[NEED HELP!] I'm CONFUSED!

[Rockets34Life]

I have been going crazy trying to find the right motherboard. :? :?

It would be best if I can upgrade to Socket 775 or I can stick w/ a Socket 478 motherboard.

Currently I have an Intel D865GBF MB with on-board LAN. I have an Intel P4 3.0 HT processor, 1 GB of PC3200 DDR RAM (2x512), 128MB ATI 9600 video card, and Sound Blaster Live 5.1.

I don't want to break the bank (spend $50-$80...maybe up to $100) - just a good bang for the buck. I would prefer ASUS or ABIT, but whatever works the best is fine by me.

Any help is greatly appreciated from the MB gurus.

 

[TabrisDarkPeace]

The board you have is pretty damn good for the price you would've paid for it.

Going to an Asus or Abit mainboard with exactly the same chipset (Intel i865pe, or very similar Intel i875p chipset ) will gain you nothing in performance, and likely be a headache to port your working OS to.

You are running a i865G, which has identical performance to the i865pe, and is very close to the i875p based board you are looking at getting anyway. :roll:

Consider upgrading your video card to a GeForce 6600 GT (about 2.5x the performance of the Radeon 9600 Pro) if you can afford it.

The board you are using likely has the Intel (CSA) PRO 1000 Mbps network adapter too, which is still on of the best network adapters on the market today. (Like AGP the Intel CSA NIC has its own dedicated link to the Northbridge, good for gaming, and can do multiple packes per interrupt, unlike other 'cheap' Gigabit NICs often paired with non-Intel boards).

Your bottlenecks are:

- Radeon 9600 - Only 4 pipelines, Upgrade to a higher clocked card, with faster memory and double the pipelines (GeForce 6600 GT recommended for that system, at the price you can just afford). Will give double or higher the frame rates in most games vs the Radeon 9600 Pro (or even more if it is the Radeon 9600 'plain').

- Only 1 GB RAM, Current games really benefit from 2 GB, but this is less important in your case.

- Possibly a slow HDD. :?:

Consider sending me an e-mail or a PM, as I used to own a Intel i865pe based (same chipset Asus, Abit, etc use for their decent Socket 478, Pentium 4 systems btw). Replacing the board might gain you 3%, upgrading the video card and doing a clean up on drivers, etc should gain you +150% (2.5x the performance in games).

I suspect someone told you your board sucks because it isn't an Asus, or Abit, maybe because it sports onboard video - even though that is totally disabled and replaced with the Radeon 9600. - If this is so they are telling you porkies (lies), or just very uneducated when it comes to mainboards & the chipsets on them.

You could even get 5x - 7x the 3D performance on that same board by simply moving to a Radeon X850 (AGP) series card, or a GeForce 6800 GT/GS (AGP) or GeForce 7800 GS (AGP). But such upgrades are out of your price range I think. I'd just settle for the 2.5x+ of a GeForce 6600 GT to be honest... unless you 'need' more than that. 8)

 

[Rockets34Life]

Thanks for the reply, TabrisDarkPeace.

The PCI components are cool with me. I have had the MB for close to 2 years now. I'm just in the mood for an upgrade....

 

[BadTrip]

wanna sell the used card? lol

 

[BadTrip]

I am still stuck with a Radeon 9000

 

[Rockets34Life]

Well, I still want to keep my ATI 9600, but the motherboard, I guess I will have to sell it off.