Mobo Upgrade

[XtraNtnse]

Well I've found out today that my current mobo will run my processor, but only at the speed that it allows or was made for.(obsolete piece of shit) As of now everything's running fine, but the processor isn't being used to its full potential. So now I have to buy a motherboard that will support the
XP3200+ Barton 400FSB. Is there not alot of 3200 mobo's or am I just not looking hard enough? cause I want to get the best money can buy for it, and I'm just not getting alot of results. I'm currently looking at this one: http://www.directron.com/k7n2delta.html It says it supports 600MHz up to Athlon XP 3000+ processor or higher. And another one that's more expensive but I know for sure will support my processor: http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/item-Details.asp?EdpNo=696847&sku=C460-1020 Would any of these suffice or does anyone know of any better ones?

[Rally99]

My only question is do you have the budget for it and do you need it right now? I mean you have the processor and your computer works but but does it need to run that fast? If you wait prices could come down and all manner of things could happen and is a couple hundred megahertz really gonna make that 3d game run any faster? I mean no malcontent to you at all just kinda wondering. Most of us would love an unlimited computer budget just once.

[stealthspy]

Ok - Tell me
Your Budget
Your current system specs (if you are upgrading other stuff, give me both)
Your main usage of the computer
Level of technical expertise (or what you are willing to learn)

That said, this (http://www.monarchcomputer.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=M&Product_Code=110431) is most likely what you're looking for.

[g-smooth2k]

If you are in the market for one get one from
New Egg (http://www.newegg.com/)
Zip Zoom Fly (http://www.zipzoomfly.com/)
Monarch Computer (http://www.monarchcomputer.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv)
MSI KT6 Delta-LSR
other brands to consider:
Abit (http://www.abit-usa.com/)
Asus (http://usa.asus.com/index.htm)
Epox (http://www.epoxusa.com/)
Gigabyte (http://www.giga-byte.com)
MSI (http://www.msicomputer.com/)
Soyo (http://www.soyousa.com/)

Hope this helps a little. ;-)

[XtraNtnse]

-I'm willing to spend below $200 for a mobo
My specs as of now (but a work in progress ;)
Windows XP Home Edition
XP3200+ Barton 400FSB
ATI Radeon 9000
1 gig ram (two 512's both 2100's)
36 GB HD

As for main uses, a little bit of everything I guess..movies,internet,music,games
That would sum it up. Although I may not really need the upgrades that I am getting, I'd just like to have them anyway, as I have a tendency to want to make things better than they already are.. a habit I'm sure many have ;)

I'm pretty savvy when it comes to computers, but wouldn't consider myself an expert. I know XP and how to install parts, just may need some tips along the way..(as I am doing here) :-)

Another factor is a mobo that will be compatible with the 2100 RAM sticks I have now, that way I won't have to buy new ones..but will also probably limit my choices.

[smokenjoe]

That MSI looks like a good deal. Kind of tempting :) I dont need a new computer but it sure would be nice.

[fujow]

Try looking here, good prices and an assortment of boards.
http://www.computernyc.com/mouse.html

[babarfloyd]

As long as you stick to the nForce2 chipset you should be fine. You should be able to find a stripped down NF2 MB for under $100. Stripped down = 1 NIC instead of 2, no SoundStream audio, no SATA. You should be able to find a high end one with all the bells and whistles for less than $150.

[stuperfied]

Man, how ever did this place get so boring? I was gone for like 10 weeks or so and the place is shot to hell.

And im still not a moderator...Thats it...hehe...hehehe...hahahahahhaha :shoot

[Psilaxs]

Get the Epox 8rda3+ with the Nforce 2 chipset, i just snagged one from new egg for 85 bucks. Awesome motherboard, plus it supports blazingly fast 3200 DDR Ram.

My cousin is running this board (hence my reason for getting it, I have actually used it) He has his Athlon XP 2500+ overclocked on this thing to 3200+ status, runs just fine, no stability problems unless he sets his ram timing too low E.G 2 2 2 6. But that is only because he is running overclocked 2100 ddr, anyway way too much technical info i just spewed out. Just get that board, you will be 100% happy.


http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=13-123-198&catalog=22&manufactory=BROWSE&depa=1

[stuperfied]

Anyone know of a new board for the Athlon 64 FX with nothing onboard? eg: no sound, no video, no lan, no modem, no any of the rest of that sh!t. I still want hdd controlers on it and basic stuff like usb support but I want to buy my own seperate sound, video, lan, etc and the only ones ive found so far are those 2 made by epox and asus but they both have sound onboard.

