Buying a new mobo.... advice very welcome!

[josbd]

I need to buy a new mobo pretty quickly since mine is on it's last legs.

Remainder of system comprises:

Athlon XP2500+ Barton
Creative Audigy (the original version)
nVidia GeForce4 MX440
512 DDR SDRAM

The expiring mobo is an AS Rock K7S8X rev 3. First a RAM slot fell over, and now 2 PCI slots have died. Time for a newbie, I think.

I don't have a great deal to spend, since I took you guys advice and bought a thoroughly decent graphix card for my bro!

Question is, should I go for a newer AS Rock, or try another brew entirely? At some point I will be upgrading the graphix card, and the sound card. I will also be adding more RAM when I can afford it. I don't game, but I do like listening to good quality sounds. Basically this mobo is not going to be stretched to the limit. I am UK based.

So, guys, any suggestions as to where I might begin to look?

Many thanks in advance!

 

[Didou]

Get the Abit NF7-S v2.0 which has the very capable SoundStorm sound card.

 

[zephead]

in addition to said abit board, the gigabyte ga-7n400 pro featuring the nforce 2 chipset is a good board and would satisfy your needs. asrock generally makes boards low in quality and performance, getting another asrock now or ever is not a wise choice.

 

[RealBlackStuff]

Didou's advise is bang-on, but Abit's AN7 has the edge when it comes to sound.
SPDif In/Out and a newer Soundstorm chip. The included uGuru is more a gimmick than useful.
You could always sell your Audigy towardss the cost of the new mobo.

Please realise that you will have to reinstall Windows, when you change mobo.

 

[IronDuke]

My only venture with an ASRock board was very short lived. It arrived faulty and went straight back.

 

[Tedster]

If you're keeping the Athlon 2500+ go with an MSI K7N2 series.

I have heard way too many problems with ASUS and Abit boards.

 

[olefarte]

I just got an Abit board, and so far I have nothing but praise for it. Seems to be a good board. I bought it on advice form several people and haven't been sorry.

 

[1000cc]

DFI - Lan Party NFII - Socket A ATX Motherboard with Audio, AGP 8X/4X, USB 2.0, FireWire, Serial ATA, RAID and Dual Ethernet LAN Support ... If you want to extreme oc nothing rival this board.

 

[josbd]

Thanks very much all! I shall investigate all suggestions.

I like the little old 2500+ and until it gives me grief, I shall keep that.

I've used ASRock boards in building cheapola systems for people in the past, and they have always been easy to build on, and reliable. This one is a couple of years old. Time for a better one.

I had an Asus board earlier, and it gave me nothing but grief, so I gave up on it and sold it.

Aye, good point about flogging the sound card, too.

As for reinstalling Windows.... it's all I seem to do these days! Sticking with W2K Pro, too.

Many thanks!

 

[1000cc]

Thanks very much all! I shall investigate all suggestions.

I like the little old 2500+ and until it gives me grief, I shall keep that.

I've used ASRock boards in building cheapola systems for people in the past, and they have always been easy to build on, and reliable. This one is a couple of years old. Time for a better one.

I had an Asus board earlier, and it gave me nothing but grief, so I gave up on it and sold it.

Aye, good point about flogging the sound card, too.

As for reinstalling Windows.... it's all I seem to do these days! Sticking with W2K Pro, too.

Many thanks!

if you dont want spend a lot hold on.http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=866731&Tab=11&NoMapp=0

 

[zephead]

I've used ASRock boards in building cheapola systems for people in the past, and they have always been easy to build on, and reliable. This one is a couple of years old. Time for a better one.

i and everyone i know has found asrock to be crap. low performance, low quality, short operational life, and general cheapness charechterise asrock boards. you'd never catch me building someone a system with one of those in there. whatever works for you...

 

[Didou]

Funny you should say that, I have an ASRock K7S8X working fine as it has been for the last 8 months. Asus did not want to be associated with entry level hardware so they created ASRock so it's just a smal department (spinoff if you will) of Asus.

They are quality products, they just happen to be budget oriented.

 

[josbd]

Well that's the thing, I have used them to build pcs for mates of mine who are restricted, cash-wise, so I have used the ASRock mobos together with lower powered Athlon XPs and they are all still running to this day. So I guess they have their place in this world. I didn't realise they were an offshoot of Asus, so useful info there!

I shall have a look at the Chaintech, and thanks for adding that in!

 

[1000cc]

Well that's the thing, I have used them to build pcs for mates of mine who are restricted, cash-wise, so I have used the ASRock mobos together with lower powered Athlon XPs and they are all still running to this day. So I guess they have their place in this world. I didn't realise they were an offshoot of Asus, so useful info there!

I shall have a look at the Chaintech, and thanks for adding that in!

http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/Hardware/Reviews/vnf4ultra/12.html heres another test on the chaintech "difrent model"

 

[josbd]

Ok, decided to go with an Abit. One final question for those in the know, what is the difference between Abit NF7-S and the Abit NF7-S2G, since they are the same price?

 

[IronDuke]

The 2g has gigabit lan.

 

[josbd]

Many thanks!

 

[zephead]

like i said, whatever works for you. i've seen many sorry excuses for boards with an asrock badge, more so than most other companies (topstar and ecs take the lead in crappiness).

 

[josbd]

like i said, whatever works for you. i've seen many sorry excuses for boards with an asrock badge, more so than most other companies (topstar and ecs take the lead in crappiness).

Well I wouldn't go that far, since I haven't had a problem with ASRock boards, and I have used many. Guess it all depends on the experiences we have eh?

 

[Mateo]

No Ecs

My advice is to stay away from ECS(elitegroup). I have recently purchased two of their boards... each is buggy and when trying to upgrade bios to fix the bugs, I have run into problems both times.... The guys at ECS offer no real support either for these problems

 

[Didou]

what is the difference between Abit NF7-S and the Abit NF7-S2G, since they are the same price?

The NF7-S2G has the new nVidia Southbridge which has some new features, mainly Gigabit Ethernet as pointed out by IronDuke but it also has the built-in nVidia firewall, it supports native SATA (instead of SATA through the Silicone Image chip) & most importantly, it no longer has the SoundStorm sound system (which is a great loss IMO).

 

[Tedster]

I've had nothing but good experience with MSI motherboards. The ASUS one I had never worked.

 

[1000cc]

THIS board is great

Motherboards Socket A nVIDIA Chipsets nForce 2



MSI K7N2 Delta2-LSR nVidia Socket A ATX Motherboard / Audio / AGP 8X / USB 2.0 / 10/100 LAN Support / Serial ATA / RAID

Item #: M452-2708 Avg. Rating: 2 Reviews





Price: $64.99


Availability: In Stock

Select An Extended Service Plan OptionWACA 1 Year Replacement after Mfg. Warranty Ends..$9.99WACA 2 Year Replacement after Mfg. Warranty Ends..$16.99


you wont have any problems with a MSI mobo


TIGER DIRECT

 

[josbd]

The NF7-S2G has the new nVidia Southbridge which has some new features, mainly Gigabit Ethernet as pointed out by IronDuke but it also has the built-in nVidia firewall, it supports native SATA (instead of SATA through the Silicone Image chip) & most importantly, it no longer has the SoundStorm sound system (which is a great loss IMO).

Well that does it for me, I shall go with the original, since the SoundStorm made all the difference in making my choice!

Thanks Didou.