recommend to me a new MB pls

T

Tom

Guest
http://forums.barrysworld.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=71689

Ok, I'm going to buy a new MB, and some new RAM. My current MB is an Asus A7V133, which has worked well for me, but now I'm going to upgrade it. I therefore ask you some questions:

1. Are Asus generally good, should I consider any others?

2. Which Asus (if you like Asus) MB would you recommend?

3. What RAM should I buy (512MB is fine for me)?

4. I have a Nvidea Geforce 4 MX 420 video card, will this be acceptable for now?


I'm basically doing this to get better performance when HL2 arrives, as well as just generally making it a bit faster. I will order the lot from overclockers, so please choose from there.





/edit: BTW I'm not an Asus fanboy, so if there are other MBs on that site that you think are better, for similar money, please do tell, and the reasons why.
 
X

Xavier

Guest
Current ASUS Offerings:

Canterwood - P4C800 [High end P4]

Springdale - P4P800 [Mid range P4]

nForce2 - A7N8X Deluxe [High end AthlonXP]

nForce3 - SK8N [nForce3 150 S940]
 
K

Krazeh

Guest
I've got teh asus a7n8x deluxe and i'm very happy with it, lots of features, easy to use bios, plus it's not overly expensive.

As for ram i'm using a gb of geil golden dragon pc3500 ram in dual channel mode and it performs great, however overclockers don't stock geil so i'd go for crucial or corsair depending on how fast ur planning to run ur fsb.

And have you taken a look at other retailers? You can usually find stuff cheaper than you will at overclockers, www.microdirect.com are usually well priced.
 
R

Rubric

Guest
I have the nForce2 - A7N8X Deluxe [High end AthlonXP]
which is great decent sound included as a bonus. I can also recomend ebuyer.
 
K

kameleon

Guest
MicroDirect:

Shuttle MN31N nForce 2 Skt A 8x each £ 60.00
Geil® Golden Dragon 512MB PC3500 each £ 93.00

Total: £ 153.00 ex VAT

Shuttle board


I have one of these and they are great


Edit: tidied it up a bit
 
K

Krazeh

Guest
Originally posted by Ch3tan
And I can personally recommend www.microdirect.co.uk and www.ebuyer.co.uk after having good experiences with both. A fair bit cheaper than overclockers as well.
Click to expand...

Yeah I get virtually all my hardware from microdirect, admittedly i do live about 10mins drive away but they do have good prices and i've never had any issues with the service.
 
K

kameleon

Guest
Krazeh try aria just down the road a bit much cheaper than microdirect
 
T

Tom

Guest
Originally posted by Rubric
I have the nForce2 - A7N8X Deluxe [High end AthlonXP]
which is great decent sound included as a bonus. I can also recomend ebuyer.
Click to expand...

There are several variants on this board. Are they all the same, but some with more bells and whistles? Basically, will the processor I have (Athlon 2200+XP Thoroughbred) work in any of them? I don't want a shuttle board, I have a normal ATX? case.
 
K

kameleon

Guest
The mn31n is micro atx and will fit fine in your atx case.

There is only one version of the a7n8x deluxe, the otheres are the vm and the xx the deluxe has every bell and whistle you can think of and talks to you when you boot up.


all nforce2 chipset boards can utilise your xp 2200 my mate has a 2100 xp in his.
 
T

Tom

Guest
Yeah it has built in Video, the same card as I currently use, so I could flog my card on Ebay and make a littel bit back.

This is the one, yes?



I think I might order it next week, are Microdirect trade prices cheaper, cos I can get a trade account easily?
 
K

kameleon

Guest
Yes trade prices will be cheaper, but not by much if you are only buying single units at a time. The asus has no onboard graphics. The Shuttle has mx440 on board with twin monitor outputs, but has no support for serial ata, which, depending on what you want to use your computer for, might be an issue later.
 
K

Krazeh

Guest
If you go for the A7N8X deluxe it's very unlikely you'll find a feature u need that the motherboard doesn't support, plus it has the nforce 2 ultra chipset so it has dual memory controllers for high speed memory access.

Plus with sata u can get 2 sata drives, slap em in a raid 0 configuration and it's speedy as fuck.
 
K

kameleon

Guest
Aria:

Asus a7n8x deluxe + 2 x 256 MB geil ultra copper ram

Total Price excluding VAT : £154.00


Micro Direct:

Asus a7n8x deluxe + 2 x 256 MB geil ultra copper ram

Total Price Including VAT : 155.00


A pound cheaper at Aria :p
 
T

Tom

Guest
Do I have to get that RAM, or can I just get something a bit cheaper? I've never had memory problems before now.
 
T

Tom

Guest
OK I've decided on this MB

Asus A7N8X-VM - nForce-2 - x8 AGP+Lan+6Ch Sound+USB2+VGA

Now all I need to figureout is what kind of RAM to get. Should I get a single 512MB, or 2 x 256MB? Something tells me that the 2 chips would work out faster?

Also, the spec says 'Note: Dual-channel PC3200 (DDR400) mode requires AGP graphics card.

The MB has onboard vga, so can I just ignore this, or will I have to have my vid card plugged in still?


/edit: Ahhh so I only need an AGP card if I have 2x 3200 ram. Therefore if I get slightly slower RAM, would that be ok?

Sorry for all the questions, but I'm fick as fuck these days with computers.
 
K

kameleon

Guest
Edit: Theres me getting it wrong again



Note: Dual-channel DDR400 requires an AGP graphics card. Dual-channel DDR333/266/200 supported with AGP or integrated graphics.

So yes, if you got pc 2700 or even pc2100 then it will work fine.

you are aware there is no serial ata on the vm board?
 
S

SoWat

Guest
If you don't have a Serial ATA hard drive it doesn't really matter. S-ATA cards can be bought from around £25 up if you want one in the future.
 
C

Ch3tan

Guest
If your getting a shuttle mobo remember you'll only have one pci slot.
 
T

Tom

Guest
Originally posted by SoWat
If you don't have a Serial ATA hard drive it doesn't really matter. S-ATA cards can be bought from around £25 up if you want one in the future.
Click to expand...

Yeah but what is it? I have an UDMA HD or something atm. Plus some SCSIUW stuff
 
K

kameleon

Guest
no chet not a shuttle sff board a shuttle micro atx board. Mine has three pci slots and an agp slot, but as it has onboard 5:1 sound and built in 10/100 lan i dont need the other two slots.
 
C

Ch3tan

Guest
ooooo, nice, teaches me for not reading the post properly :)

SATA is nice Tom, then again my last HD was poop, so I would notice any difference as a considerable gain :)
 
T

Tom

Guest
Sata is a basiclaly a faster version of ATA. Ok I'm getting a MB with it on, it might be useful for editing in future. Cheers

This is all hugely confusing you know.
 
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