Good MB for a mid-range PC?

[max]

I'm looking to upgrade a PC for a friend, and haven't built an AMD box
before. I'm looking for something midrange - no gaming, good quality
- and not too expensive, but it doesn't need to be ultra-cheap either.
He'll be running XP, and re-using lots of his old components, but
we'll get a new case, CPU, and RAM.

I want something not too expensive that will perform well for a few
years.

- CPU less than $150, maybe an A64 3000+?
- MB less than $125
- PCI Express would be good for the future too
- 512 M max for now
- Overclocking isn't important, and neither is 64 bit
- Serial port and 2 ATA ports
- Needs to be stable and solid
- Onboard sound is preferred
- Onboard video is OK, if it's better than his current GeForce 3

What's a good-quality MB that won't require a lot of fiddling?

Thanks!

max

 

[Tim]

A8N-E or
A8V
- Tim

 

[Stephan Grossklass]

I'm looking to upgrade a PC for a friend, and haven't built an AMD box
before. I'm looking for something midrange - no gaming, good quality
- and not too expensive, but it doesn't need to be ultra-cheap either.

Probably something Socket 939, then. Maybe 754.

He'll be running XP, and re-using lots of his old components,

Hopefully not the hard drive, if it's older than 2 years or so.

but
we'll get a new case, CPU, and RAM.

I want something not too expensive that will perform well for a few
years.

- CPU less than $150, maybe an A64 3000+?

Whatever it is, it should be something with a Winchester or Venice core
(i.e. 90nm), not the old 130 nm stuff.

- MB less than $125
- PCI Express would be good for the future too
- 512 M max for now
- Overclocking isn't important, and neither is 64 bit
- Serial port and 2 ATA ports
- Needs to be stable and solid
- Onboard sound is preferred

(= "The speakers suck anyway.")

- Onboard video is OK, if it's better than his current GeForce 3

I'm not aware of any integrated graphics solution more powerful than a
GF3. That'll have to be reused then, which in turn means you'll need an
oldstyle AGP equipped board. And that usually means bye bye to PCIe and
hello to lots of PCI32/33 slots.

Asus only has two boards with socket 939 and AGP, the A8V and the A8V
Deluxe, both based upon the VIA K8T800Pro. It looks better in case of
socket 754 (remember, only single-channel and current/future CPUs
Sempron only), where you have the nF3 250Gb based K8N-E Deluxe and the
K8T800 based K8V SE (Deluxe). Oh, and there's a more basic K8V-X, too.
How trouble-free these are, I don't know, but a search should turn up
something.

Stephan

 

[Tim]

The K8V's are good for what they are - you should be able to pick one up new
starting around $US50 or so.

Up until recently I did not have much hope for these boards as their future
seemed doomed. However recently I have read the AMD road map and it states
quite clearly that there will be a succession of new 754 pin CPU's for quite
a while.

Whatever you do, there is a chipset in the K8T800 family you do not want if
ever you want to be able to upgrade to dual core - they simply cannot do it.
Not sure, bu tI think it is something like K8T880????

The A8N-E I mention as it has an excellent future - supports dual core CPU's
& if you start with one of the lower cost CPU's now, you will be able to
pick out an X2 at a good price sometime way off in the future and get over
100% upgrade - it is rare to be able to do that. The A8N-E should otherwise
be well within budget.

However, as pointed out, the A8N-E is a PCIe board and there is little if
nothing in the way of low cost graphics cards for PCIe.

- Tim

 

[Bob Willard]

max schrieb:




Hopefully not the hard drive, if it's older than 2 years or so.

Well, older HDs are likely to be slower than new HDs, but HDs do tend
to have a rather long lifetime if installed in PCs with decent cooling.

In my house, 9 of the 11 HDs are more than 2 years old, and 8 of
those 9 run 24x7. The 9 veteran HDs include one from '94, one from '95,
one from '96, one from '98, and one from '99.

Old HDs never die, they just get obsolete. ;-)

 

[max]

I'm not aware of any integrated graphics solution more powerful than a
GF3. That'll have to be reused then, which in turn means you'll need an
oldstyle AGP equipped board. And that usually means bye bye to PCIe and
hello to lots of PCI32/33 slots.

Dang! I spaced that part completely.

I was really hoping to go for an Nforce 4 chipset, since they seem to
have the best reputation in AMD world right now.

I suppose going for a cheap PCIe board would be an option - looks like
X300 and GF6200 boards are both in the under $50 range.

I'm hoping this PC will have a 3 year-ish lifetime, so going for a
more modern MB with a lower-end video card would be more upgradeable.

Sounds like I'm likely to need serial on a PCI card as well on many
recent MBs.

