What motherboard should I buy???

kensutz

I just got a new case for my pc modding. I'm building it from scratch but my uncle isnt here to tell me what parts to buy. The main part i'm worried about is the motherboard and processor. What's the difference between Pentium/Athlon and Celeron??? And which one should I go for. Any help will be appreciated as I want to start buying parts soon.

stereo_steve

All depends on how much money you have?

AMD/Intel - At the moment Intel is the best(MY opinion before I get slaughtered by the AMD fans!!). I say this because there latest cgips are faster and can be heavily overclocked. However I dunno if you want to make a monster or entry level machine.

So how much cash do you have? And are you just buying mobo,cpu,ram or the whole chibang?

kensutz

got a good bit of money lying around. it'll be a high spec gaming computer and this computer is being used for broadband and stuff like that. so what i'll be looking for is a mobo, processor, ram and graphics card. I can worry about the rest myself. Thanx for the help.

stereo_steve

You still haven't said how much cash you have!!! Well heres the best stuff you could at the moment.

Abit IC7-G motherboard € 231.53
Intel 3Ghz 800Mhz FSB P4 Processor €510.28
Corsair 2x256Mb 400Mhz DDR Ram €204.70
Geforce 5900 128MB Graphics card €544.27

All this comes to a total of €1490!!

That would be a monster of a machine! But you might only have a quarter of that. You'll have to give us a rough idea of what your prepared to spend.

SouperComputer

i think we can all agree to forget celeron anyway!

kensutz

I'd say about €1500+

stereo_steve

Well then your laughing. I'd say the parts I listed above are perfect. Just hang on a day or two and see what the others say.

Good luck!

pencil

Hey Guys (Stereo_steve)

May be you can help me out on this thread as well.

I've a 3 year old Gateway (never again!) and have always had trouble with my sound card & onboard USB on the machine.

(1g Athlon chip - 640mg RAM - 32mb Geforce3 - 20gig hard drive)

I'm reckoning that my motherboard is faulty. I've rebuilt it twice (system) - currently running win2000 SP3.


I want to get a new motherboard, chip & graphics card.

I'm thinking of this graphics card:

Creative Labs Geforce 4 Ti 64MB, 8x AGP, TV-OUT
http://www.komplett.ie/k/k.asp?ck=1&r=1&action=info&s=pl&p=28943&AvdID=1&CatID=24&GrpID=1

I saw this http://www.peats.ie/cgi-bin/shop/db.cgi?q=GA-7VAXPU in peats, it looks good to me but then again I haven't a clue about motherboards or their compatibility with my corrent machine. It has USB 2, Firewire, 8x APG, onboard 5.1 sound.

Thinking of going with a 2.2mhz AMD chip.

Do you think this is a good board?
Should it fit in my machine? (dumbass question - but I don't know)

Would you recommend something else?
Would you recommend that I go the INTEL route?


What would you recommend (board, chip, 500mb Ram) for 400 to 600 euros?

Have you guys any links to help in replacing motherboards?

Any help or advice would be great.

This is to go in a Graphics & game machine.

Creamy Goodness

To pencil

this is what i'd do if i have 400-600 euros to spend

Processor

Motherboard


Graphics Card - By the way i got one of these and it's bloody brilliant for the price



for all of the above it comes to €516.76 + 13.63 for delivery

BabyEater

kensutz I would say it would be a big waste of money buying those components stereo steve is talking about . They are great components but they are far too dear. I would sooner pick up a Intel 2.8GHz as it doesn't have the price premium of the 3GHz chip you are paying 168 for 200MHz .You could spend 160 on a 1.8GHz and overclock it too 3GHz .
Also i recommend geting the TwinMoss 3200 2*256 for €89 it will do cas 2 at over 200MHz and is over half the price of the Corsair.

pencil i would recommend an nForce board like
this


http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?action=info&p=34155&t=845&l=2&AvdID=1&CatID=10&GrpID=5&s=pl

the graphics card is good tho .

Chowley

Im building one myself at the moment for about the same money

Im going for

Epox 8rda+ mobo
crucial 512mb
AMD Athlon XP 2800+ processor
ATI 9800pro gfx

The great thing about the athlon is it would be perfect for your needs and you would save about 200euro for other nice equipment.You could get an Audigy 2 or 5.1 speakers or a nicer cse by ignoring the intel, you dont need hyper threading.

