Need Advice

sprinkles

I'm planning on building my own desktop and was looking for some advice on types of motherboards etc I should look at. I prefer athalon and am looking for a motherboard I can upgrade extensively, up to 4gigs ram etc..

Can anyone please advise?

Thanks

deckie27

Well you want to be looking at an Athlon64 board with pci-e serial ata
I would advise asus, abit or epox
Look at the features of each see whats suits


Dec

StRiKeR

do you have a budget?

not sure if you can get Athlon64 with PCI-E yet, its a Intel thing!
would be nice if its out! but I'm going back to intel in a few days, parting away from this Athlon64...!!!!

sprinkles

I've been assured that the athalon 64 is the way to go. Why are you going back to intel? No real budget in mind. Just looking for a really good machine that I can upgrade. Obviously Don't want to be buying a new motherboard in a years time so I don't mind spending a bit. Just got enough of buying new machine that are out of date within a few months.

MazdaMan

This is a decent board EPoX EP-9NDA3+ with some future proofing built in, you can find it at http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=303412&cks=PRL

Also found a review for it here http://www.nforcershq.com/modules.php?name=nForce_Products&rop=showcontent&id=182

StRiKeR

I dunno really, just feel like I haven't been using intel for yrs now and want to see what would it be like to have an intel again, so I ordered a P4 3.4Ghz S775, already sold one of my Athlon64 system, and only one left to go! after all I can always change back if I want to, its not a life time commitment..!!

If you dont mind spending the money, go for nForce3 chipset along with a Geforce 6 card would be a nice combo, theres no point in using 4gig of ram just yet, 1 to 2 gig is plenty! the boards I got are Chaintech ZNF3 250, very pricey but lots of features! I liked it, MSI are good too but the NB fan is crap, brakes shortly after i bought it so it was kinda noisy plus they seems to have a funny thing with the SATA controller, I've seen 3 of their board wont detect any sata drives connected to the onboard sata, shocking!! DFI are getting pretty good, I would recomment them! out of all the boards I used with AMD, this chaintech one i like the most, apart from the temps sensor which I'm not sure if its reading it right, but I know for sure its not overheating what so ever, it came with alot of stuff, even has 6 in 1 cards reader with it! and 24bit onboard sound with optical output, i prefer optical than other connections!

do some searches and read the review thats the best way I think!

sprinkles

Thanks for the advice. I was only planning on getting 2gig of ram yet but I'd like to have the option to upgrade to 4 when the time comes. Going to have a look at some reviews now.

Gilgamesh

I personally have always bought Gigabyte mainboards in my last four PCs, they are normally crammed with features, S-ATA 4 IDE up to 6 Gigs of Memory, depending on which board you want and how much you are willing to spend.
don't want to start a fight about which Graphicecard, but I personlly switched to ATI afer the Geforce FX starting disasters. but that is like asking someone to buy a BMW or a Mercedes. It's all a matter of taste, but Gigabyte are really good, ASUS and EPOX would be my second choices

StRiKeR

it does kinda like BMW and Merc alright, they are both very good GFX, I suggested nvidia coz ATi seems to be aiming on Intel users more than AMD and nvidia seems to be aiming on AMD users more than intel....!!!

its just my opinion really....!!!

Optikus

I'd go for nVidia atm purely because the 6800 ultra is the best performing GPU out there, and when coupled with the nForce chipset it makes a very nice package

BloodBath

What will you be mainly using the system for?

It all depends on how much your willing to spend and whether you want to overclock. Dubdvd has the best performing system here and it's an Intel so I wouldn't be quick to jump to amd.

The new s775 lga with ddr2 is pretty damn fast. A 3.2e should clock near to or over 4ghz even on air cooling. Having some ddr2 533mhz with this overclocked past 600mhz and a nice big system fsb will give you huge performance. You can't really go wrong with either a 6800 ultra or an x800xt. Nvidia have improved their direct 3d performance and ati have improved their open gl performance. Since most games are still direct 3d i'd be leaning towards ati though.

You sound like your willing to spend a lot. If I were you I would wait for the Intel 1066mhz fsb systems that are just around the corner. There is a 3.43 and a 3.73 Prescott with 2mb of cache. The 3.43 shouldn't be too overpriced and is probably the same chip as the 3.73 so expect it to overclock past 4gh easily enough. The motherboards for these processors are already starting to appear with the chips due in the next month or two.


