MoBo for AMD (tight budget)

[Paijo]

Hi, I'm new around here. Plz forgive my limited hardware knowledge, but I have this crucial question, and I don't know where else to go. So please, any advice would be nice.
I have AMD Athlon XP 1.4 with Gygabite MoBo (I forgot the type), 128 MB DDR with NVidia GeForce II. I'm planning to upgrade my PC one step at a time, and I'm thinking of upgrading my MoBo, so later on it will fit on a more and more demanding AMD processor.
The question is: what is the right type of MoBo for my specs, concerning that I'm planning to upgrade my processor as well in the future? And to be honest, I'm the type of that "low budget" consumer, so it has to be at reasonable price. My friend told me that I should buy ASUS, but my other friend told me to buy a new ECS Via KT600 (its cheaper). I didn't find the review for this ECS Via KT600 on this website yet, so I believe it's very new.
Please help me.

Thank's

 

[Spitfire_x86]

You can buy a Biostar nForce2. It costs ~$60

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[tjchino]

the chaintech 7NIL1-SUMMIT looks ok at $68.00. it has the nforce2 ultra 400 chipset which more than a few people feel is the best amd chipset available. personally, i'd go for the abit an7 but it is closer to $110.

 

[Paijo]

Thanks, I'll check that later.
But is it mean that Asus and ECS is not good? I believe that Asus and ECS is a well-known brand, isn't it?
And one more thing guys, is it really true that P4 is more stable than AMD? I'm sorry to ask this, I'm not trying to compare things up and I personally don't believe this (it's rather relative isnt it?). Personally, the reason why I'm not choosing the Pentium because of its price that I cannot afford, not for the performance. Any comment on this one?

Thank's

 

[bonesdad1]

You might also look into Shuttle motherboards. MN31N and AN35N-Ultra are excellent low-cost boards. The MN31N has integrated graphics and is micro-ATX. Have experience with both boards and both really shine, IMO. Cost is about $88 for MN31N and $66 for AN35N at Newegg. Both are Nforce2 mobos.

There is no difference in stability between the intel and amd line. that's fanboy talk.

my sig left me for an Honorary Guru...

 

[Paijo]

Ok, now I have Biostar Nforce2, Chaintech Nforce2 400, and Shuttle MN31N or AN35N Ultra. How about the other brand? Does anybody has any experience with, for instance, ASUS or Gygabite (the low-cost one, off course)?

 

[tjchino]

both those brands are good ones... i wouldn't mind working with either. in fact, i've got a a7v266-vm which has the nforce chipset. works great. i've done a build with it recently and it went together without a hitch. it has onboard video - which was a piece of crap in my opinion. i think it slowed the whole system down (i believe because it used my system memory). i put a decent graphics card in it. dropped a amd athlon xp 2400 in it. bumped my memory to 512, and it is quite fast. not really a super gaming rig, but it does ok even there.

 

[tjchino]

and personally i'd skip ecs. never done much good for me, but i think it might have been the via chipset i was working with.