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marshahu   11-15-2003 at 10:00:42 PM

Last Xmas my memory upgrade went wrong, thus killing my FIC AZ11E - now instead of buying the then expensive DDR RAM I chose to keep my SD Modules and then buy a combo board. Now I want to build myself a semi-new PC with one of the latest processors comming out.

First which processor is the best for Performance in games, Video Editing & DVD Creation, MP3 ripping, DVD Playback, CD Making, Internet Gaming, Radio and Surfing, Word Processing, Use my forthcomming T2 Broadband connection to its optimum performance, and of course it must be able to handle my dads huge excel spreadsheet with about 1000+ complicated formulas. My choices are an AMD Athlon 64, AMD Athlon 64 FX, Intel Pentium 4 Extreme or Intel's upcomming Pentium 5 with 64bit technology. Which one is the bext for my needs.

Then I need a suitable motherboard with the respective processor, which has the following features:

- Must have lots of expansion for processors above 3.3ghz anymore welcome.
- Onboard 10/100 or 100mbit LAN.
- At least 4 USB 2.0 sockets
- At least two Firewire Sockets,
- Parallel, 2x Serial and the standard PS/2 Ports
- NO ONBOARD GRAPHICS OR SOUND I need the IRQs for my sound card, Graphics card, TV card and Hard Drives
- Four ATA 133 sockets with RAID 0,1 or which ever standard is the most reliable
- Serial ATA with RAID 0,1 or which ever standard is the most reliable. At present its only ATA 150 but I would like up to 600 or fastest possible.
- A Floppy Drive connector
- AGP 8x and AGP PRO if possible (what is the point of AGP PRO anyway?)
- A reliable and well performing Chipset on the northbridge and south bridge, with supports for up to DDR 800 or fastest possible, FSB of 800 or above.
- Support for DDR 800 RAM or above, three slots minimum, must support at least 2GB.
- 6 PCI Slots Minimum

OPTIONAL REQUIREMENTS

- Wake on Modem and Wake on LAN
- Windows version of the BIOS (similar to what Asus and Abit offer)
- Logo Designer for the motherboard logo that appears before the OS starts up
- Versatile Overclocking Options
- Any other cool features are welcome (except Onboard Sound and Graphics. I have a Sound Blaster Audigy 2 which can kick the ass of an onboard solution, and an nVidia Geforce FX 5950 256MB DDR RAM, nuff said).

Thank you for all your help.

Just cos I am a semi skinhead it does not mean that I am a semi PC Guru. I am 25% PC Guru, 15% Thug and 10% Alcoholic!!!

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Crashman   11-16-2003 at 04:52:28 AM
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You have a problem!

-Most boards have 10/100 or 10/100/1000 connections
-Most boards support 8 USB connections, some by headers
-Legacy ports standard on most boards

Here's where the problem comes in: Most boards have onboard sound! I can't think of a GOOD board that doesn't! Your IRQ argument doesn't hold water, because when you disable onboard sound it doesn't use an IRQ.

6PCI minimum? That's the absolute maximum available! And you shouldn't use the first slot if you're using a hot running video card. Also the first slot shares an IRQ with the AGP slot on many boards.

Most of the best boards are only comming with 5 PCI slots now, and all of them have onboard sound, so it looks like you're screwed.

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>

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HardWareBoss   11-16-2003 at 05:13:06 AM
- 0 +

That's putting it nicely.

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Crashman   11-16-2003 at 05:20:35 AM
- 0 +

I'm a nice guy!

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>

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blah   11-16-2003 at 05:40:28 AM
- 0 +

<""so it looks like you're screwed."">

not only he, but me too screwed is. But since they have NIC and Firewire on board, it does not seam too much of a screwing to meee.

..this is very useful and helpful place for information...

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marshahu   11-16-2003 at 09:41:52 PM
- 0 +

Guys

I can live with onboard sound, I just dont see why, like Abit used to, they abandon onboard sound for high end users and perhaps fill that space with USB or Firwire Ports.

Soz I forgot that 6 PCI slots is the maximum you cant get on any motherboard. Why are the dropping to 5? what will fill the PCI slot's place?

So will you still be able to answer my original query, except this time I dont mind onboard sound, and I can make do with 6 PCI slots. The other features I still need.

Thanks again for your help

Just cos I am a semi skinhead it does not mean that I am a semi PC Guru. I am 25% PC Guru, 15% Thug and 10% Alcoholic!!!

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