Gaming motherboard

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CompuGeek247

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Hi this is my first time that im ever going to be buying a motherboard for my system. Ive installed everything but a motherbpard on my comp.
I basically started out with a compaq computer which i now realize is the cheapest crapiest system that they sell at ridiculous prices. I mean the system i bought was basically worth about 600 dollars max if i had bought the components seperately, but i bought the comp for 1200.00. well you live and learn. Well compaq, if anything im greatful for tought me something, it made me learn about the computer hardware inside. I am no longer a newb when it comes to hardware on computers well at least imo.

Anyway the new board i want to get is the Asus Avn8x Deluxe coupled with a athlon XP 2700+. I have done a tremendous amount of research about a month's worth and i have come to the conclusion that this is about as good as i can get for gaming without breaking the 350.00 mark. Im a student so i cant really afford the top end boards such as intel which is just absolutely crazy when you add up how much the ram would cost just to eqiup one of there boards.

About a month later i would add a radeon 9700 pro to the board but cant go all out right now.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated on just telling me if im making the right decision with picking this board. I have read the forum and i saw the there is high marks for this board, but i want a gaming board and i couldnt see any pionts being made on this board on gaming. I have seen pionts being made on other sites that i did my research on, but having a person that experienced it would be helpful.
Anyway im sorry if this thread is too big but thank you if you took the time to read it. Any advice if any would be helpful in telling me if this is the right board for me in gaming needs. Thank you once again.
 
an a7n8x (is that what you mean by avn8x?) is the BEST gaming motherboard out there - dont bother with intel boards for gaming - they are several times the cost with a very little performance advantage over the AMD boards. Also a good choise on CPU - if you are going to buy some new ram (which i assume you are) buy DDR2700 (333) Corsair XMS RAM - it is not alot more expensive but considerably higher quality than run-of-the-mill generic ram.
as for the graphics card - i have never like ATi but thats personal - if i say that i would recommend a nvidia card - i would
a) be wrong
b) be shouted down by everyone else on the forums
so.....the Radeon 9700 is a very good choise of card and it is not overly expensive - and everyone else will recommend it - so with all that you should have a VERY good rig

Steg
 
That asus A7N8X Deluxe mainboard is definitely one of the best (just make sure its the newest v2.0 that you get), but the Abit NF7-S v2.0 is just as good and also considerably cheaper, so you might also consider that.

As to memory, I feel that Corsair memory is excellent, but you can buy TwinMOS PC3200 (make sure to specify winbond chip version - uses same 5ns chips as the Corsair) that is identical, and costs half the price.

As to cpu, well if you don't mind overclocking you can get an Athlon XP1700 (JIUHB DLT3C core version - soon to be discontinued) for about a quarter the cost of an XP2700, but which will overclock to the equivalent of an XP3100 (not guaranteed, but it should certainly reach the level of an XP2700 without much effort).

Your choice of graphics card is good, and hopefully it will work without issue for you (I didn't have much luck with mine, but I was probably just unlucky).

That lot should save you a fair amount of your hard earned wedge, and you can get more details over here ...

ABIT NF7-S v2.0 - Review

AMD 1700 JIUHB - A question of stepping

TwinMOS DDR 400 - Review

PS: It might have been a little more helpful if you had specified your location, as many members here are from US and UK, which will obviously affect any shopping advice given (and help work out whether your budget is in $ or £ - OOPS, I just noticed dollars mention, well it would still help if it was clearer). :cool:
 
IMHO the TwinMOS ram is going to be over his budget,That system sounds like a good one so just make sure you get matched pairs of ram.I also have a 9700pro and am pleased with its numbers 15968 MO 2001se.anyway good luck and be sure you ground out
 

as for the graphics card - i have never like ATi but thats personal - if i say that i would recommend a nvidia card - i would
a) be wrong
b) be shouted down by everyone else on the forums
so.....the Radeon 9700 is a very good choise of card and it is not overly expensive - and everyone else will recommend it - so with all that you should have a VERY good rig

Steg
Click to expand...


