ASUS Mobo Recommendations

[Skavenger]

Hello;

I have been living in deepest darkest Africa for a couple of years so I have
fallen behind on technology somewhat and need some advice on a new build.

I have an ASUS A7N8X Deluxe with an Athlon XP2800 and have the system to be
fantastically stable and would like to stick to an AMD / ASUS baseline.

What ASUS AMD Mobo would you recommend?
What AMD Processor for the above? What are we up to now 64 Bit
What memory for the above?

Did Serial ATA Drives take off or is IDE still the Norm.

I am popping of to Germany for a shopping trip and now a couple of good
computer suppliers that I use to use so if I buy in Germany recommendations
here might be restricted to that market however any advice would be sound.

 

[Mercury]

A8V (Via chipset) or A8N (Nvidia) families of boards offer AMD support with
X64 option.

See www.asus.com.tw for detail & drivers (get all the latest drivers & bios
before returning).

The A8V family is the economy group with Via chipset - they are good. If
budget is an issue these are fine otherwise try one of the A8N family.
Consider A8V if you want to retain an AGP card as it has an AGP slot.

A8V takes 754 pin CPU's, the A8N 939 Pin CPU's.

A8N includes SLI and one non SLI board (A8N-E) - all are PCI-e graphics. The
non SLI is the A8N-E (which I have), and for ultimate in performance
graphics the various A8N-SLI, A8N-SLI Deluxe, and A8N-SLI Premium (heat pipe
southbrdige cooling - must be mounted 'right way up' IE on left opening
cases, not right. There is the new A8N32-SLI Deluxe too - it is supposed to
be a ripper.

The Athlon chips that also support X64 come in several families:
I'll skip the A8V options - if you need advice on that, post back.
- Athlon 64 FX - top performance at a price
- for the price, requires wealth, but the best performance
- Athlon X2 - dual pocessor cores
- suitable if you have multi active programs / threads
- Athlon 64 - the 64 bit version of the old 32 bit XP's.
- from least cost with good performance upwards.

The A 64's run really cool so I recommend them. The X2's marginally warmer,
and the FX warmer again - not sure, but abolutely nowhere near as hot as any
Intel 64 bit. The great benefit with the A8N is that you can upgrade from a
budget A 64 low end chip to either top end FX or top end X2's ==> over 300%
performance upgrade path.

The A8N-E is a low cost board ~ $110 US.

If you are in deep dark Africa then cooling is likely to be an issue. I
would recommend a Thermaltake XP120 heatsink + quiet 12cm fan for the CPU
(overkill). There are many other alternatives. Without yet having recieved
it and tried it I suggest you look at the Swiftech's MCX159CU for
Southbridge cooling (which tends to run hotter than the CPU)

Memory - go to www.corsair.com and use there tools to pick, or look at the
Approved list that Asus publishes (I think it is on the product info pages
for A8N's). Download and review the manual for the board you chose before
purchase so you know what you are getting.

All these boards happily run Windows32 bit OS or 64bit. Unless you have a
reason, stick to Windows 32bit for the moment - very many 3rd party drivers
have not been provided by their vendors for 64 bit yet. The A8N-E I have
installed XP64 onto a RAID 1 array without the lightest hitch - all device
drivers for sound, nic, etc for the A8N are avalable... I believe its is the
same for the SLI boards too.

Do you need a UPS? Backup systems?

Thats it for starters...

HTH



- The

 

[Mercury]

SATA is the norm these days for HDD's...

A8V (Via chipset) or A8N (Nvidia) families of boards offer AMD support
with X64 option.

See www.asus.com.tw for detail & drivers (get all the latest drivers &
bios before returning).

The A8V family is the economy group with Via chipset - they are good. If
budget is an issue these are fine otherwise try one of the A8N family.
Consider A8V if you want to retain an AGP card as it has an AGP slot.

A8V takes 754 pin CPU's, the A8N 939 Pin CPU's.

A8N includes SLI and one non SLI board (A8N-E) - all are PCI-e graphics.
The non SLI is the A8N-E (which I have), and for ultimate in performance
graphics the various A8N-SLI, A8N-SLI Deluxe, and A8N-SLI Premium (heat
pipe southbrdige cooling - must be mounted 'right way up' IE on left
opening cases, not right. There is the new A8N32-SLI Deluxe too - it is
supposed to be a ripper.

The Athlon chips that also support X64 come in several families:
I'll skip the A8V options - if you need advice on that, post back.
- Athlon 64 FX - top performance at a price
- for the price, requires wealth, but the best performance
- Athlon X2 - dual pocessor cores
- suitable if you have multi active programs / threads
- Athlon 64 - the 64 bit version of the old 32 bit XP's.
- from least cost with good performance upwards.

The A 64's run really cool so I recommend them. The X2's marginally
warmer, and the FX warmer again - not sure, but abolutely nowhere near as
hot as any Intel 64 bit. The great benefit with the A8N is that you can
upgrade from a budget A 64 low end chip to either top end FX or top end
X2's ==> over 300% performance upgrade path.

The A8N-E is a low cost board ~ $110 US.

If you are in deep dark Africa then cooling is likely to be an issue. I
would recommend a Thermaltake XP120 heatsink + quiet 12cm fan for the CPU
(overkill). There are many other alternatives. Without yet having recieved
it and tried it I suggest you look at the Swiftech's MCX159CU for
Southbridge cooling (which tends to run hotter than the CPU)

Memory - go to www.corsair.com and use there tools to pick, or look at the
Approved list that Asus publishes (I think it is on the product info pages
for A8N's). Download and review the manual for the board you chose before
purchase so you know what you are getting.

All these boards happily run Windows32 bit OS or 64bit. Unless you have a
reason, stick to Windows 32bit for the moment - very many 3rd party
drivers have not been provided by their vendors for 64 bit yet. The A8N-E
I have installed XP64 onto a RAID 1 array without the lightest hitch - all
device drivers for sound, nic, etc for the A8N are avalable... I believe
its is the same for the SLI boards too.

Do you need a UPS? Backup systems?

Thats it for starters...

HTH



- The

 

[Venom]

Some folks think SATA is the norm nowdays but IDE is still the trouble free
one to use.

 

[Mercury]

SATA is not the issue. It invariably works 100%. It is peoples lack of
knowledge of BIOS, RAID, Driver installation via F6, computers, and their
inability to read manuals.

 

[Paul Goodhew]

Mercury wrote in message ...

SATA is not the issue. It invariably works 100%. It is peoples lack of
knowledge of BIOS, RAID, Driver installation via F6, computers, and their
inability to read manuals.

totally agree. Sata is dead simple to set up. it amazes me how many people
have trouble with it. just remember to buy a floppy drive with that new
pc...

 

[Peter van der Goes]

A8V (Via chipset) or A8N (Nvidia) families of boards offer AMD support
with X64 option.

See www.asus.com.tw for detail & drivers (get all the latest drivers &
bios before returning).

The A8V family is the economy group with Via chipset - they are good. If
budget is an issue these are fine otherwise try one of the A8N family.
Consider A8V if you want to retain an AGP card as it has an AGP slot.

A8V takes 754 pin CPU's, the A8N 939 Pin CPU's.

<snip>
Please don't tell my A8V Deluxe it takes a 754 pin CPU, it's been running a
939 pin Winchester for almost a year without incident

 

[psych]

And my A8V Deluxe has been running a 939 pin Venice core without a hitch for
a while now.

 

[Mercury]

Whoops sorry, your right its the other series which I never have anything to
do with as its 754

You can put those 185 pins back in your CPU's now and all will be
right...........

Crawls off in shame ...