Vendor recommendations for pre-configured mobos?

[Ken90630]

I was wondering if any of you have any recommendations for a good vendor for pre-configured and tested motherboard combos. I'm looking for a mid-quality motherboard with an Athlon XP 2600 or 2700 installed, along with fan & heatsink, and having some RAM installed would be nice as well (I think PC 2700 DDR, to match the 333 FSB, is what I'd want, right?). I know Monarch Computer in Georgia does this, but I'd like to compare 3 or 4 different vendors and prices before I buy. Any Web sites or points in the right direction would be much appreciated.

One other thing: I think these Athlons come with a heatsink & fan in the retail box. If I decide instead to order individual components and assemble everything myself (I've never done it before, so I'm a little tentative), do any of you have an opinion on whether I should use the heatsink & fan that come with the chip or replace them with an aftermarket unit and do the whole thermal-paste routine instead? Are the thermal pads considered inadequate by "experts," or are they ok? A helpful respondent to one of my posts awhile back suggested an Arctic Cooling "Copper Silent 2" as an aftermarket cooler if I go this route.

I'd like a set-up that'll run at least 5 years with no problems. Longevity and stability are more important to me here than cutting edge or exotic features. Incidentally, I will have a cool case and will not be doing any overclocking (ever).

Thanks in advance for your input.

Ken

 

[mechBgon]

If you want to "recon" the computer-building process, check out the link in my signature. I put a lot of time into that, hope it helps somewhat

Mwave.com is a good, proven vendor that also offers motherboard/CPU bundles and can pre-test them. Personally, I say the heck with that... get a quality motherboard, a quality power supply, some respectable memory (Crucial is a safe bet), and a retail-boxed CPU, and put it together yourself. I don't think there's much to gain by having them pre-test it if it's quality stuff.

The stock thermal pad on an AMD AthlonXP retail heatsink is a phase-change thermal compound that is intended for precisely one use. It is warranted by AMD to do the job for three years, and works just fine as long as it's left alone. If you remove the heatsink, then you'd want to scrape off all of the used-up thermal patch and use some Shin-Etsu thermal grease from then onwards (redistributed by Coolermaster), which is also AMD-approved.

On the RAM, yeah, I think you're best off with RAM that matches the FSB if you're simply going to build & run for 5 years.

Now about the motherboard... assuming you don't need onboard video (that correct?), you might consider the Asus A7N8X Deluxe if you can find it (they now have the A7N8X-E Deluxe but the -E model hasn't gone over as well as the original). It's warranted for three years, it has no northbridge fan to wear out and buzz after 2 years have passed, and it has Firewire and USB 2.0, two 10/100 network jacks, and the fancy nVidia hardware-accelerated 6-channel audio.

 

[Ken90630]

Thanks, Mech, for the great info. I'm probably going to order the parts individually & put everything together myself.

RE the mobo, no, I probably won't need onboard video. I have a Radeon 7000 PCI card from the computer I'm retiring and will probably just put that in a PCI slot on the new board. I won't do any gaming or video rendering on this computer, so that will probably suffice just for Web surfing and very light office programs. Only prob is that it doesn't have DVI out, and I am thinking about getting a new LCD monitor to use with this setup. Oh well, I guess it doesn't matter because I don't think any mobos come with onboard video w/DVI out anyway, do they? So the onboard video won't be a factor in the mobo purchase.

The A7N8X is still available on several sites on the Web. Looks good, and the fact that there's no northbridge fan to wear out a couple years from now, like you say, is VERY appealing. This is EXACTLY the kind of info I was looking for. I'm gonna check out a few other mfgrs' sites just to see what's out there and at what price, but the A7N8X looks like it'll be on my short list.

I'm gonna PM you as I have a couple questions about RAM and setting up the BIOS.

Thanks a ton.

Ken

 

[mechBgon]

Do keep an eye on the details on your A7N8X purchase, because they've got a lot of "flavors" of it. From plainest to fanciest:

• A7N8X-X (single memory controller, basic MCP southbridge w/out Firewire or hardware audio processors)
• A7N8X (dual memory controllers, basic MCP southbridge as above, comes with bracket giving two added rear USB jacks and gameport jack)
• A7N8X Deluxe (the classic, I got one of these... dual memory controllers, fancy MCP-T southbridge w/Firewire, dual NICs, speech diagnostics)
• A7N8X-E Deluxe (updated version of A7N8X Deluxe that adds gigabit Ethernet on one of the NICs... gets mixed reviews around here)

and then the ones with onboard video, both of which use the basic southbridge and have an analog VGA output for the monitor:

• A7N8X-VM
• A7N8X-VM/400 (handles CPUs with DDR400 FSB, such as the AthlonXP 3200+)

For the models with onboard video, Newegg carries an add-in card that plugs into the AGP slot and provides you with a DVI-out jack, if you like. But you could easily pick up a Radeon 7500 AGP card for $45-ish that has its own onboard memory and both DVI and VGA-outs too.

 

[Ken90630]

Again, great info. You're the man.