Man, Im with ya on that one....I'll put it this way - To cut some bucks get a ABIT Suliro Geforce4 Ti4200. With its stock cooling you can o/c it to 4600 standards np.

--

Also, I wanted to make a gamming system and got the Asus A7V8x. Is that up there with the A7N8x? Also, I can get like 512MBs of Kingtson for $40 or whatever. But when Corsair XMS and some other brands charge like $80-$100. Kingston isnt generic...why are these brands so much money? Because the ns speed is .5 faster? and comes with a heatspeader?? :confused:
 
i agree with ---agissi---
those abit cards have a huge OTES cooling system on - which if u dont mind it sounding like a plane taking off can be overclocked over ti4800 speeds - and are very stable at that speed

Steg
 
Asus Avn8x Deluxe= i meant a Asus A7N8X-DX sorry about the mistake.
And the ram i was going to get is 1 gig of corsair but it seems the price has risen dramatically from 200 to 340 dollars. which sucks big time. should i get a 1 gig block or just 2/500 blocks. i wanted to max it out in a couple months but if i get 2 /500 blocks i dont think i'll be able to max out the 3 gig memory cap.

and i want to thank you on NIC on that link i learned so much. I am still a newb in the area of overclocking. I havent ever tried it before and i am a bit hesitant to try it. I think maybe i should go down to a 2600+ xp and see if i could tweak it to 2800+ since i know a 2700+ can be tweeked to a 2800+xp.

and could anyone give me advice on the best ram for this board thats from 512 to 1 gig. Forget the corsiar the price is too much for 1 gig and i dont know if they will fit in the dual channel if i was to get 2. the thing im iffy about is the dual channel. what ram should i get for those?
 
1 gig of RAM is just overkill if your going to be playing games
Click to expand...

Not necessarily, most games will run better with more RAM, particularly if you are using WinXP, which really needs 256Mb just to itself.

As for the type of RAM, I would recommend 2 sticks of any 400Mhz DDR, regardless of CAS rating. This would allow it to be run in Dual Channel Mode at 333Mhz with a likely CAS Rating of 2 or 2.5.

Man, Im with ya on that one....I'll put it this way - To cut some bucks get a ABIT Suliro Geforce4 Ti4200. With its stock cooling you can o/c it to 4600 standards np.
Click to expand...

or instead just get a Radeon 9500 Pro, which is only about 130 quid and would still out perform a 4600 and have DirectX 9.

About a month later i would add a radeon 9700 pro to the board but cant go all out right now. ... but i want a gaming board and i couldnt see any points being made on this board on gaming. I have seen points being made on other sites that i did my research on, but having a person that experienced it would be helpful.
Click to expand...

The Radeon 9700Pro (or indeed the 9500Pro) are the best value gaming cards available, as they are reasonably priced, offer DirectX 9 Support, and have excellent visual quality.

GeforceFX offers similar performance, including DX9 Functionality, but costs more and has other issues (such as noise).

Geforce Ti4x00 cards have reasonable performance, but have not come down in price to reflect their now lower performance, and are only DirectX 8.1 Compliant.
 
Thanks for the help and the reason i want alot of ram is because ive had so many problems with lag. i just want to ensure that i will not encounter any in the future with my new board.

About the radeon i could save alot of money if i went with the 9500 pro but i want to stay current could i overclock the 9500 pro to meet the standards of the 9700 pro? or are there some special values to 9700 pro that the 9500 pro does not have?
 
Originally posted by Th3M1ghtyD8
Not necessarily, most games will run better with more RAM, particularly if you are using WinXP, which really needs 256Mb just to itself.
Click to expand...


Uhm... not meaning to be offensive, but that is 100%, completely, totally, and utterly wrong.

