Help with a motherboard choice

[ugaman72]

Hello all,
After lurking for a few months, I have decided that this has to be the most knowledgeable group on the net. I have been toying with building a new rig for the last few months (my 3rd). After reading posts for a few months, I have decided against my first choice P4 3.0C/E GHz and have decided on a Athon64 3000+ (Newcastle 3.0 GHz) mostly due to the heat issues I’ve read about. It will mostly be used as a media type computer and used for TV recording, office work, internet, and some fairly intense audio and video editing. I now need to find a reliable ATX motherboard in the $100 range that will hopefully use the SATA hard drives and 1 Gig of DDR RAM that I now have. The main things that I'm concerned with is stability (I won't be overclocking). I would appreciate any recommendations you may have. I don’t trust the sales guys working at these computer stores, and I think this forum is a much better place for getting the best information. Thanks in advance for any help.

 

[o1die]

You can get an nforce3 epox board for less than $100 ($92 at newegg) that works with agp video cards. Or, you can get an ecs or foxconn nforce4 pci-e board for about the same dough. Asus also makes a via dual channel board for about $40 more. These are all socket 939. Asus and abit make a socket 754 nforce3 board, but didn't bother to carry it over to socket 939. Socket 754 boards have had fewer problems, but 939 is a better choice.

 

[pat]

For what you plan to do, socket 754 will be just fine for you. I had good luck with the Soltek k8an2e-gr. Stable, fast and easy to setup. I dont know about other brand, as I never used something else than the Soltek for my 754 built.

-Always put the blame on you first, then on the hardware !!!

 

[Rugger]

Another great mobo option is the <A HREF="http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=13-136-147&depa=1" target="_new">DFI Lanparty nF3 UT 250Gb</A> for $102 or the <A HREF="http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProductDesc.asp?description=13-127-190&depa=0" target="_new">Abit NF8</A> for $90. What is the mfr/model of your RAM?

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