MOBO Suggestions

[Locke]

I am building my first computer for my living room. I am not going to overclock it. It will be used as a hardcore gaming/music/internet box. I need it to run as silently as possible. Any boards with onboard 10/100 ethernet ports would be fantastic(are there any advantages to this being on the mobo?). Integrated sound might also be interesting as long as performance and quality don't suffer from it.

I am considering:
Dragon Plus!
Epox 8KHA+

Any suggestions?

Thanks,
Locke

 

[jflongo]

I have the Gigabyte GA-7VTXH+ board. It has the new KT266A chipset and handles DDR memory. It appears to be quite stable and has Creative Labs PC128 Sound Chip and Realtek 10/100 Lan Chip on board. It's probably $5 more than the Epox, but what i've read it has better sound.

The Dragon Plus seems to be a good board, but was overkill and overpriced for my needs. Not sure on yours.

Now as far as advantages to ethernet being on board? All I can say is my dsl speeds have increased about 70-100 mega bits, so about 9 - 12 MB/s. I'm guessing that's the combinations of onboard lan, as well as, a faster machine.

If you want a good place to check out prices, I recommend www.newegg.com , they had competitive prices and awesome shipping prices. I had zero problems with them.