As subject, I am looking at mobo for a 2.4G Celeron with DDR RAM,
video/audio/lan. Any other thing is not necessary (FW, SATA/RAID).
I'm not sure about what difference is between the chipsets
intel/sis/via and different models 845/865/875...etc. I'm more into
stability/cost than performance/feature.
Thanks.......
Ernest
You can find a lot of boards, prices, and also review postings
on this site. Even if you don't buy from them, this is a valuable
resource.
http://www.newegg.com/app/manufact.asp?catalog=280&DEPA=0
Asrock, for example, has five boards listed for $50, which is pretty
cheap. As you've crossposted to the elitegroup, ECS boards are another
source of cheap boards. The ECS 865PE-A for $58 looks like a good
deal, as it uses an Intel 865 chipset.
I don't recommend bargain boards, due to the danger of the bargain
costing you more money than buying a better board. Of the Asus
Intel boards listed on the web page above, the P4P800-VM is good, as
is the P4S800D-E, both are close to $100. (Good meaning users don't
seem to have trouble when setting them up.) There are cheaper boards,
but few postings in Google to reach a judgement as to how good they
are.
A really cheap board has no voltage adjustments, or the ability to
set memory timings. The BIOS is virtually useless for setting up the
board. Adjustments are handy for getting the thing running. For a
company building 10 to 100 identical systems, they can afford to
experiment getting the first cheap board running, by trying
different components in it until it works. For an end user
building a single system, the cost savings rapidly evaporate, if
you have to return components, because you couldn't use adjustments
on the motherboard to get them working.
HTH,
Paul