[CompuGeek]

Another factor is a mobo that will be compatible with the 2100 RAM sticks I have now, that way I won't have to buy new ones..but will also probably limit my choices.

You are wasting your time unless you buy PC3200 DDR RAM to go with the new mobo. If you don't run your memory and FSB in sync, there's no point in buying a new board.

[begoodbebad]

CompuGeek is exactly right...but let's assume you want to upgrade anyway...there is no need to spend $200 on motherboard. How about a new motherboard that supports your Athlon 3200, DDR400, has 5 PCI slots, AGPx8, USB 2, LAN and 6 channel Audio onboard? It will also run nicely with the memory you currently own and work fine with your graphics card. All you need to add (maybe) is Firewire. And how about if this motherboard is so cheap you can afford to upgrade to PC3200 DDR memory? The board runs the latest SiS 748 chipset and. In UK it costs £25 (aprox $40 US) and is the most amazing bargain, I assume you can get it for a similar price where you are. It is the PC Chips M848A, here is the manufacturer's link
PC Chips M848A (http://www.pcchips.com.tw/product/M848Av21.html)

and if you want to see some reviews HERE (http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?action=c2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X3Jldmlld3M=&product_uid=51760) is the link to ebuyer, a major UK online retailer.

The only way this chipset lags behind the nForce 2 Ultra is that it doesn't support Dual Channel memory, but it is still an extremely fast chip and in performance terms there is practically no difference.

[stuperfied]

Isnt it better to have your lan and sound offboard? Reduces the chance of conflicts and saves on MB resources doesnt it? Also if you have it onboard and buy a seperate one anyway then you are doubling up and once again wasting resourses.

[stuperfied]

Get the Epox 8rda3+ with the Nforce 2 chipset, i just snagged one from new egg for 85 bucks. Awesome motherboard, plus it supports blazingly fast 3200 DDR Ram.

My cousin is running this board (hence my reason for getting it, I have actually used it) He has his Athlon XP 2500+ overclocked on this thing to 3200+ status, runs just fine, no stability problems unless he sets his ram timing too low E.G 2 2 2 6. But that is only because he is running overclocked 2100 ddr, anyway way too much technical info i just spewed out. Just get that board, you will be 100% happy.


http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProdu...y=BROWSE&depa=1

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Last edited by Psilaxs on February 19th, 2004 at 03:55 PM.
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New Egg sells Epox motherboards? I thought egg was a mb manufacturer.....

[begoodbebad]

Isnt it better to have your lan and sound offboard? Reduces the chance of conflicts and saves on MB resources doesnt it? Also if you have it onboard and buy a seperate one anyway then you are doubling up and once again wasting resourses.

Why would it be better? My LAN is onboard and runs 24/7 and has never had any kind of problem. I bought a very cheap motherboard with everything integrated about 18 months ago and it has never had any conflict of any kind. I have upgraded the sound and graphics to PCI and AGP cards and still no problems. As for onboard sound, well it can be very good(tho mine isn't!). This new boards onboard sound is reputed to be excellent, and with 5 PCI slots and a cost of £25 where exactly are these wasted resources? As far as I can see a high quality 6 speaker onboard sound option just means at worst you have something you can happily live with until you can afford the latest 7.1 or professional audio card or whatever.
Some of the best boards these days come with everything on them including 2 x LAN for easy sharing of adsl modem etc.

I'm using an older board which came with lousy sound so I use an Audigy card so I can see it from both perspectives. I have a PC Chips M848ALU on order, it should arrive next week with an Athlon 2700 and 2 x 512MB PC3200 Corsair Value Select RAM (if I can't overclock the CPU to XP3200 then I'll buy one in a few months when the new 64 bit CPUs have affected the price of the old Athlon XPs). I'll add my drives, PSU, ATI Radeon 9600 Pro and check out the sound. I'll benchmark it and post here on how it fares. Also it will be interesting to compare the onboard sound with my Audigy card.

