Value board for Athlon system

[NateSLC]

I'm pricing out a system for an upgrade for my step mother. She's currently running a 133 Pentium with 16MB of RAM. Anyway, she doesn't have a lot to shell out and doesn't really game, so what board should I get for her? I like the KT333 setups. I built a couple for friends. I currently have an extremely stable AMD 761 (Epox 8K7A) and the KT333 seemed as stable. So does anyone have anything to say about the ECS solution? It has raid, which is overkill but it's cheap and can pair it with a cheaper Radeon card (she'll be possible using it for DVD movies). Also, is the Nforce the only integrated graphics solution for AMD?

 

[Vette73]

If you want something cheap then get a board with the KM266 chipset. It is VIA's all in one board. It has the savage 8 video, ethernet, and AC97 sound. They go pretty cheap.

 

[kursplat]

i've done a couple of low $$ ones with FICmotherboards , and been very happy.
good luck

 

[Peter]

If you want neat DVD replay on a budget Athlon board, consider something that uses the SiS 740 chipset w/ integrated VGA. Like ECS K7SOM or L7SOM. KM266 based K7VMM(2) isn't quite as nice, but also viable ... plus it offers an AGP slot that the SiS chipset doesn't allow having.

regards, Peter

 

[BarMan]

Here's my $.02

FIC boards are crap, bad performance and faulty boards all around, stay away.

Cheap and OPTION plenty are the ECS boards, any chipset is fine, just find one that's
cheap enough and is what you want in a motherboard.

Conclusion: ECS board all the way.

 

[NateSLC]

Conclusion: ECS board all the way.

I'm definitely leaning towards an ECS board. I used to have a PC Chips board and it sucked, but it had a Cyrix CPU. (Hey, I was on a budget). From all of the good things I've heard about the Athlon ECS boards, I probably can't go wrong with the price. I've heard very little about any FIC board, so I'll keep away. If it was for me, I'd probably be willing to give FIC a try. I think I'll go with the ECS K7VTA3 unless anyone has anything to say about this board.

Nate

 

[o1die]

I would check out the shuttle ak35gt2 ($49 refurbished at newegg). A much better board than the ecs.

 

[spanky]

yes pcchips is more like pcsh!ts... go ecs my man.

 

[KenGr]

Check out the SOHO article just posted on AnandTech. nForce boards are the way to go for the application you describe. Hard to beat an Athlon 1600 with 19" monitor for $599.

 

[CraigRT]

Even though ECS is still crap compared to other great brands, they are better than FIC from what I have seen.

I'd (shudder) go ECS.

 

[gtd2000]

I've actually know (personally) more people have problems with Abit and Asus boards that ECS to be honest.

I have a K7S5A and it works like a treat.

I also have a KT7A and it seems fine too