The epox board is supposed to be excellent especially for overclocking.

Chowley

Pencil.
That board is a kt400 chipset I think.You would be better off going with an NForce 2 chipset like the board I mentioned above.
Go to Komplett to check out the board its a cheap supplier too.
Id personally say stick with AMD cheaper and you get all you need for gaming.

stereo_steve

kensutz, What Babyeater said about it being expensive is true, however I think its worth it.

THe 3GHZ pentium 4 is a new chip. It has a FSB of 800mhz as opposed to the 2.8 which has a 533mhz. THis makes a HUGE difference. According to the reviews, its got nearly twice the memory bandwidth of previous chips. Also apparantly these guys can be hugely overclocked. Alot of people are getting it up to 4GHZ(mind you they are using watercooling,but still)

Like Babyeater said, I wouldn't normally go fo the top chip because you pay a premium which usually isn't worth it, however the new 3Gz chip I think is worth it because at the moment its by far the fastest chip

You said that you wanted to use your machine for gaming. So here are some gaming benchmarks.

http://www.tomshardware.com/motherboard/20030414/i875p-19.html

You can see that both the 2.8Ghz and 3Ghz are both excellant chips Its up to you if you think the price difference is worth it.

pencil

Cheers everyone,

Okay I'm thinking..


EPoX EP-8RDA3+ mainboard Socket A, LAN
nForce2SPP/MCP-T/Ultra 400,1394,USB2.0


(BabyEater & Chowley) Do you all reckon the NVidia nForce2 SPP Chipset Type is better? can you tell me why?
(I really am going on you guys/gals opinions as I only can tell the high end differences).

AMD Athlon XP2500+ 1.833 GHz 333 MHz bus
Socket A (Barton) processor, 512kb BOXED


Asus V9280 GeForce4 Ti4200-8X 128MB DDR - (cheers Cr3m0 - looks good)

Which all comes to EUR 459

Two more questions:

1. Can you see any conflicts with my above choices?

2. Or would anyone make any modifications or other recommendations?


Cheers for you help so far... boards is great.


(P.s I'm holding off on the really dumbass questions for later - it would probably be a lot easier for me to just buy a computer but Fu@k it - I want to learn about this stuff.)

Chowley

I am basically going on reviews of magazines I trust.
The NForce 2 chipset is generally believed to be the quicker chipset but the KT400 is good too.
I have decided on the Epox because it supposed to be an excellent board and great for overclocking to quote PC pro,

"It offers tremendous flexibility and is stable efven at massively overclocked speeds.And its fast even at standard speeds too, making it an ideal all round choice."

Its BIOS allows you to adjust the CPU multiplier straight out of the box, you can lock the AGP port at 66mhz to aid stability.It also gives you great control over CPU voltage in increments of .025V.

I would also recommend the coolermaster Aero7 CPU cooler which is great for non-overclocked systems as well as overclocked.You can set the fan speed control in either a pci slot or 3.5" slot.

The gfx card is good bu if you have more money to spend maybe go for a 9700pro or see what the 9600 pro turns out like.
I dont know what to do myself when it comes to the GFX, I was content with the Idea of the 9800pro but after seeing the GForce FX5900 Ultra Im not so sure just have to wait and see.

But that combination you have looks good.
Pretty much any of the current AMD or Intel chips will be sufficient for any applications you want to run.You really dont even need to go for the upper end chips like the P4 3ghz chip or the forthcoming Athlon XP 3200+ it will be a while before your average computer user will need these chips.

What type of memory are you going to use?

popinfresh

Get your ram from England, a 512 pc2100 ddr is £39.95 sterling(see here) which'd work out no more that €70 on your credit card bill, get two of those, Imagine 1gig of Ram, I'm gonna get those when i get the chance

Col_Loki

Komplett have 512mb Pc2100 ram for €53 See Here they also have corsair 512mb - for €58 !! Im thinkin thats quite a good price

BabyEater

stereo i was talking about the 800fsb version of the 2.8GHz chip as you can get all the way down to 2.4GHz chips with 800MHz fsb.

