Which motherboard for my new PC

statto

Chaps,

I am sure you are feed up with newbes asking silly questions about new builds. Having read lots of these threads I am now going to have a go at building a PC myself. However I am not sure which motherboard to go with. I intend to use as many parts from my DELL 8200 as I can. I want a solid rig that I can add to and update in the future.
The Basics:
Sonnata case
P4 3Ghz chip
512Mb DDR RAM PC4000 DDR500 - A-Data
Will reuse the following
LITEON DVD-ROM LTD163 [CD-ROM drive]
SONY DVD RW DRU-530A [CD-ROM drive]
64MB NVIDIA GeForce2 MX with TV Out
MAXTOR 6L080J4 [Hard drive] (80.05 GB) IDE

My choice of main boards are
Abit IC7-G
Abit IC7-Max3
Asus P4P800-E Deluxe
Asus P4C800-E Deluxe

Can anyone please recommend which would be the better board to go fore? I intend to add 2 Samsung SpinPoint 160GB SATA for raid 0 and a PowerColor Radeon 9800 PRO when budget allows.

I am not really sure which board is the best to go fore so any advice would be great. The new PC will be used for a bit of gaming, a bit of downloading an some DVD backing up.

Cheers.

grimloch

not too sure about the mobo but if you have a choice get one with nforce 3 on it for overclocking and make sure that graphics card is 256 bit like the sapphire one

subway_ie

Isn't nForce 3 for AMD boards? The P4C800-E Deluxe seems a bit overpriced - especially if you're not going to be using the wi-fi port. I think the Abit IC7-G is a good all-rounder, maybe the IC7-Max3 is you've got money to burn?

grimloch

nforce 3 is for AMD apologies

Venom

I went for the Abit IC7 max 3 and am very happy with it. Fastest out there and the amount of extras on it is amazing.

Creamy Goodness

i've the IC7-G max 2 (bought it the day it came out) it's a great board 4 sata ports loads of extras.

if you have the money get the IC7-G Max3 another great revision to a already great board better northbridge fan and 6 sata ports.

i havn't used anything other than abit for my motherboards and why should i....?? they are top notch and if (when) i'm building again i will use them again without a shadow of doubt.

also one thing i thought was cool is that Abit gave me a IDE-Sata convertor thingy for a IDE drive which was nice of them they retail on komplett for about 20 euros plus you get two sata cables and ROUNDED IDE and FLOPPY cables. not many companies do that do they?

Creamy Goodness

Originally posted by Venom
I went for the Abit IC7 max 3 and am very happy with it. Fastest out there and the amount of extras on it is amazing.

sorry for hijacking the thread but venom in your sig it says your using the Zalman 7000CNPS on an abit ic7-g max3.

i didn't know that was possible as the the largness of the northbridge fan can you post a pic as i might buy a max 3 if it fits comfortably

statto

Thanks for the advice. Will the Abit IC7 max 3 be compatible with my existing IDE hard drive. Also will it be compatible with my choice of memory = 512Mb DDR RAM PC4000 DDR500 - A-Data .

Cheers

BloodBath

The only memory i've heard of that has compatability problems sometimes is Kingston so you should be fine.

The max-3 can take up to 4 ide drives and 6 sata drives.

A great board especially for overclocking. I presume you are overclocking with that choice of RAM. You might want to get a 2.8 processor to max the RAM out. I doubt you will hit 250mhz fsb with a 3.0c. For cooling the best you can get in air is a sp-94 with artic silver 5 and a 92mm fan.


BloodBath

Venom

Originally posted by Cr3m0
sorry for hijacking the thread but venom in your sig it says your using the Zalman 7000CNPS on an abit ic7-g max3.

i didn't know that was possible as the the largness of the northbridge fan can you post a pic as i might buy a max 3 if it fits comfortably

The Zalman fits perfectly. Goto the Zalman site for a list of what mobo's cause a probelm with this fan.

Creamy Goodness

cool looks nice

statto

Thanks for the advice – Bloodbath. Overclocking not an initial priority but would like to be set up for it later. Haven’t looked at fans/cooling yet – will the case fans in the Sonnata be ok for the moment?