[muffenme]

:fire

Begoodbebad, the resorces could be power or heat also that these on board items need or give off. I know myself I don't want an onboard sound or video if I up grade my mobo. I would go with the Pentium 4 but the AMD are not a bad choice either except for the VIA chipset. I see older computer have a lot of problem with VIA chipset because some card wouldn't work with this chipset, ie. Aims Video Highway Extreme 98 need a Intel chipset or it wouldn't work. My friends FM transmitter doesn't work right and that could be the chipset.

The only thing I don't mind being on board is the IDE, COM, USB, LPT, PS/2, and network. What I don't want on a mobo is the sound or video because they may conflict with the sound and or video that I put in. On board modem isn't needed.

I don't like on board video because they use up memory from main memory because they have none.

:hole

[stuperfied]

Im working with a 995Mhz AMD on an M810L V7.0A with 256MB 133Mhz SD RAM, I have Wake on Sleep PCTel Modem Riser[12.0341.0021] (AMR-CNR), Onboard SIS7018 Sound, SiS900 LAN[v1.16], SIS630/730s VGA with shared memory adjustable to 64MB, SiS AGP[v1.17] and a partridge in a pair tree. The problem here is that im a hard gamer and I have very low resources. Everyone keeps telling me to go with an AGP video card because it brings it off board and yadda, yadda, yadda.

I have had people tell me the same thing with onboard sound, lan, you name it and if that is the case and im going to buy all offboard then why would I want to pay the manufacturer to put it onboard when its just going to take up an irq and waste valuable bus usage. Even if it doesnt use up resources when dissabled I would rather have the manufacturer put something else that is more usefull in its place like an extra RAM slot or something, this idea makes more sence to me.

I have heard people with overclocked 2600+ to 3200+ computers complaining about their computer lagging. These are the people that tell me not to buy a combination MB because it will be slower than non-combination, then I find out that they are going to buy a MB with Sound and LAN built in??? WTF???

What you think about it??

[The Gauge]

In most cases the onboard chipsets used for various functions rely on the main CPU to do the hard work. Anybody who used to have dial-up using a WinModem will know what I'm on about. Just dialling up used to lash about 15-20% of my P3 at the time... Cheap-ass gfx chips used "shared" video memory (meaning it's taken straight out of your RAM and released again when it's not being used), WinModems are nothing more than a data-pump with the CPU performing the A/D conversion, and same thing for cheap sound chipsets that provide basic functionality but pass the D/A conversion and environmental effects etc over to the CPU for processing.

Buying dedicated PCI cards for all of the above guarantees lower CPU utilisation when running and, if and when they explode, can be easily replaced without having to sacrifice the whole motherboard.

On-board chipsets are for corporations with massive SLA's and your Grandma who uses it to check her e-mail once a week... or for someone who wants to build a moderately powered PC the size of a lunch-box.

[CompuGeek]

Isnt it better to have your lan and sound offboard? Reduces the chance of conflicts and saves on MB resources doesnt it? Also if you have it onboard and buy a seperate one anyway then you are doubling up and once again wasting resourses.

It doesn't matter. Onboard or offboard all go through the same bus. Almost all the motherboards have onboard sound and LAN now. You can disable them if you want.

[CompuGeek]

In most cases the onboard chipsets used for various functions rely on the main CPU to do the hard work....

Buying dedicated PCI cards for all of the above guarantees lower CPU utilisation when running and, if and when they explode, can be easily replaced without having to sacrifice the whole motherboard.

On-board chipsets are for corporations with massive SLA's and your Grandma who uses it to check her e-mail once a week... or for someone who wants to build a moderately powered PC the size of a lunch-box.

The PCI cards that most people can afford use the CPU just as much as their onboard equivalents.

It's very cheap for manufacturers to integrate sound, LAN, etc. and very easy for picky geeks to disable it and use their own solution.

[stuperfied]

The PCI cards that most people can afford use the CPU just as much as their onboard equivalents.
Well we all know that video cards have their own CPU's called GPU's Leadtek.com (http://www.leadtek.com/graphic.html), well sound cards have similar processors to do the work such as the Digital Signal Processor Creative.com (http://us.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=1&subcategory=15&product=50) and as you can see, this card is very affordable. You will find also that network cards have the same kind of approach.

