Upgrade choices - Matsonic board with KT400?

[Neil]

I want to upgrade my current 1ghz AMD system, and in turn use what I have
now to upgrade a far older 400mhz system used by one of my children.

I'm on a tight budget, since what we have works, so spending too much is
harder to justify (and I'm saving for a boat!). I'm attracted by the
tested pre-built bundles available, as one in particular seems cheaper than
the component price, and I know comes configured and working - so less
hassle with vendors if any part fails in a self-build.

A local store in the UK - Novatech - have an excellent offer on a AMD 2400,
with 512 333mhz DDR RAM, Heatsink and Fan, and "8147" Mainboard.
Investigating, that board is a Matsonic. Research shows this to be a cheap
Taiwan product, from same line as PC Chips and other OEM vendors. It also
has the VIA KT400 chip. The price of this lot together is £146. That
seems £30-40 under what the individual components alone would retail for.

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/specpage.html?MBB-KT424B

BUT I'm "worried" about the board and future support - which I read on
Google as generally poor (though I assume Novatech wouldn't sell in bundles
unless they were happy it was fit for purpose).
I'm also "worried" about what I read of KT400 or VIA problems. Nforce2
looks a better chipset, but boards are more expensive; few vendors are using
in upgrade bundles, and surely 9 out of 10 boards for AMD systems sold use
VIA?

To go with Nforce ,and a better mainboard, as well as not get a bundle price
will end up costing over £210.

I guess whatever happens for one of the two systems I'll have, I'll need a
new graphics card too (use a Geforce2 at present).

My main use is just generally web-stuff, and video (DV) uploading and
conversion to DVD. My son would use one or other system for games .

The other question I had was whether to go for a 2500+ or 2600+ Barton. Yet
that's just another £10-20, and I read they're only faster for high-caching
applications.

I welcome any comments/guidance.

regards,
Neil

 

[GSV Three Minds in a Can]

Bitstring <[email protected]>, from the

Nforce2
looks a better chipset,

It is

but boards are more expensive; few vendors are using
in upgrade bundles, and surely 9 out of 10 boards for AMD systems sold use
VIA?

Not any more - near as I can tell all the serious UK OEMs are now using
nForce2 boards, except at the 'real budget' end of the spectrum.

To go with Nforce ,and a better mainboard, as well as not get a bundle price
will end up costing over £210.

Your call, but personally I'd spend the money for an nForce2 board, even
if I had to settle for a lower speed Athlon and over-clock it a bit. The
sound, LAN, etc. all work just dandy, and I've had no problems at all
with drivers. If you are not gaming, you could even look at the nForce2
variants with built-in graphics.