Suggestions for a new motherboard

This is not a good time to buy VIA chipset unless you have tight budget or hate nVidia products; a nice Soltek or MSI nForce2 mobo is cheap and good.

You never know how stupid you are until you have done something stupid enough for you to realize it.
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The Asus A7V333 with Raid springs to mind although I would recomend something with the NForce 2 chipset instead as it offers far more FSB and memory tweaks.

The downside to these boards though is I'm not aware of any that offer 4 chanel IDE Raid, only 2 chanel or more common SATA.

The SATA - IDE converters availiable are supposed to give a performance hit so maybe you'd be better off getting a Raid card. At least with this you'll be able to use it in any motherboard you choose

One day I'll look back at my current rig the way I do my old ZX Spectrum.......Would have been interesting to say the least if Sir Clive had Bill G's business skills<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by soulprovider on 04/16/03 07:53 AM.</EM></FONT></P>

If you need raid, you might as well just get an Nforce2 board, and an inexpensive 2 channel PCI raid card.

Instead of Rdram, why not just merge 4 Sdram channels...

As for NVidia, I run a MSI K7N2-L in my PC, I just couldn't find a NForce2 MB with IDE RAID. The computer is going to be used as a download/burn PC. This will be his 4th PC (at the same time) so it won't be his gaming machine. I treid talking him into a NForce2 with SATA RAID, but he didn't like the $40 more for a MB or $40-50 more per HD (he wants 2 120GB).
So apart from NForce2 MBs which of those 2 (<A HREF="http://www.giga-byte.com/MotherBoard/Products/Products_..." target="_new">1 </A> or <A HREF="http://www.fic.com.tw/product/motherboard/1stmainboard_..." target="_new">2</A>) or other KT400 MBs would be the best.

"Quotes are for people that can't think for themselves"

<A HREF="http://www.msi.com.tw/program/products/mainboard/mbd/pr..." target="_new"> MSI K7N2 Delta-ILSR</A>

<A HREF="http://www.msi.com.tw/program/products/mainboard/mbd/pr..." target="_new"> MSI K7N2G-ILSR</A>

These mobos have IDE + SATA RAID

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Well, then get him a VIA machine and slaughter him with the nVidia price since he is so rich (just kidding... no, no don't beat me... ouch, that hurts!)
OK, if you really have to chose between these two mobo I'll say Gigabyte for better quality products.

You never know how stupid you are until you have done something stupid enough for you to realize it.
<A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/mysystemrig.html?id=22996" target="_new">My System Rig</A>

Those 2 MBs can conect 2 SATA and 1 IDE.
"• Support 2 serial ATA + 1 ATA133
- RAID O or 1 are supported
- RAID function works w/ATA133 + SATA H/D or 2 SATA H/D
• Connect up to 2 Serial ATA devices and 1 ATA133 device"

"Quotes are for people that can't think for themselves"