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Whats a good motherboard these days?

Whats a good motherboard these days?

Hi
I'm finally going ahead with an upgrade!

What's a good mid range motherboard that packs allot of punch for it's cost?

Can i use an nvidia 9600 pro graphics card in these new motherboards? Since i don't wan't a new graphics card right away... i want to save up to get a really good one.
32,146 views 35 replies
Reply #26 Top
dousn't look like Asrock boards have the dual processor thing going?

Is it really an advantage to have duel processors?

Whats a good board for that?
Reply #27 Top
I did a search on motherboards in ebay. Not one of them has a duel processor socket?

am i missing somthing here?
Reply #28 Top
Both of those boards you posted are actually quite old (the first is older than what you have now!).

You will most likely be wanting to get a Socket AM2 board (for AMD) or an LGA775 board (for Intel). A good place to look is newegg.com.
Reply #29 Top
In that case, i have located this upgrade kit:

ASUS M2V-MX Socket AM2 Mainboard + AMD Athlon 64 4200+ X2 CPU + 1Gb DDR2 RAM

$397.195 USD including postage.... any good?
Reply #30 Top
Kryo... i looked at newegg.com, they seem quite cheap on their barebone systems but their descriptions arn't clear which is a bit frustrating.

Thank you for the tip though, much appreciated.

they have;

ASUS V3-M2NC61S AMD Socket AM2 Barebone - Retail
NVIDIA GeForce 6100
1000MHz HyperTransport FSB
4 x 240Pin
[7] $119.99

Reply #31 Top
I found the new generation Asrok boards (i think?). from the following link...

http://www.asrock.com/index.asp



Intel Socket 775
ConRoeXFire-eSATA2
ConRoe945PL-GLAN
ConRoe1333-DVI/H
ConRoe945G-DVI
ConRoe865PE
775i945GZ
4CoreDual-VSTA
775i65G
Intel Socket 478
P4VM890
AMD Socket AM2
ALiveNF5-eSATA2+
ALiveXFire-eSATA2
ALiveSATA2-GLAN
ALiveNF6G-DVI
ALiveNF6G-VSTA
AM2NF3-VSTA
AMD Socket 939
939NF6G-VSTA
AMD Socket 754
K8NF6P-VSTA
K8NF3-VSTA

I don't know which ones are good?
Reply #32 Top
Well, just randomly looking at motherboards is the wrong way to go about it. You need to ask yourself:


What is your budget for your new machine?

What kind of CPU do you want to use?

How upgradeable do you want it to be?


A motherboard should be chosen based on the hardware you'll be using, and the features you want. Not the other way around (picking a mobo and building everything else based on what it has).
Reply #33 Top
Be sure to research ones your interested in thoroughly. Not only the reviews from the buy site, but google it and get several independent reviews. I bought an ECS board once and didn't find out till later it had an intermitent glitch that could only be fixed by soldering a resister to the board. A little research can save a lot of headaches later. Good Luck.   

Reply #34 Top
I found the new generation Asrock boards (i think?). from the following link...
http://www.asrock.com/index.asp


I'm surprised no one has posted a link to the Anandtech review of the Asrock 939Dual (dual as in supporting AGP and PCIe) (http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.aspx?i=2524&p=1). This motherboard is the predecessor to the 4CoreDual-VSTA currently available. Anandtech gave the motherboard a pretty good review and these guys are a very respectable hardware review site.

I definitely planning on getting one of these Asrock boards when I upgrade my current system...


For what's a list of what is good hardware to get these days, check out the system guides on Anandtech and Ars Technica :
http://arstechnica.com/guides.ars
http://www.anandtech.com/guides/
Reply #35 Top
Well, just randomly looking at motherboards is the wrong way to go about it. You need to ask yourself:


What is your budget for your new machine?

What kind of CPU do you want to use?

How upgradeable do you want it to be?


A motherboard should be chosen based on the hardware you'll be using, and the features you want. Not the other way around (picking a mobo and building everything else based on what it has).


The problem is that i 'used' to know allot about computers. I used to base my computer purchases on what is the best system for it's price.... in other words what system has the best power for dollar ratio.

A few years go buy and i have no idea about anything!! So i don't know what features i want because i don't know what features are available, nor do i know which features i won't be needing or which features are really good. guess that's the price you pay for not reading pc magazines.

DethAdder


what you say is true... my current system i purchased as a bare bones system from Ebay. It is a good system but i regretted buying it because the bios has no options, most notebly is the fact that the AGP appeture sieze option dousn't exist, which is totally rediculous for a motherboard bios! The only bios i have seen with less options is my bosses 3 year old Acer laptop!!!

Voon Liew


I will check out those links, thanks allot