Pencil the nForce boards are quicker than the KT400 's some like the ASUS Delux and the Abit NF7-S have brilliant onboard sound , SATA

pencil

A BIG big 'Thank You' to everyone (especially Chowley)

Still a bit daunting but going to talk the plunge.


You you guys think I'll have any problems replacing an existing Gateway motherboard with the above kit above?


I'll get that Fan Chowley.

Again the range of RAM is daunting.
Is komplett's '512mb Pc2100 ram for €53' for 53euro a good choice?

Myg

TBH, the one thing you want, is to match the running FSB of the mobo/ram/CPU, so you remove most of the possible bottlenecks.
I would suggest getting the following:


CPU:
http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?action=info&p=32320&t=795&l=2&AvdID=1&CatID=4&GrpID=6&s=pl


MOBO:
http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?action=info&p=30413&t=845&l=2&AvdID=1&CatID=10&GrpID=5&s=pl


RAM, 2 of these:
http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?action=info&p=30121&t=1014&l=2&AvdID=1&CatID=17&GrpID=9&s=pl

And if your going to wait a while before you buy the PC, it might be a good idea to wait for the next gen of Vcards this summer/3Q? Otherwise i would recommend the ATI 9700 Pro

Althought these are not all the latest items (400fsb barton to come and the ram could be 3200(400) ), they will deliver quite a performance.

My couple hundred 2 cent worth...

pencil

The Amateur shows his hands!


Myg, what is the 'FSB'?


Is it the Mhz rate on each piece?

AMD Athlon XP2800+ 2.083 GHz 333 MHz bus

Asus A7N8X mainboard for Socket A
nForce2SPP/MCP/Ultra 400,ATX,USB2.0,LAN
&

TwinMOS PC2700 DDR-DIMM 512MB CL2
Memory184-P (for DDR-PC333MHz)

The ATI is a bit out of my range.

You think I'll have any problems replacing an existing Gateway motherboard with the above kit above?

Cheers

BabyEater

I would go for the 3200 CL2.5 instead of the 2700 as it will run as CL2 and has the headroom incase Pencil ever wants to overclock

Chowley

FSB is front side bus.

What type of case is your gateway, I presume it would be a tower unless it was a business PC in which case it could be a desktop case (I forget the technical names for these cases) but if it is a tower you should have no problems.

Myg

I dont think he would really need to o/c his ram, as the bottleneck would most likely be his video card.

BUT i would be worried about the PSU.... These manu's like DELL mess with their PSUs so they only work on their specific boards.

pencil

Hi all,

Instead of this:
Asus V9280 GeForce4 Ti4200-8X 128MB DDR
AGP 8X, (V9280/TD) DVI, Tv-Out
EUR 156.54

I have been doing some reading and the GeForce4 Ti4800SE is suppose to be the european version of the Ti4600,which gets good ratings - anyone have opinions on this? Which one of the two below would you go for the: Gainward or Creative?


Creative 3DBlas. GeForce4 Ti4800SE 128MB
AGP, 128MB 3,6ns DDR,TV-Out, DVI, Retail
199.48

Gainward AGP GeForce4 Ti4800SE 128MB DDR
"Ultra/750-8X XP Golden Sample"
210.18


Bought 'Computer Technology' mag it had a review of the
Asus A7N8X Deluxe/GD mainboard got a great review - so based on your recemmendation & this I will go with this - end of story - will stop looking at mobo now (thank F).
EUR 145.75


Had a good poke at the gateway (model ATXSTF) case last night & it doesn't look like the mobo is replaceable - everything is riveted to the casing & their is no removeable back plate for the external connectors. Don't know about the PSU.

I think I'll have to buy a new case - any recommendations?


Cheers chowley (FSB) will do some reading.

(babyeater I've no idea what your talking about - have done searches on '3200 CL2.5' - to no avail, any chance you can expand?)

Myg

Take note of the following.



GF4 ti 4200 - 8x = Ti4200 with 8* agp
GF4 ti 4800SE = Ti4400 with 8* agp
GF4 ti 4800 = Ti4600 with 8* agp



RAM speeds:

2100 - 266
2700 - 333
3200 - 400

CL * (usualy 2 or 2.5)- Cas Latency, * = the amount of cycles the ram goes through before actualy reading the information. So lower is better, but some tests claim there is little difference in performance.

