Mobo ?

[lynchet]

Okey dokey (Pig in a pokey jobseekers etc) I think I need a new Mobo, Im planning on upgrading my old 350 and although my current Chaintech 6BTM can take quite a few chips up, it apparently has problems with Geforce DDR's. Can anyone recommend a good motherboard ? O'clocking ability would be nice but is not the primary thing Im looking for - I want a good solid motherboard with lastability, reliability and compatability and loads of other words ening in "ility"

 

[old.[GA] Shovel]

main thing is what chipyou are going to have on it, whether you are going to go Intel or AMD....

Also, do you want a dump valve with that?

Damn, have picked out the wrong TUG phrase... Call the genuine artical... call TUG!

 

[old.TUG]

wikkid! I is ere innit!

vrrroooOOOMMM tissssssssh!

Anyway... ahem!

Mobo's...

Athlon: atm go for the Biostar M7MKA - stable and easy to set up, although u may wanna wait for boards based on the new KX133 chipset 1st...

PII/PIII/Celeron/coppermine - if u wanna play with a godsend of FSB's go for the abit BE6-II

83-200MHz FSB's in 1MHz steps. Only thing is, if you go coppermine and need massive FSB's, you need ram that can take it and there aint no 1/2 agp speed divider, unlike newer i820 mobo's - i820's are a bit rare and expensive atm...

K6-2/3/cyrix - u know im ripping the piss now dontcha

 

[xane]

I been doing a big survey for my new CPU/motherboard for a while now ...

For CPUs under 700Mhz, you are best to go for the 100Mhz Coppermine Pentiums - 500E, 550E and 600E - and a decent BX motherboard like the BE6-2 . The 500E and 550E are "flipchip" FC-PGA (similar to a Celeron) and are reportedly very overclockable, there is a FC-PGA version of the 600E out now.

The i820 motherboards only have an advantage over the BX because of native 133Mhz FSB support (with 1/2 AGP ratio), they were designed for the 133Mhz Coppermines, but unless you take a second mortgage to get RAMBUS memory, you are stuck with the SDRAM versions and they perform little better than a BX at 100Mhz.

A better chipset for 133Mhz Coppermines is the VIA Apollo Pro 133A, but there are no motherboards with it out there at the moment.

Pentiums over 700Mhz are in short supply - good luck in ordering them.

Athlons are still climbing out of the motherboard blues, but the newest innovation is the VIA KX133 chipset which is starting to appear, same features as the i820 (including AGP4X) but uses SDRAM and a Slot A Athlon. The only one I have seen for sale in the UK is the Epox EP-7KXA.

Most of the higher spec motherboards have only one ISA slot, so you may need to upgrade some other bits.

AMD are announcing CPU price cuts at the end of the month, and Intel are likely to respond, it may take a few weeks before the cuts filter to the UK - fortunately I found a site that monitors UK CPU prices - Games Xtreme.

My search ended last week - I have an Athlon 750Mhz and Epox EP-7KXA on order now

.

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[UKSG]camazotz

[This message has been edited by camazotz (edited 18 February 2000).]

[This message has been edited by camazotz (edited 18 February 2000).]