New motherboard/RAM advice please


Recommended Posts

Hi there this is my 1st post on Neowin.

I have recently been upgrading a few parts and now want to upgrade my mobo and RAM but havent got a clue what to get, i'm after something that will give good all-round performance, good overclocking abilities and hopefully last a while for future CPU/RAM upgrade.

Whats the best chipset to have with my current AthlonXP 1800+ and will any take advantage of my ATA133 HDD, have been looking at KT333 and the nForce (does this support DDR400?) but am not sure how good they are.

I would prefer an Abit (have heard they are good for overclocking) or ASUS (Which i currently have and find very stable), so far have been looking at the KX7333R & A7V333-RAID are these any good?

For RAM i am looking at getting it from Crucial as i hear they are good, is there any better?

Please help thanx :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

First of all: Welcome to Neowin :D

For the mobo, I suggest getting an ASUS. I am not exactly sure which one (maybe someone else knows), but they have the best mobos around ;)

For ram, go with ddr (2100?). Crucial should be fine; also Kingmax. I have samsung rd ram and it's fine :ponder: :)

i would'nt get rd ram though. it's going out of fashion and it's getting expensive (unless you are rich :rolleyes: )

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi and welcome to neowin,

If ur getting a mobo with a kt333 chipset get PC2700 ram. If ur gonna use PC2100 why not get a mobo with a KT266-A chipset

Link to comment
Share on other sites

does anyone no if the nForce2 chipset is out yet and if there are any boards that support and if so which ones? if not i am looking at getting a KT333 based board, can anyone tell me your experiences with this chipset, i think i read that it supports ATA133 but am not sure.

I am looking at buying the new board tonight and would really appreciate some advise, :ponder: and havent a clue as to what is the best to get.

I have only decided on getting 512mb of DDR333 from Crucial but what motherboard?

Hope someone out there can help.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

hi,

i just bought a asus a7v333 board from overclockers.co.uk for 90 quid and all the reviews say that its one of the top kt333 boards on the market. I havent used it yet though as im still waiting for the rest of the stuf

Link to comment
Share on other sites

does anyone no if the nForce2 chipset is out yet and if there are any boards that support and if so which ones? if not i am looking at getting a KT333 based board, can anyone tell me your experiences with this chipset, i think i read that it supports ATA133 but am not sure.

hi,

yeah, the Nforce 2 boards are just about out, they're fairly expensive comparitively though. However, the only one that ive seen is packaged with a GForce4 Ti4200 for bout #180inc VAT on ebuyer.

Hope This Helps

Keep The Faith

Stroudy

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Cheers Stroudy, checked out that bundle as i regularly shop at eBuyer and wouldnt mind sticking a GeForce4 Ti4200 in my system even though my mx440 does a good job with most new games compared to my old voodoo3 3000 that couldnt run THPS3 and had weird things happening in SOF2 (both run sweet now) :cheeky:, however dont know what Leadtek motherboards are like and there website keeps saying there are errors on page, so probably wont go for that but cheers for the info coz i have looked on eBuyer and couldnt see any nForce2 boards there before.

Didnt realise choosing a new board could be so difficult usually just get the cheapest one with the features i want on it, but am looking to spend a good amount of cash on one this time (need to take advantage of me AthlonXP), but with all the different RAM, Chipsets and new features being introduced i'm completely lost, maybe the perfect board will be released over the next week, gonna wait a little longer to get it as i am gonna be to busy with course work this week (approx 1800 pages to read :dead: ).

Cheers for the advise so far, always glad to hear any more opinions ;)

I need all the help i can get at the moment :s

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I personally think via chipsets are very poor, yes they are fast, but I always have had little fickle picky problems with them. I prefer to stick with other chipsets.

Nforce 2 is a great chipset, and supports a lot of the newer technologies, but it is more expensive. I would say check out gigabyte boards too, but they have been catering mainly to Intel lately and not as much AMD, so sticking with ASUS would probably be wise if you're going the AMD route. i havent heard of any major issues with Leadtek boards personally, so I wouldnt worry too much.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If I were you I would wait for the nforce2..it has the newest technology, and honestly I dont think you can go wrong. The Nforce1 turned out to be a very stable board. The new chipset is supposed to have locked AGP/PCI bus speeds, so dividers are going to be a thing of the past. The prices on the new Nforce2 boards shouldnt be too expensive, slightly above $100 for the integrated video board if their press release is accurate. As for RAM, nothing will beat the Corsair XMS series..erm correction, almost nothing. The Samsung CTL series were amazing, but I dont think youll find any now. If you are getting a VIA KT333 board, then you should get a PC2700/333mhz RAM module...

The best overclocker's board is probably going to be the Epox 8K3A/+ ((if you want RAID)) If i had a chnace to go back I would certainly buy it. I found few users that were experiencing crashes due to the board, but if that scares you off the next best one would probably be a ABIT. In my opinion Asus is highly overpriced,and not exactly the most friendly when it comes to overclocking, it lacks the setting to alter the AGP and DDR voltages.

One las thing, if you are even thinking about getting the 7VRXP I suggest u make 100% sure that its the Rev 2.0. Rev 1.1 and below have tremendous stability problems with the GeForce 4 TI's, not with the MX as far as I know...go read up on the AMDmb forums before you buy any boards. Dont guide yourself through just reviews. Good luck!

Ill try to find some good motherboard reviews,be back later.

AMDMB Forums

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yeah i would agree with you Meltdown07 on the via chipsets all my previous boards have been via and i always had some little problem with them, my current board (see sig) has the Ali Magik1 and although i read it wasnt the best around i personally havent had a single problem with it. I will be sticking with AMD for a long time yet, my first chip was an Intel which i bought because of the name (and had mmx, lol (seriously)) and since using AMD dont think i'd go back but then you never know what might happen in the future, plus I only upgraded to the 1800+ last week so hope to have that a while. Dont want to start AMD/Intel war read to many of those.

Thanx for the advise on RAM (am gonna go with the PC2700), and links AlienX1088 i havent got time to check them out right now but will do later, i'd have to agree not to go on the advise just of a review which is why i came here, have been using neowin for a while now and browsing the forums and everyone seemed to be helpful which is why i signed up, hopefully i can give some good advise and help to people :)

Am considering waiting for the nForce2 boards after whats been said, have to check out those links first and see if they can help make up my mind a bit.

Will let you know what i think later.

well gonna get off for now, cheers

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.