What a shocker, another post requesting help in choosing the motherboard for my upgrade
I am upgrading from my Athlon XP 1800+ to an AMD 64 3000+, 512 MB RAM. I am keeping my sound card (SB Live 5.1) and vid card for now (Geforce FX 5700 Ultra. I realize this will need an upgrade too. But can't afford it now).
I am torn between a few different models. All of which are nForce 3 250: Gigabyte K8NS, Biostar K8NHA Grand, and Chaintech VNF3250. I like they all have integrated firewire ports as that will save me the price of the add on card later. But I lean more toward the Biostar since it is the nForce 3 250 Gb chipset so there is the 1000MB LAN and the firewall built in. The latter is very attractive to me because Zonealarm at times causes problems and now I won't have to buy a hardware firewall on top of the Mobo.
My question is what would some of you recommend of these three or are there other choices I'm missing. These are all great prices as I am on a very limited budget. I am looking for easy installation and good quality. The Biostar manual is the best of the 3 from what I have downloaded. This is important as I need clear direction. Gigabyte's installation guide was good, but it didn't include anything about the BIOS options. Chaintech's was probably the weakest. What experiences have you all had with these companies?
Also, I have a 300 W PSU, will that be enough? I hate to fork out another $40-$60 if I don't have to.
Thanks for your help in advance.
Brandt
<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by BrandtP on 10/21/04 04:32 PM.</EM></FONT></P>
I am upgrading from my Athlon XP 1800+ to an AMD 64 3000+, 512 MB RAM. I am keeping my sound card (SB Live 5.1) and vid card for now (Geforce FX 5700 Ultra. I realize this will need an upgrade too. But can't afford it now).
I am torn between a few different models. All of which are nForce 3 250: Gigabyte K8NS, Biostar K8NHA Grand, and Chaintech VNF3250. I like they all have integrated firewire ports as that will save me the price of the add on card later. But I lean more toward the Biostar since it is the nForce 3 250 Gb chipset so there is the 1000MB LAN and the firewall built in. The latter is very attractive to me because Zonealarm at times causes problems and now I won't have to buy a hardware firewall on top of the Mobo.
My question is what would some of you recommend of these three or are there other choices I'm missing. These are all great prices as I am on a very limited budget. I am looking for easy installation and good quality. The Biostar manual is the best of the 3 from what I have downloaded. This is important as I need clear direction. Gigabyte's installation guide was good, but it didn't include anything about the BIOS options. Chaintech's was probably the weakest. What experiences have you all had with these companies?
Also, I have a 300 W PSU, will that be enough? I hate to fork out another $40-$60 if I don't have to.
Thanks for your help in advance.
Brandt
<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by BrandtP on 10/21/04 04:32 PM.</EM></FONT></P>