new mobo?

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jwer_NL

jwer_NL

***YODA***
Oct 18, 2001
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GRUN OWNS
Specs atm:
2 x 256MB PC3200
GF4 Ti 4200 128MB 8xAGP
AMD XP 1800+
40gig 5400rpm HD

Mobo atm: MSI KM2M Combo
VIA KM266 chipset
2 x PC2100 DDR slots
one 4x/2x AGP universal slot


Basically my HD is WAY too slow and too small as well really, so i was looking into new HD's and saw all the SATA stuff... I guess that selling my mobo and buying a new one wouldn't be a terrible amount of money so i guess i rather upgrade that first before buying a new HD.

Been looking into some mobo's, but what would people suggest, VIA or Nforce chipsets, and is SATA and the mobo change hassle really worth it or not? What mobo would you suggest? Is gigabyte good enough, do you rather buy ASUS or any other brand?

appreciate any effort in answering :)
 
dunno if selling the mobo will give ya much $$ but replacing it would be a goood choise imo

But had to change mobo aswell not long ago.. i have a msi k7n2 delta-L ( n-force ), had some problems with it at start.. but it turned out te be a jumper setting..

since you got 2 x 256MB PC3200 it would be smart to get a mobo that supports dual memory bla bla...

I'm not really the expert in this but u should ask my brother zork he usally knows whats best and cheapest..
 
Abit nf7-s v2 is a good MB and usually a fairly decent price. However you wont get much benefit from using sata over IDE, you could just as easily buy a new IDE drive with your current board if thats your main concern or even buy an sata add on card, can generally pick them up for less than£10 for cheapo ones in UK.
 
well I were you I'd buy the mobo simply because your RAM is much faster than your current mobo supports. Your CPU aint as fast, but you can run them async usually. Im not sure if the SATA thing would give you such a big performance boost on your HD over IDE really, I dont think you would notice it THAT much - only for large stuff maybe. Most likely not ingame really.
oh, and, in case youre assuming it- the 8x AGP is no benefit at all over 4x with this system (and not with any other).
I think the biggest performance increase would be caused by the faster RAM support. But I guess for new games, which most likely dont run very well on that system (I got one very similar to this, tad slower), you will really feel the RAM improvement. So I'd say its worth it.

as for suggestions, as Mym said the Abit one is a good one. you can also OC good with it afaik (if youre into that - your GF4 ti4200 can be clocked to a 4600 easily, for example).
 
I wouldnt go for SATA unless you get a drive hat demands it for top performance (like a expensive 10k rpm drive). You have to have some pretty insane needs to get any worthwhile benefit of sata with a 7200rpm drive compared to UDMA100/133
And if you intend to keep the processor and ram, there are plenty of nice mobos out there that take pc3200(400MHz, 2x200) ram and are dual channel capable and in that case any nforce2 board should serve you well. Sata mobos still come at a price premium.
Since your mobo is pc2100 for the ram, you arent getting the best out of you pc3200 ram, so you could get a big boost there + whatever dualchannel will bring you. You didnt say what FSB your processor supports. If it is 266(2x133), then you will practically see no improvement with a new motherboard. If its 333(2x166) you will get some increment. But a xp1800+ certainly isnt 400(2x400) so even at single channel you wont get the best of your pc3200 ram.
Sounds like you are like in the same sucky situation like me, where upgrading a single part make doesnt make sense.
My advice would be to get a decent 7200RPM 120 or 160 G (pata) harddisk and postpone the rest of the upgrading until you can get both processor and mobo that match your ram since pc3200 is total overkill for a mobo that "only uses the first 2100 of that". Sata *is* nice, but just not worth it unless your needs are great and the drive is held back under udma133.
 
Well.. get a nf7-s 2.0 onboard sata/soundstorm ( good sound )

put your 1800 in there and put the 2 x pc3200 ( in dual channel ) in there and try running.

Multiplier = 7.5
FSB = 200

your cpu speed will still be 1500 mhz - pretty close to a default 1800 just under it actually, but u gain 200 fsb which would improve performance.. there's a really high chance that will work without any problems at all.

You could also

Multiplier = 8
FSB = 200
Might need to up vcore a little bit and make sure whatever u do you prime95 test it for at least 16 hours on "blend" torture test to make sure it's safe :x

your cpu speed will be 1600 mhz ( slight overclock ) and you gain 200 fsb which would give u a nice boost in performance.

There's loads of things u gotta make sure tho and if you are gunna attempt it talk to someone first about it ( MyM :P )

But that's basicially the best nf2 motherboard u can get and it's at a really decent price now too :)
 
btw, what me really pisses off at mobos is the thing, that the AGP slot is always too near to the PCI slots. my video card has a large cooler so i can t use the nearest PCI slot caus the cooler vent would be as near as 1cm to the PCI card.... stupid developers, thought ok, my board is from a time where the video cards didn t had these vents, but was lookin for a new board and still, the AGP is near the PCI.... useless, brainless, overpaid developers...and 5 PCI slots is also not enuff anyways, but when u only can use 4 caus of construction dumbness..... :ban:
 
What can you have that fills 5 slots? most motherboards have so much onboard stuff that most people use less addon cards now than before.

The AGP is always going to be near the pci or there will be less pci slots on the board due to the size limit of atx maybe you should complain to the gfx card makers that are now having to use heatsinks that are outside the original design parameters :D
 
nf7 should do it automaticially on older cpu's, none of the new ones work without a hard mod or something tho..
 
Epox 8RDA+ nForce2 (Socket A) Motherboard (MB-019-EP)
Featuring the revolutionary new Nforce 2 chipset from Nvidia the EPOX 8RDA+ supports dual DDR400 RAM providing upto 6.4GB/s of memory bandwidth. It has all the usual features such as AGP 8x and official support for 333FSB Athlon processors. It also offers Nvidia Dolby Digital Soundstorm technology, Nvidia LAN onboard, USB 2.0 and Firewire. As usual with EPOX boards the BIOS allows for altering Vcore, Vdimm, Multiplier and FSB which makes this motherboard an excellent choice for overclockers.

- 3 x 184pin DDR-SDRAM ports (Supporting up to PC3500)
- 6 x PCI slots
- 1 x AGP (4x/8x) slot
- Dual Channel DDR400 support
- 2 x UDMA133 (supports upto 4 device)
- 6 x USB 2.0 ports
- Firewire IEEE 1394 ports
- Onboard Nvidia LAN
- Dolby Digital Audio
- Nivida nForce 2 Chipset
- Magic Flash (Update BIOS within Windows)
- Blue Tooth compatible (Optional Extra)
- Dual DDR (Usage of two DDR modules for increased bandwidth)
- Post Reporter (Simplifies error finding), Windows based hardware monitoring.

£40
 
epox is quite good imo but if possible you should get some lengenth warranty

they make quite a lot of "bad" boards , several people i know had problems with their epox boards
then again 40 pounds aint really a lot.
 
got a epox mobo myself and my experience is that it isn't superior but "oki'ish".
It's quit stable but not very fast. (well although there are a lack of speed i didn't consider to change ,coz i luv my blue shining northbridge cooler ;)).
 
Last edited:
get meh board! ABIT AN7, NVIDIA nForce2 Ultra400/MCP-S Based AMD K7 :

http://www.i-tech.com.au/products/item2467.asp

Dual DDR400 DIMM, AGP 8X, 4 USB 2.0, On board 10/100Mb LAN, AGP 8X, Serial ATA 150, 6 channel Audio and SPDIF In/Out, IEEE 1394 Firewire, 5PCI, SoftMenu Technology for overclocking CPU frequency to maximise system performance
 
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