today's Equivalent of Chaintech MOthrboard

[Henri Beyle]

HI,

Few yars back I build my computer with a Chaintech MOtherboard : the
Zenith ZNF3-250. It was a great MB and the accesories were rally good
too.
I put a AMD Athlon 64 3200+ on it.

Now I can se it's a littke bit tired.
What is the equivalent of this Motherboard today?

 

[Paul]

HI,

Few yars back I build my computer with a Chaintech MOtherboard : the
Zenith ZNF3-250. It was a great MB and the accesories were rally good too.
I put a AMD Athlon 64 3200+ on it.

Now I can se it's a littke bit tired.
What is the equivalent of this Motherboard today?

Equivalent in what sense ?

The CPU socket has changed. Your motherboard uses S754, and
current motherboards are AM2 socket. The video card slot
type is now PCI Express x16. Your motherboard has an AGP slot,
which is not the same thing. Memory type has changed from
DDR to DDR2, or even DDR3 in some cases. So you aren't
likely to reuse the memory. A lot of components could
need changing.

You also need to decide, whether you're going to use an
Intel processor or an AMD processor. There are plenty
of choices to make there as well (dual core or quad
core).

So things have changed a bit, since you got your ZNF3-250.
Chaintech no longer makes motherboards.

You can browse the Newegg.com motherboard section, to get
some idea as to how many options are available. There
are likely 100's of motherboards currently for sale.

Paul

 

[Henri Beyle]

Après mûre réflexion, Paul a écrit :

Equivalent in what sense ?

The CPU socket has changed. Your motherboard uses S754, and
current motherboards are AM2 socket. The video card slot
type is now PCI Express x16. Your motherboard has an AGP slot,
which is not the same thing. Memory type has changed from
DDR to DDR2, or even DDR3 in some cases. So you aren't
likely to reuse the memory. A lot of components could
need changing.

You also need to decide, whether you're going to use an
Intel processor or an AMD processor. There are plenty
of choices to make there as well (dual core or quad
core).

So things have changed a bit, since you got your ZNF3-250.
Chaintech no longer makes motherboards.

You can browse the Newegg.com motherboard section, to get
some idea as to how many options are available. There
are likely 100's of motherboards currently for sale.

Paul

Hi Paul.
Thanks for your answer.
I know Chiantech does not make any MB anymore. Otherwise I would have
bought one of theirs.
They offers a fantastic bundle with th C-Box 3, all cables were
furnished, even a 3-in-1 screwer!
Does any look alike bundle still exists?
The first thing is I don't want to be limited by any hardware stuff.
I want enough sata, usb, etc, socket.
Gb Lan is not an option, optical sound neither.
I need to use from 4 Gb of memory,
But i do NOT need any video stuff like SLI.

Finally -I should start with it- I want an AM2 socket MB with a dual
core CPU.

 

[Paul]

Hi Paul.
Thanks for your answer.
I know Chiantech does not make any MB anymore. Otherwise I would have
bought one of theirs.
They offers a fantastic bundle with th C-Box 3, all cables were
furnished, even a 3-in-1 screwer!
Does any look alike bundle still exists?
The first thing is I don't want to be limited by any hardware stuff.
I want enough sata, usb, etc, socket.
Gb Lan is not an option, optical sound neither.
I need to use from 4 Gb of memory,
But i do NOT need any video stuff like SLI.

Finally -I should start with it- I want an AM2 socket MB with a dual
core CPU.

If you want a motherboard that has everything, one thing I would suggest,
is that the motherboard is ready for a Phenom as well. In case you
decide to upgrade from the dual core.

This board has a good collection of connectors on the back. It has an
8 phase plus 2 phase power subsystem, for powering the two halves of
the AM2+ powering scheme. Yes, it does have video card slots, but
those are pretty well unavoidable on the expensive motherboards.

ASUS M3A32-MVP Deluxe/WiFi AM2+/AM2 AMD 790FX ATX $220
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131224

The connectors on the back, are visible here.
http://c1.neweggimages.com/NeweggImage/productimage/13-131-224-04.jpg

This one isn't quite as nice. And doesn't appear to be mature either.

ASUS M3N-HT DELUXE/MEMPIPE AM2+/AM2 NVIDIA nForce 780a
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131290

If you're planning on going with a low power dual core (65W processor),
then you can look at a microATX board. That could save some money,
but then the motherboard may not upgrade to a Phenom in the
future. (I picked the above two motherboards, because they
are on a web page where Asus lists the motherboards that
are capable of powering a 140W processor. I think this is a
backhanded way, of Asus saying that some AMD processor runs
at a pretty high power. Those two boards are well equipped
from a CPU powering perspective.)

I don't know if you care about upgrading or not. The above
two boards are pretty expensive, so those are probably not
what you're looking for.

One of the reasons I hate shopping for AMD motherboards,
is because some of the cheap ones are pretty crappy. If you
dip down too low in price, there could be grief waiting for
you. And that doesn't make it much fun to window-shop. I like
to pick from stuff that works.

This one is a bit cheaper, and has a bunch of connectors on
the back. Both optical and coax SPDIF. Even a serial port
Gigabit LAN.

GIGABYTE GA-MA790X-DS4 AM2+/AM2 AMD 790X ATX $135
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128075

Have a look through the Newegg motherboard pages, because
you can quickly find boards that meet your interface
needs. Once you identify a model, you can then shop for
it locally.

Paul