Chowley

Well if you are looking for a really nice looking case that is very well built and probably the most user friendly case around then the Thermaltake Xaser III os about the best around.That is the case i am gonna buy for myself.
The blue Xaser III with window.
If you dont want a flashy case you should probably stay away.
If you want ease of use this is no tools required and it really means unlike most cases.Great airflow too.
If you attend LAN parties then go for the alluminium case,nice and light.
Maybe a bit steep regarding price at €180 inc. VAT but it really is well worth it.Great case.
Check it out.

Elara

Thermaltake

Get a review at: Hardcoreware.net (Xaser III review) :ninja:

kensutz

Ok. I'm gonna get this processor so I need advice on a mobo for it.


http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?action=info&p=29076&t=795&l=2&AvdID=1&CatID=4&GrpID=6&s=pl

Thanks guys for the help.

dood

Currently got a p4 1.5ghz , i850 motherboard with 256mb of RDRAM.
Thinking of getting the following from www.microdirect.co.uk although Komplett are looking fairly competitive at the mo

Intel® Pentium® 4 2.8GHz [800MHz] 512Kcache Retail inc.Fan[3 yr.war] £229.13 inc vat
- dont think the 3 gig is worth the xtra cash

Abit IC7 P4 Intel® 875P 800FSB 8xAGP +Serial ATA RAID +Firewire + USB2 +6 ch. Audio Dual ch. DDR400 - £116.33 inc vat

2x256MB DDR PC3200 400MHz + Alum. heat spreader [branded Geil] - £ 28.20 each inc vat

ATI Radeon 9700 PRO - £ 222.08 inc vat

350W Enermax adjustable fan speed PSU with active PFC -
£ 42.30 inc vat

hopefully ill be able to play Doom3 and HL2 satisfactorily on a rig like that

Matt Simis

Dood, just so you know, someone (well, ok me) is selling P4 cpus on the Forsale board here:

P4 2.66 for €140 or a 2.8 for €240
Both 533MHz FSB models.

Bear the Forsale board in mind for system building, sometimes you can get parts for pretty good prices.


kensutz, the Abit NF7 2.0 (nforce2) is a nice board with lotsa "deluxe" addons (comes with the Abit Seriall adapter, RAID, Dolby D sound). Just be aware of the compatibility problems with all nForce motherboards, havent experienced any myself, but they are there. A good cheap board would be the Abit KD7 (KT400) or any KT400a board when available.



Matt

Chowley

Ok. I'm gonna get this processor so I need advice on a mobo for it.

Im building a system myself and im gonna go for the XP 2800+ processor and an epox 8rda+ NForce2 based board.Its a really great board.

Epox 8rda+ from Komplett

:ninja:

Venom

Originally posted by Chowley

Elara

Thermaltake

Get a review at: Hardcoreware.net (Xaser III review) :ninja:

Im gonna pick me up one of these case's only in black. Talk about one awsome looking case

Just wondering where is the best place to pick one of these up?

Chowley

They are sexy cases arent they Im gonna get a blue one me thinks.
The only place I have seen them in Ireland is Elara to be honest I havent looked around that much for them they dont have it in Komplett and it is a reasonable price.:D

Venom

Originally posted by Chowley
They are sexy cases arent they Im gonna get a blue one me thinks.
The only place I have seen them in Ireland is Elara to be honest I havent looked around that much for them they dont have it in Komplett and it is a reasonable price.:D

Cheers bro. Yeah Elara do seem to be my best option so there going to be getting my business

BigEejit

If youre into overclocking ... have a look at this page on www.sysopt.com , one of those new fangled 2.4C P4's on an Abit IC7 board and vapochilling ...got it up to 3.6Ghz ... thats a whopper of an increase .... 50%!! ...

I saw somewhere else that some guy had got his 2.4C on an Abit board up to 3Ghz with the intel supplied cooling ... (I remember he said he played 4 hours of Ut2k with no probs)

Hopefully my order with Komplett will be filled on Monday, and I'll have mine next week .... woohoo

Venom

I had ordered an Abit IC7 M/B just before I read you post

superfly

if you are looking at the ti 4800se cards, i was seriously going to go for one of those but i am now going for the basic 9700 non-pro for €260
but if you are going for the gainward card its not a ti 4400 its a ti 4200 overclocked so watch yourself there, but they reviews say that its not too much of a problem

Scruff

Originally posted by Chowley

Epox 8rda+ from Komplett

:ninja: [/B]

i was thinking of getting one of these too but a load of reviews that i've read have said this board has serious overheating issues when the fsb is being pushed up to the 200mhz mark. The passive heat sink on the northbridge has terrible thermal past between them and you need get a new heatsink + fan to keep it under control and even then stability is an issue.

