I am about to embark on building my first system. Many decisions have already been made. It will be an Athalon XP 1900+ with a Radeon AIW 8500 (the 128MB version), 512 MB of whatever level of DDR RAM I need and a DVD burner.
What I can't decide on is the Motherboard. It seems like the obvious choice is to go with the VIA KT333 chipset. In this area I am looking at:
Gigabyte GA-7VRXP
MSI KT3 ULTRA-ARU
EPOX 8K3A+ KT333CE
The main uses for the box will be Home Theater PC, Moderate Gaming and the usual internet and word processing stuff.
If the Gigabyte had 5.1 audio onboard I think that would be the best choice. I know the Radeon has a Dolby Digital out, which is what I am looking for but I might want to go to 5.1 gaming someday. RAID is not something I will be using at first but it would be nice to have it there. Also, I have DSL so onboard ENet would be good too. Other than the Windows based Geforce overclocking apps, I am new to the whole performance enhancing thing. Would any of these options be better for an introduction to this subject?
I was also thinking about the IWILL XP333-R because of some problems I have heard about and to a lesser extent experienced with VIA based boards. Are the NVidia or AMD chipsets worth looking at.
I guess I want it all, even if I don't really need it all. Please set me straight.
TIA for any help.
KaiTak
BTW I plan to buy most of the parts from Newegg. They have a stellar reputation and the prices are very good if not rock bottom. Any other merchants fit this bill?
What I can't decide on is the Motherboard. It seems like the obvious choice is to go with the VIA KT333 chipset. In this area I am looking at:
Gigabyte GA-7VRXP
MSI KT3 ULTRA-ARU
EPOX 8K3A+ KT333CE
The main uses for the box will be Home Theater PC, Moderate Gaming and the usual internet and word processing stuff.
If the Gigabyte had 5.1 audio onboard I think that would be the best choice. I know the Radeon has a Dolby Digital out, which is what I am looking for but I might want to go to 5.1 gaming someday. RAID is not something I will be using at first but it would be nice to have it there. Also, I have DSL so onboard ENet would be good too. Other than the Windows based Geforce overclocking apps, I am new to the whole performance enhancing thing. Would any of these options be better for an introduction to this subject?
I was also thinking about the IWILL XP333-R because of some problems I have heard about and to a lesser extent experienced with VIA based boards. Are the NVidia or AMD chipsets worth looking at.
I guess I want it all, even if I don't really need it all. Please set me straight.
TIA for any help.
KaiTak
BTW I plan to buy most of the parts from Newegg. They have a stellar reputation and the prices are very good if not rock bottom. Any other merchants fit this bill?
