Motherboards and Dual Heading

[John Talbott]

Hi Everyone,

I'm just about to build a new system, this old Athalon K7 is a bit of a dog
now.

I'm gonna go for a P4 with 800Mhz FSB.

I'm on a bit of a budget but have regretted compromising on the motherboard
before. A friend whole heartedly recommends ASUS and any reviews I've read
seem very good. I've been looking at the S478 Intel 875P ATX A L R, not a
cheap option - any comments on that board?

I'm not that bothered about graphics performance and thought I'd throw in my
old Geforce 2 MX 32mb, however I do really want to dual head the machine.
Obviosuly if I buy the above board, that will mean putting an old PCI
graphics card in aswell as my Geforce 2 in the AGP slot, any comments on
that?

If I buy a motherboard with onboard graphics (bad idea?) e.g. the cheaper
Asus S478 Intel 865PE ATX A L R, and then plug in an extra graphics card can
I dual head like that or will the on-board be disabled?

Phew that was long,

Oh one last question what do you think of putting a 2.4Ghz chip in for a
while and then say a 3.2Ghz when the price drops? Considering my budget do
you think I'll notice a huge performace difference?

John Talbott
(e-mail address removed)

 

[Joseph]

go with the 865 chipset board...they are the same only 865 does not support
ECC memory but the performance etc. is the same.

 

[Strontium]

I agree. The P4P800 is an excellent value/performance board. Also, I think
the P4 2.4C will please OP plenty. As to the dual head issue, I'm fairly
certain that onboard graphics will be disabled, automatically, when you put
a card in the AGP slot. I believe you'll have to go with the PCI + AGP
route. Could be wrong, though.

-
Joseph stood up at show-n-tell, in [email protected],
and said: