Seeking mobo advice

[berone]

I'm considering two boards reviewed here - Asus A7N8X or the Chaintech Zenith Series CT-7NJS. The nforce2 Dual-channel DDR boards look like good choices, so that's where I'm leaning now. I don't like what I've read about the implementation of sound on the Chaintech, though. Okay, here is the question: I want to meet the following criteria and would welcome any advice re: the above two boards or any others:

AMD Athlon XP 2600 or better
4 ide hard drives
1 ide CDRW
1 ide DVD player
(all of the above being tranfered from my existing system)
Onboard ethernet
onboard audio
4 - 6 USB 2.0
2 firewire

I like the Chaintech unit that puts the usb and firewire ports in an external drive bay and would prefer that to having them built into the bottom of the case.

Thanks!

Anthony

 

[Spitfire_x86]

DON'T get the Chaintech board. It's the slowest nForce2 board next to shuttle. Also it doesn't have MCP-T audio of nForce2.

Buy ASUS A7N8X Deluxe

<b> "You can put lipstick on a pig, but hey, it's still a pig!" - RobD </b>

 

[berone]

If I'm reading correctly, that would make it the ASUS A7V8X. Do you know if you can put 6 IDE devices on that? For that matter, can you put 6 ide devices on any motherboard?

Thanks,

Anthony