BloodBath

StRiKeR

sprinkles wrote:

I'm planning on building my own desktop and was looking for some advice on types of motherboards etc I should look at. I prefer athalon and am looking for a motherboard I can upgrade extensively, up to 4gigs ram etc..

Can anyone please advise?

Thanks

regardless of what can be clock higher and what has more cache and how much he wants to spend or what he use it for, he already said it that he wanted an Athlon, so just leave it at that, if he wants to know whats good in the AMD world, help him out to find whats good in a AMD world, I change back to intel cos I'm not dedicated to AMD or Intel, I try both, I advise on what they ask for, and thats what they want to hear!

Man I know you're a very big Intel fan, but for god sake hes looking for a AMD can you not just help him find what he wants instead of trying to change his mind??

BloodBath

I'm not trying to change his mind, i'm just showing him the other end of the scale. He doesn't seem to have much knowledge of either, like he said;

I've been assured that the athalon 64 is the way to go.

He was told a64 was the way to go. I'm saying not necessarily. I'm just giving my opinion, the guy can decide for himself.


BloodBath

StRiKeR

as we can see he had already decided what to go for....

as we can all see both companies are keep coming up with something better all the time and its hard to say which is gonna be the better choice in the future, theres always suprises...!

in saying that I am not too impress with AMD as they have boost the prices too high too early, thats not a good idea for their battle! but then again the 2 companies top cpu are very close in price and also very close in performance at stock speed!

hey how about a 6x4??? nothing can beat that!?!?

sprinkles

I'll be the first to admit I don't know all there is to know about the machines, but I have a fairly good grasp. I'm going for Athalon because I've been using them for the past 5 years and never had a problem with overclocking. I was led to believe its harder to overclock a pentium (harder to cool) but that may have changed. I appreciate your advice on pentiums but I still think I'm going to go for an athalon (although I won't be buying for another month or so, so I will keep an eye out for the new pentium boards).

The machine will be used mostly for gaming and music, I'm going to keep my work on my laptop. I'm mainly looking for a system that will last a while before needing upgrades but when the time comes is upgradable, I don't particulary want ot be buying a new motherboard in a years time.

Any advice is welcome, its just been a while since I did any work on my pc so I'm not up to speed yet. Thanks for the help though.

MazdaMan

There is news that the first of the AMD 64 4000+ is due soon so I would wait for that baby to hit the shelves if you can hang on. You will find some preview info here

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/cpu/display/20040909172101.html

If you do a search in Google for AMD 64 4000+ it will return a raft of information on them.

And for info on Graphics cards you might find the comparisons here interesting

http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20041004/index.html

Optikus

StRiKeR wrote:

as we can see he had already decided what to go for....

as we can all see both companies are keep coming up with something better all the time and its hard to say which is gonna be the better choice in the future, theres always suprises...!

in saying that I am not too impress with AMD as they have boost the prices too high too early, thats not a good idea for their battle! but then again the 2 companies top cpu are very close in price and also very close in performance at stock speed!

hey how about a 6x4??? nothing can beat that!?!?

Is that the new 6x4 Mully technology?? heard it was supposed to be amazing.. have ya got any links to it cant find anything on google?

BloodBath

Right i'm not trying to change your mind here, just filling you in on Pentiums.

Well the Pentium 4's are better for overclocking than the a64's. The new D0 stepping Prescott's are bloody great overclockers. A 3.0-3.2e D0 will clock near to or over 4ghz on air cooling so they are not hard to cool.

Nothing wrong with a64's either. They are good chips for gaming so i'll leave it to the amd heads to help you out. I'd recomend the msi k8n neo platinum mobo. It's one of the best.


BloodBath

StRiKeR

BloodBath wrote:

Right i'm not trying to change your mind here, just filling you in on Pentiums.

Well the Pentium 4's are better for overclocking than the a64's. The new D0 stepping Prescott's are bloody great overclockers. A 3.0-3.2e D0 will clock near to or over 4ghz on air cooling so they are not hard to cool.

Nothing wrong with a64's either. They are good chips for gaming so i'll leave it to the amd heads to help you out. I'd recomend the msi k8n neo platinum mobo. It's one of the best.


BloodBath

there you go mate, aint that cool, by the way my abit board came today, looks very nice, cant wait for the 3.4 chip to arrive, its gonna clock very high... hmm.... yummy I'm on watercool heh heh!


if you not gonna buy it just yet, wait and see what AMD is doing about the PCI-E, myself, yes I got a S775 P4 board and waiting on the chip but I just not willing to jump into the PCI-E yet, sitting back and watching the changes for now!