help me choose a motherboard.

[Passa]

I bought an AMD 1200 Chip and I do not want to spend a lot of $ on the motherboard. Can anyone a recommend a good motherboard (doesnt have to support DDR).

thanks

Are any of these cheap motherboards good/compatible for my Athlon 1.2 Chip? note the prices are in Australian $$$

ASUS CUPLE-VM - 129
ASUS CUSI-M - 159
ASUS CUV4XC - 159
ASUS CUA266 (DDR+SD) - 205
Gigabyte 6VX7C-4XP - 159
Gigabyte 7IXE4 - 155
Gigabyte 72MM - 195
Gigabyte 7ZX-H (266)- 215


PS im totally new to the world of motherboards

 

[Mark0999]

Those look like Canadian prices?

Only the last Gigabyte board will support an AMD cpu. To save money... look at the MSI K7T Turbo or the Elite K7AMA. The Elite board supports both DDR and PC133 ram.

 

[Passa]

thanks

at the moment i have 256 meg ram (one 128 PC-100 chip and one 128 PC-133)

the PC-100 will not work on these Athlon boards?

i found these other boards
ASUS A7V-C - 245
MSI turbo - 225
Eopx 8KHA (DDR) - 265

 

[Passa]

ASUS CUA266 (DDR+SD) - why doesnt it support Athlons? if it supports DDR? i was under the impression that DDR was only for Athlons

had to add...what are RAID motherboards?

 

[Mark0999]

<< ASUS CUA266 (DDR+SD) - why doesnt it support Athlons? if it supports DDR? i was under the impression that DDR was only for Athlons

had to add...what are RAID motherboards? >>



The &quot;CU&quot; stands for coppermine CPU support, which is for the P3 platform.

 

[Passa]

ok thanks for clearing this up...

i did some research and Ive changed my mind id like to get a DDR motherboard...

are these anygood?

ASUS A7A266 (DDR+SDRAM)
Epox 8KHA (DDR)
MSI K7T 266 Pro (DDR)
Iwill KA66 (DDR)


do the latter three support SDRAM since i have 512mg (mix of 133 and 100) of it..dont want it to go 2 waste.
also what does RAID mean...
sorry for all the questions

 

[GLF]

I have the 8KHA. I have only had one problem with it so far, and that was my fault. I have an 800 on there now running at 960. Unreal Tourny ran just fine for over an hour, so it seems stable too me.

 

[GLF]

If you plan on using more then one hard drive or are going to have more then 4 IDE devices get a board with a Raid controller.

 

[V3]

Just dropping in some comments..

DDR is the way to go, but the current chipsets (AMD and Ali) well.. I really don't know nor trust them..

I think you should wait getting a DDR board untill VIA releases theirs..
Asus just released their A7V 266 board which supports both SDRAM and DDR Sdram..

And the RAID thing..

It's kinda like SCSI
In Case of Raid 0, you must have 2 identical HDD (lets say 2 x 30 GB) connect them to the Raid chip (with normal IDE cables) and the RAID Controller uses both HDD like 1 HDD, so you then have 1 HDD with 60 GB. This means Speed. Because the closer you get to the CENTER of the Disk, the slower the Rotation speed will be. With 2 hdd writing at once, it takes longer to get to the Center..

Raid is nice, but I couldn't get it to work with Windows 2000 because of the lack of a Driver..
With Windows 98 and ME.. No Problem.

 

[Passa]

thanks heaps guys

 

[Passa]

ive decided not to get the DDR board and pick up an ASUS A7V-C or a Gigabyte 7ZX-H(266)

 

[Passa]

oops double post....


anyone say why i shouldnt get this board?

 

[elliotjo]

You might also consider the Shuttle AK31. I've been using mine for a few days now. Its fast and reliable (as long as your not using all 4 memory slots - 3 works fine though) and its only about $90US from www.mwave.com. Its made for AMD's chips. This one is a 1.4Ghz Athlon.

elliot