets to look for The SiS648, and the VIA P4X400.

You can get a Good P4X400 boatrd with just about everything(firewire, usb2.0, etc...) for $125 shipped at newegg.com
But it is not a good overclocker as it does not have a AGP/PCI lock.

Now the SiS648 will overclock better on some boards but you might get less features and cost a little more.

 

[oldfart]

The Intel Granite Bay Dual Channel DDR boards will be out before you get back. That will be the chipset to get. As far as which brand, wont know that until they are out,