 

[Flasherly]

Have built two in the past month, both asus mbs - p4p800-e & a8n-e
deluxe. Both mbs retail $100 - $125+. Got them at $50each returned
items (bozo makes another mistake). Semi-flagship AGP mbs stuffed with
Asus's features. The Intel came retail (returned) complete but all I
got with the 754 was mb brownbagged. Potluck and grabbag deals when
buying brownbags. Chose a budget, though retail Celeron D 2.4
Prescott, which cost about $80 and nicely overclocks to 3.4Ghz (things
really do want to overclock). Same with a A64 3Ghz, returned and cost
$120 but does 2.35Ghz with a stable Prime95. Always decent value
memory and HSF. Getting a touch better video MPEG encoding speeds with
the AMD, and perhaps overall more stable pushed than any prior AMPD XP
experiences. Multitasking seems somewhat smoother as well. But I'll
sell just about anything as soon as it takes for whatever is available
to cover an update. Typical tech junkie. Couple days now on the A64
and I'm leaning more towards it. The Intel is rock solid, though - and
no qualms about anyone (newbie) coming back at me with anything but
unexpected good fortune if they pickup the Celeron D / p4p800-e deluxe.
Both a pleasure to assemble. Look for a couple ATI Radeon 9000 AGP at
$30ea and won't find non-onboard sound.

 

[Daniel Mandic]

A7V880

One of the functioning chipsets for Athlon, Duron, XP, Barton AMD CPU´s.
Really Nice Taiwan Chipset the KT880. Dual Channel Memory (you will
need it to outperform the 8 Years old BX Chipset), Fast AGP, Many
Features, OnBoard Sound.



With Intel I cannot make you a suggestion, as there is IMO more shit
happening than in AMD circles.
Maybe a Pentium M? But this will make you more a high end PC.
I would say a fast P3 Solution is still a good decision for a mid range
PC.
CUS-L, TUS-L with a fast Tualatin CPU.
Or a BX powered Mainboard with a Slot Adapter makes an valuable fast
system.
But at least 800Mhz (P3Cu) for Windows XP is needed :-( and it is not a
cheap solution, as well.



Best Regards

Daniel Mandic

 

[max]

A7V880

One of the functioning chipsets for Athlon, Duron, XP, Barton AMD CPU´s.
Really Nice Taiwan Chipset the KT880. Dual Channel Memory (you will
need it to outperform the 8 Years old BX Chipset), Fast AGP, Many
Features, OnBoard Sound.

With Intel I cannot make you a suggestion, as there is IMO more shit
happening than in AMD circles.
Maybe a Pentium M? But this will make you more a high end PC.
I would say a fast P3 Solution is still a good decision for a mid range
PC.
CUS-L, TUS-L with a fast Tualatin CPU.
Or a BX powered Mainboard with a Slot Adapter makes an valuable fast
system.
But at least 800Mhz (P3Cu) for Windows XP is needed :-( and it is not a
cheap solution, as well.

The system I'm replacing is a BH6 with a P3-933; it's been a great
system and has been through many upgrades, but it's time to move on.
I'm hoping to pop something together that won't need another upgrade
for a few years.

I may go for Intel still, as I prefer them, but the $30-50 difference
in the midrange is enough to buy a PCIe video board, so I'm leaning
towards the AMD end this time.

Thanks for the input!

max

 

[max]

Have built two in the past month, both asus mbs - p4p800-e & a8n-e
deluxe. Both mbs retail $100 - $125+. Got them at $50each returned
items (bozo makes another mistake). Semi-flagship AGP mbs stuffed with
Asus's features. The Intel came retail (returned) complete but all I
got with the 754 was mb brownbagged. Potluck and grabbag deals when
buying brownbags. Chose a budget, though retail Celeron D 2.4
Prescott, which cost about $80 and nicely overclocks to 3.4Ghz (things
really do want to overclock). Same with a A64 3Ghz, returned and cost
$120 but does 2.35Ghz with a stable Prime95. Always decent value
memory and HSF. Getting a touch better video MPEG encoding speeds with
the AMD, and perhaps overall more stable pushed than any prior AMPD XP
experiences. Multitasking seems somewhat smoother as well. But I'll
sell just about anything as soon as it takes for whatever is available
to cover an update. Typical tech junkie. Couple days now on the A64
and I'm leaning more towards it. The Intel is rock solid, though - and
no qualms about anyone (newbie) coming back at me with anything but
unexpected good fortune if they pickup the Celeron D / p4p800-e deluxe.
Both a pleasure to assemble. Look for a couple ATI Radeon 9000 AGP at
$30ea and won't find non-onboard sound.

I've got a gaming system built on a P4P800-E, and it's been very solid
and is a possibility. I'll checkout refurb/return CPUs and see if
there's a good deal on a midrange Intel chip, but if not, the few
bucks saved on AMD will go towards a new PCIe video board.

Thanks!

max