Which motherboard to get?

[BCSeaMonkey]

I am planning to upgrade just to play Doom3. I jumped on the Crucial DDR RAM deal so I got about 1 gig of DDR RAM at the moment. Can anybody recommand the best motherboard + cpu + fan combo for the best bang for the bucks? Don't really want to go 64 bit on the CPU, figure by the time most softwares are 64 bits, it's time to upgrade anyways! I have an Antec full tower case.

 

[BCSeaMonkey]

Ohyeah, going Athlon btw, didn't really think about overclocking but I might try it.

 

[o1die]

Is your memory pc3200? If so, I would recommend a chaintech mobo ($69 after rebate at mwave.com). with a retail boxed athlon 64 3200 (about $215 at newegg or monarch computers).

 

[BCSeaMonkey]

Yes my memory is PC3200. Thanks for the recommandation, I am thinking to go non-64 though, hoping to drop the price a little. Or will I not save that much?

 

[o1die]

You won't save that much. If your new system is for gaming, then athlon 64 is the way to go. Fry's electronics has had the athlon 64 3000 with asus via mobo for about $250, the lowest price I've seen at a retail vender. But the nforce3 chipset is better. You can get the athlon 64 3000 for about $180 online, which saves you $35. So with the chaintech board, it's still about $250-260. I got my own 2.8c with ecs single channel memory board for $150 recently, and it will run at 3.36-3.5, depending on the ram and power supply. Not a bad deal, even with a cheap mobo. I moved the cpu to an msi board for dual channel support.

 

[Fern]

Get a mobile Barton 2600+, Stepping IQYHA (good OCer). Guaranteed steppings can be purchased from excaliberpc.com Mine cost about $100

Get an nForce mobo. NF7 (or NF7-S v2, but NOT NF7-S2, almost same name, but different animal) or a Shuttle an35n-ultra etc if you're on a budget. My shuttle cost about $55, my Nf7-S was about $100.

You'll need a HS+f if you get a mobile. I'm currently using a Vantec Aeroflow (came with the fan) for $25

Fern