"So what, i'm not an o'cer" ye might say but this means ye'll probably have to buy a new mb if you want to upgrade to a 400mhz fsb athon xp when they come out.

ozt9vdujny3srf

117905 Q-Tec Power supply ATX 400W Gold PFC
- Power supply AMD/P4, Dual Fan (UK) In stock: 50-99 1 44,03 44,03
116056 MSI DVD rom IDE 16x/48x (D16)
- Bulk In stock:
100+ 1 40,30 40,30
118389 TwinMOS PC3200 DDR-DIMM 256MB CL2
- 32M*8/8chip, 184-P (for DDR-PC400MHz) In stock: 20-49 2 51,09 102,18
118256 Asus P4P800 Mainboard for S478/800mhz
- I865PE, Dual DDR, SATA, sou, ATA100, LAN In stock: 50-99 1 139,62 139,62
117312 Intel Pentium 4 2.4 GHz Boxed PC800
- Socket PGA478, 512kB "Northwood" In stock: 20-49 1 215,52 215,52

Shipping: 16,86
Total: 558,51
VAT: 96,93


Well above is what i am getting from komplett.ie, i really think its worth spending the extra mney on the p4 with 800mhz fsb, because it beats the pants of any amd that is around the same price.

As for the motherboard, initally I was gonna go for the ABIT IC7 which is based on a canterwood chipset, but seeing as Asus have unlocked PAT on Springdale the chipset,o giving it nearly equal performance at a much better price,

AS for the €1500 guy, you have the world at your fingertips ye lucky **** I am not well up on the gfx situation atm but afail the radeon 9800 kicks the geforce fx 5800's ass. I dunno about the 5900. There is nop need for you to go budget on a processor, which means the 3ghz pentium w/fsb of 800mhz all the way!,
And make sure you get 400mhz ddr in a pair so you can use dual ddr :P

the above will be paired with myy geforce4 ti4600 that i bought when they were the bee's knees. Now thats a spicy meatball :P

Chowley

The 5900 kicks the 9800 senseless.

I was gonna go for the 9800pro until i read about the 5900 ultra.

rander00

Im looking for a case myself. Just see yis talking bout the ones on Elara. I cant seem to find any cases at all on that site.

What are they under??

Venom

Here

There ya go.

Catalyst

This should help

David C

Originally posted by Scruff
i was thinking of getting one of these too but a load of reviews that i've read have said this board has serious overheating issues when the fsb is being pushed up to the 200mhz mark. The passive heat sink on the northbridge has terrible thermal past between them and you need get a new heatsink + fan to keep it under control and even then stability is an issue.

"So what, i'm not an o'cer" ye might say but this means ye'll probably have to buy a new mb if you want to upgrade to a 400mhz fsb athon xp when they come out.

I planned to get one of the EPoX EP-8RDA+ mobos too but have changed my mind after reading your piece.

What would you advise as a better socket A mobo?
115646 Abit KD7-S mainboard for Socket A (DDR)
- VIAKT400, S-ATA, ATX, USB2.0, LAN, AGP8X
€80.65?

TBH, when I look at all of the Abit mobos, i can see very little difference.. why the big price difference?
Was thinking of just going for the cheapest one (€80.60).. is that a bad/good idea?

Chowley

Of all the reviews I have read about the 8rda+ not one has mentioned overheating and they werent all website reviews either which I am learning not to be too trusting of stick with the epox.

Col_Loki

Hey , the abit boards are all pretty well spec'd . If your looking for a good board with pretty much everything an ordinary user wants go for the Abit KD7, there easy to fit and have good on board sound.

Dont think the "200 fsb" will be a problem for you unless your overclocking. There is only one Amd chip that needs that (xp3200+) , and last i heard that was the last chip amd were makin of the Xp's - clawhammer comming out in sept.

If your going to be overclocking spend the little extra and get the ic7.