A BASE XP install including themes will consume 100-120mb RAM depending on machine configuration.

A properly tweaked XP install will as as little as 41mb RAM for the OS. Quitting all programs open after time will still leave you with 41-50mb RAM used.
 
You won't need a gig of RAM, unless like someone else said, you are going to be doing video editing. If your primary use is gaming then go with 512mb, and at the MOST, 768mb (2 chips - 512 & 256).

If your going to be running a lot of applications in the background while gaming then yes go with a gig of ram, but I would do like someone recommended and close all applications running in the background except explorer and systray -- then tweak your OS.
Refer to some of these guides to tweak your system and you will do well with 512mb.


Bios Optimization Guide
http://www.rojakpot.com/default.aspx?location=1

System Optimization Guide for Gamers
http://www.tweaktown.com/document.php?dType=review&dId=411&dPage=1
 
While it is true that WinXP only really uses around 120MB RAM, having more will make your PC feel faster simply because there will be less swapping of applications in and out of memory - you also need RAM to run applications + windows.

This also makes applications that were cached, appear to reload faster than if they were solely read from disk. Though I think the point being made is that more memory is generally better up to a point, and dependent on the apps that you run.

For example, if you are running Oracle or SQL Server, as well as Visual Studio, then even 512MB is not really enough. They will run in less memory, but a lot slower.

For games, 256MB is now becoming the minimum amount anyone should have, with 512MB being optimum for most tasks. Any more, may, or may not, be a waste depending on how you use your PC.
 
Hi i just found out some restrictions on my current hardrive that hopefully i wont have when i get my av7n8x. I can only support up to 2 hardrives with my current cause it has ide cable. Will i be able to take on my 3rd hardrive (that right now i cant use) on that motherboard using serial ata? I dont have much experience with this kind seriat ata. im just now learning about it. I have 5 drives in total 2 cd's and 3 hardrives in case your wondering
 
As far as I'm aware you CAN utilize both Hard Drives in addition to one on the Serial ATA. This is because the Serial ATA has a different interrupt request.

HOWEVER, I would not recommend this due to stability issues with current SATA controllers. If you must have that many Drives, then get a Promise RAID controller and link them together. You can also add more drives if you wanted to. Otherwise just get a big drive. It's easier and more cost effective.
 
I agree, the ASUS board ROCKS. And if you can swing it I'd go with PC3200 or better also. I have the Corsair 512MB PC3200 TwinX and it has made a huge difference in system stability from the DDR266 I upgraded from.

And I also agree that 1GB of ram is overkill. Especially when buying high-priced, FAST ram.

And finally, I would definitely consider overclocking. You'll have a good board for it, and it's fun. I ordered a T'bred B which had never been locked at the factory (No laser cuts, all muti's accessible). It was also pretested stable to 2300. No warranty of course. If you go this route you'll be glad you bought the faster RAM.
 
I have the A7V8x. Is that board any good for gamming? I thought it was, but everyone has the A7N8x. Mine isnt the Deluexe either...
 
The Asus A7V8x is a good mainboard, though not quite up to nForce2 standards.

Here's a review you can check out if you're feeling brave ...

Asus A7V8X
 
Well the KT400 is just about par with nForce2...From what i've seen nothing to brag about.
 
The A7n8 DX is a wonderful mobo, although I would recommended getting AT LEAST 1GB RAM. Thus giving you the advantage of; Less in game/all round lag, easy convert o vista via games also, and it's able to support all programs...
As for a graphix card, I could get a Gforce 9800gt pro and OC it to about 10500...As for the processor, you can make a 1.1ghz run at 3.2ghz just fine, although you should have A REALLY GOOD HEAD SINK, OR COOLANT, it gets really hot, trust me, I've melted 3....
Other than that it's all good.
 
It Lives! IT LIVES!

But seriously, this thread is more than 6 years old. Please look at the date of the last post before deciding to revive dead threads.
 
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