Which 939 Mainboard to look at??

[bozack]

Posted a thread on the PF but wanted to look more indepth at mainboards here...

It is time for me to upgrade the old box because Battlefield 2 is out and I want to play....

Currently I have an Athlon XP 2400 on an ECS K7S5a mainboard with a gig of memory and a Radeon 9600 video card...however all of that is going to go as I have been milking it too long.

Through a work goof up I was able to land an EVGA Geforce 6800GT and a Enermax Noisetaker 420 Watt ATX 12V Power Supply

Here is a link to the powersupply specs but if this one sucks I can always sell it or dump it in favor of something else...

http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0183945

I want to stick to a budget so the less I can spend in building this system the better, however I also don't want to be uber cheap as I am tired of ghettoing out my systems....

So far what I am considering is as follows:

Western Digital Caviar SE WD1200JS 120GB 7200 RPM Serial ATA II Hard Drive - OEM
Model #: WD1200JS
$89.00

DFI LANPARTY UT nF4 Ultra-D Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 Ultra ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail
Model #: LANPARTY UT nF4 Ultr
$135.00

OCZ Value Series 2GB (2 x 1GB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200) Unbuffered Dual Channel Kit System Memory Model OCZ4002048V3DC-K - Retail
Model #: OCZ4002048V3DC-K
$186.01

AMD Athlon 64 3500+ Venice 1GHz FSB Socket 939 Processor Model ADA3500BPBOX - Retail
Model #: ADA3500BPBOX
$267.00

Just wondering if the DFI board is a good choice given the other components, namely the memory, video card, processor and the power supply?? or also if there are any less costly options I should consider? I have always been a fan of MSI and or Abit....

I am not going to overclock the system so that is not a concern...

any suggestions or changes would be appreciated, I am in no rush so any and all info will be considered...

Thanks again

 

[justly]

Two things, a socket 754 processor would need a socket 754 motherboard not a socket 939 board and vice versa.
Also there is no reason to spend extra on a "extreme overclocking board" if you don't plan to overclock.

 

[bozack]

my bad, I have to update that CPU info...

any ideas of solid and well optioned mobos that would work for this application would be appreciated...thanks.

 

[Stonemason]

Hmmm... I would pick up a Seagate Barracuda or Samsung Spinpoint for the quiet factor, and for the CPU I would grab a Venice, mainly because there is little price difference (IIRC), runs cooler, and is better for overclocking (I know you dont want to, but in the future you may).

Mobo and RAM is fine, and the PSU should be as well. Is it new and just do the maths and check if you will have enough juice to power you components.

Sure there are less costly options, it all depends on how much you are willing to spend and what you want out of your board. I haven't done too much research outside of the DFI board, but I hear the MSI is stable and I know the Chaintech VNF4 is cheap as chips.

Anandtech is a wealth of information:
http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2465