Mobo for Phenom II X4 AM2+

[pimpom]

I'd like to ask for your help in selecting a motherboard for an
AMD Phenom II X4 920 CPU. It's not that I'm too lazy to do my own
search, but my broadband ISP has been on the blink for several
days and it's difficult to gather enough info on a balky dial-up
connection even to prepare a shortlist. These are my
requirements -

Proven stable chipset
IGP NVidia 7025 (or AMD equivalent) or better
4 DDR2 slots
Minimum 3 PCI slots
Gb LAN
Firewire

Desireable but not essential: Analog video-out, dual LAN port

Not required: DDR3, SLI/CrossfireX, HDMI
No overclocking, no RAID

Form factor: no preference but number of PCI slots probably
precludes mATX.

Assumed to come with any modern mobo: onboard audio, rear and
front USB 2, SATA II, one IDE header.

What do you think of Asrock as a brand? Their K10N78-1394 looks
suitable, for one.

Thanks in advance.

 

[pimpom]

Given that you want a full sized ATX instead of mATX, the
main limitations in what is available are you want it with
integrated video and firewire. Often integrated video
boards are designed towards the low end and skimp on
features like firewire.

I don't want full ATX in particular but practically all mATX
boards seem to come with no more than 2 PCI slots these days. At
least 2 PCI cards are likely to be fitted, possibly more. 3 slots
as used to be standard on earlier mATX boards would've been
enough.

Go to http://www.newegg.com , their
motherboard category, where you can do a power search
(left-hand column on page) and pick ATX, integrated video,
etc.

Newegg doesn't seem to carry one that has all the features I
need.

What chipsets aren't proven stable? Personally I'd aim a
bit higher than 7025 unless you're sure you won't need more
3D performance and just want to reduce the price some.

Agreed. The 7025 was a minimum. An 8300 or 780/790G is certainly
preferable.

Asrock makes reasonable boards, but often fewer features,
built to a lower price-point. K10N78-1394 is an exception,
if it meets all your needs then you may have already found
the best board for you.

My question re Asrock was about their workmanship rather than
features. I've built several machines using Asrock motherboards
for others in the past and had no cause for complaints. But since
Assus's daughter company is geared towards the low-budget segment
of the market, it would be enlightening to learn about other
people's experiences and opinions about their products.

If Newegg carries that model you
might read the owner reviews to see if any problems are
mentioned, if they'd be significant to you.

You mentioned analog video out as desirable, but what did
you consider the manditory video output? Is it under the
assumption it would be DVI, HDMI, or was analog out meant as
TV-Out, an S-Video or other interface?

Sorry, that was careless of me. I meant composite/S-video out.

 

[pimpom]

pimpom wrote:

Simple question what are you going to do with you pc?

I think I spelled out the requirements clearly, if not the
intended application. Anyway, it's for an all-purpose budget
desktop. Casual gaming, occasional video editing, word
processing, browsing, image processing, playing music, etc. While
some people claim that any integrated video is useless for
gaming, I know several users who are happily gaming with a 6100
onboard gfx. Gaming is not high priority here. And I know that
Intel CPUs are faster, especially for video work. I just think
that AMD gives more value for a budget system. It's likely to
have at least two PCI cards installed, possibly three.

How much do you have to spend or want to spend?

No strict budget for the mobo. I'm not going for a fancy high-end
board with all the bells and whistles. I want a bug-free product
of reliable construction with the features I outlined. I'm
thinking US $100-150.