What does this mean? Well, onboard equivalents are usually all contained within one chipset such as with SIS or VIA which leaves very little room for technology and results in manufacturer's dumping special features at will to concerve space whereas the manufacturer's of offboard equivalents have a certain luxury of space which means they can put a lot more of those special feature's in one device.

A good example of this is the AGP GeForce cards which have 32MB, 64MB, 128MB and 256MB Video Memory respectivly and a GPU leaving little to no work to be done by the CPU whereas its Onboard equivalents have less features, no GPU, steal your RAM for use as Video Memory and pass all of the processing work onto your CPU. Onboard Sound and Network cards have much of the same story leaving all of the processing work to be done by your CPU and having less features than its Offboard equivalent.

[begoodbebad]

The PCI cards that most people can afford use the CPU just as much as their onboard equivalents.

It's very cheap for manufacturers to integrate sound, LAN, etc. and very easy for picky geeks to disable it and use their own solution.

CompuGeek thats funny! I bet that if some corporation developed the perfect mobo with everything onboard working better than the best PCI cards and lo power use and ultra efficient chipset and minimal heat....someone would complain.

My current cheap board has the good manners to automatically disable its onboard video when the AGP is used. I had to go to the great effort of rebooting and switching the onboard sound off in the bios and loading new drivers for my audigy....life is so hard. On a Thermaltake 420w PSU I run a floppy drive, 3 optical drives, 3 hard drives, a couple of USB devices (compactflash reader and gamepad), my sound card and graphics card, and I over clocked my CPU by 5%. At full load gaming the mobo temp struggles up to 40 degrees and the CPU to 44. I think for most of us the days of worrying about scarce resources are over...CPUs are fast and easily cooled, hard drives are huge, blank cd and dvd are cheap, quality memory is still a little pricey but what really scares me is my electric bill.

@Stupefied: for your particular board a cheap graphics card will work wonders, I've got the same board right now and just something like a GeForce 2 MX400 or 440 will help you enjoy games a lot more, you can get a 64MB card for very little money, you don't need a big name a generic card is fine. If you go for a more sophisticated card be careful cos this board has some big compatibity problems, mostly solved by flashing with the latest BIOS. With some cards you would need to reset the AGP to 1x. Check out the PC Chips M810 FAQ (http://radel.inet.net.nz/m810lmr.html#psu) . It's an independent site with lots of useful info and links.

[stuperfied]

Yeah, Im a computer reseller so I know all about what you mean. I used name brands so everyone has a chance to understand what im on about. Sick of this POS MB, upgrading to K8 and yes generic cards but dont want onboard crap cause im a pretty hard gamer and one of those few you refer to as still scrambling for that extra piece of memory/cache mem or CPU register whilst preying for a faster FSB and cursing his AMR. I would point my house fan at it if it would help (yes, I have actually done that before and it does work).

[CompuGeek]

I should have been more specific. Onboard video sucks so bad it causes me physical pain to see it.

I was targeting the onboard sound and LAN that people complain about. An Athlon XP or a Pentium 4 couldn't give a shit whether your NIC and Sound is integrated or not.

:gj

[stuperfied]

Actually it could (not wether it intergrated or not but if its onboard or offboard) because an onboard one sends more processes to the CPU than an offboard one which means that some of your processes per seccond are wasted. It couldnt give a shit if it is intergrated though but your loosing some special features if it is.

[CompuGeek]

Actually it could (not wether it intergrated or not but if its onboard or offboard) because an onboard one sends more processes to the CPU than an offboard one which means that some of your processes per seccond are wasted. It couldnt give a shit if it is intergrated though but your loosing some special features if it is.

Yeah yeah...if you need 100% of your 3 GHz machine's resources available so you can render 3D animation and play Solitaire at the same time, it matters. I'm talking about the 99% of computers that aren't maxed out all the time.

[stuperfied]

Well I still prefer to have every little bit at hand just incase, that way you can do whatever you want without having to worry about that horrid little green monster named (dare I say it) LAG...but unfortunately that doesnt seem possible with the options avaliable to us.