So I guess none of these mobos actually have a northbridge? I'm a bit confused about the northbridge/memory controller terminology. What's doing what on these boards, and how? Can you educate me a little more?

And you beat me to the punch re the Radeon cards & DVI options. Was just gonna check out some sites and see what's available!

Thanks another ton.

Ken

 

[mechBgon]

Originally posted by: Ken90630
Again, great info. You're the man.

So I guess none of these mobos actually have a northbridge? I'm a bit confused about the northbridge/memory controller terminology. What's doing what on these boards, and how? Can you educate me a little more?

And you beat me to the punch re the Radeon cards & DVI options. Was just gonna check out some sites and see what's available!

Thanks another ton.

Ken

Northbridges they do have... their role is to play middleman between the CPU, the memory, the Advanced Graphcis Port and the southbridge. The southbridge handles the PCI bus and anything that rides it (soldered-down PCI-based SATA chips, etc) , IDE controllers, floppy controllers, audio processing, USB/Firewire, and the optional coffeemaker attachment.

The northbridge has either one or two memory controllers. The nForce2 Ultra 400 northbridge, or "system platform processor" if you use nVidia's terminology, has two memory controllers, while the nForce2 400 (non-Ultra) has one. To help weed out which motherboards have which combinations of northbridge & southbridge, nVidia's got a handy chart. The leftmost column in the chart is the one to pay attention to for the northbridge/southbridge combo.

 

[dmcowen674]

Originally posted by: mechBgon
Do keep an eye on the details on your A7N8X purchase, because they've got a lot of "flavors" of it. From plainest to fanciest:

• A7N8X-X (single memory controller, basic MCP southbridge w/out Firewire or hardware audio processors)
• A7N8X (dual memory controllers, basic MCP southbridge as above, comes with bracket giving two added rear USB jacks and gameport jack)
• A7N8X Deluxe (the classic, I got one of these... dual memory controllers, fancy MCP-T southbridge w/Firewire, dual NICs, speech diagnostics)
• A7N8X-E Deluxe (updated version of A7N8X Deluxe that adds gigabit Ethernet on one of the NICs... gets mixed reviews around here)

and then the ones with onboard video, both of which use the basic southbridge and have an analog VGA output for the monitor:

• A7N8X-VM
• A7N8X-VM/400 (handles CPUs with DDR400 FSB, such as the AthlonXP 3200+)

For the models with onboard video, Newegg carries an add-in card that plugs into the AGP slot and provides you with a DVI-out jack, if you like. But you could easily pick up a Radeon 7500 AGP card for $45-ish that has its own onboard memory and both DVI and VGA-outs too.

Is this your favorite board Tom?

I just dropped a 2500 333 chip in mine today and it ran as a 3200 400.

 

[mechBgon]

Originally posted by: dmcowen674

Originally posted by: mechBgon
Do keep an eye on the details on your A7N8X purchase, because they've got a lot of "flavors" of it. From plainest to fanciest:

• A7N8X-X (single memory controller, basic MCP southbridge w/out Firewire or hardware audio processors)
• A7N8X (dual memory controllers, basic MCP southbridge as above, comes with bracket giving two added rear USB jacks and gameport jack)
• A7N8X Deluxe (the classic, I got one of these... dual memory controllers, fancy MCP-T southbridge w/Firewire, dual NICs, speech diagnostics)
• A7N8X-E Deluxe (updated version of A7N8X Deluxe that adds gigabit Ethernet on one of the NICs... gets mixed reviews around here)

and then the ones with onboard video, both of which use the basic southbridge and have an analog VGA output for the monitor:

• A7N8X-VM
• A7N8X-VM/400 (handles CPUs with DDR400 FSB, such as the AthlonXP 3200+)

For the models with onboard video, Newegg carries an add-in card that plugs into the AGP slot and provides you with a DVI-out jack, if you like. But you could easily pick up a Radeon 7500 AGP card for $45-ish that has its own onboard memory and both DVI and VGA-outs too.

Is this your favorite board Tom?

I just dropped a 2500 333 chip in mine today and it ran as a 3200 400.

It hasn't given me any excuse to complain I only have a sample of one to judge by, of course. Probably the board I could legitimately call my "favorite" is the one that we have 36 of, plus the two that I've owned myself: the old Asus A7N266-VM/AA that's featured in the photo guide in my signature. They aren't an OC'able board, of course... but for what we use them for, they're a nice value and have essentially perfect stability (I do feed them Crucial RAM and Antec 330W or 350W PSUs).

 

[Ken90630]

Got it. With the AMD64 chips having their own "on-die memory controller," I guess I saw "memory controller" and thought, "Wait a minute ... the 64s have 'em, but they're on the chip die and not the mobo ... and the Athlon XPs don't have this, so what's going on here?" Should have thought it thru a bit more before I posted. That's my story anyway and I'm sticking to it.

Oh, and I'm glad you mentioned the coffeemaker attachment. Almost forgot to add that to my spec list. Can you plug in FireWire coffeemakers or only USB 2.0-equipped models? LOL (well, chuckling)

Ken

 

[mechBgon]

Hehe!