[XtraNtnse]

I went ahead and bought the Asus A7N8XE-Deluxe..

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/item-Details.asp?EdpNo=25208&sku=A455-2032%20E

[begoodbebad]

I went ahead and bought the Asus A7N8XE-Deluxe..

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/item-Details.asp?EdpNo=25208&sku=A455-2032%20E

very nice board, wish I had one....it's nice to see firewire and 6 channel sound built in. Lucky for me that my audigy card has firewire slot...2 problems were solved with one card...this is important when your board only has 2 x PCI!

If my new board doesn't perform this is what I will buy next..what I like about upgrading is building another comp out of all the old bits and selling it on... really softens the blow.

[CompuGeek]

Well I still prefer to have every little bit at hand just incase, that way you can do whatever you want without having to worry about that horrid little green monster named (dare I say it) LAG...but unfortunately that doesnt seem possible with the options avaliable to us.

I already pointed out that picky geeks can disable the onboard features they don't want, so why does it matter?
:hole

If you can play a game and actually notice a measurable lag difference between using onboard LAN & sound and offboard LAN & sound, then I humbly bow to your superior 1337 powers of perception.
:fire

[begoodbebad]

hey my new pcchips 848alu ddr400 mobo arrived yesterday...along with athlon xp2700 and 1GB kingmax pc3200 ram....disassembled my old box, built the new one....mobo DOA...shiiiiiiiiiit!
sent it back and new one arrives tomorrow.....that was a major waste of time...building it was easy, troubleshooting it to actually prove the fault(even tho it was obvious you gotta prove it, right?) was a time consuming pain in the ass...
So tomorrow I can have another happy hour or 2 after work gutting my old machine and building a new one...I really hope it works this time.... got a need for serious speed...

[stuperfied]

Have you been listenning, I told you what my setup is and I get d.d.d.d.d.d from my sound card all the time. The equivalent in an offboard model probably wouldnt do that because its not having to wait for CPU time as much. The same kind of problem occures with my Lan.

[begoodbebad]

Have you been listenning, I told you what my setup is and I get d.d.d.d.d.d from my sound card all the time. The equivalent in an offboard model probably wouldnt do that because its not having to wait for CPU time as much. The same kind of problem occures with my Lan.

well I'm using about the cheapest, least regarded mobo of the last couple of years and it had no issues like this. Maybe you have a very bad board or the problem lies with the set up of your PC. When your sound stutters are you listening to music stored on your hard drive? Does it happen with audio CDs too?
If you have a very low spec machine or a very low power or low quality PSU and you are trying to do something like convert DVD to Divx while playing music then you can expect the sound to corrupt sometimes..even with a sound card, cos the power is going where you are demanding it the most and other processes will hang. What OS are you using...98...ME?

edit: whoops just saw your system spec on previous page...same mobo as I am using. OK the sound is not great...probably the problem you refer to happens when gaming right? So do the thing that everyone tells you and get a graphics card, spend £20/$35 US, thats all. Later get a sound card, a basic Soundblaster will cost you £10/$15US. Also you have way too little memory for making a game run well. If you are using XP and gaming then you should regard 512MB SDRAM as minimum. And it should be quality not some generic stuff. Your board can take an Athlon XP 2400 I believe so all is not lost. Take your time and just do what you can when you can and aim for a system with a 1GB SDRAM, Athlon 1800 or better CPU, graphics card such as Geforce 2, cheap soundcard. The memory is the only really expensive stuff...so looking at the long term you are better off upgrading the board to one that takes DDR memory and spending your money on some RAM that will still be useable if you need to make upgrades or replace stuff. Basically if you are determined not to spend any money don't be surprised that your system sucks on modern games and OS and applications....there is no way around this....you could stick to tetris and internet checkers of course

[stuperfied]

Unless that Card has an independant CPU such as a GPU which makes it self reliant and reduces the d.d.d.d.d effect. It happens when I max out my CPU at any time when playing anything. Try your computer on America's Army and see how you go, the lag will probably make you wish you had a better offboard sound and video. The Lan is rather accademic though.

EDIT: Oh sorry, yeah im using XP.

[ROCKAMANIAC]

LOL XtraNtnse been having alot of problems lately ...

If i was you iw ould go with stuperfied ....