motherboard

[race301]

I would like to build my own,if price does not matter what is the best bord on the market? Dave.

[giambona]

My personal favorite brand is Asus. http://www.asus.com

[hapoo]

hell i could have told him that. What board is the best board! I'm waiting for the Got|Apex? Review to come out next week till i decide

[lipsons]

I have an asus and it's fine for me, but the tech support on ASUS products are not the best. I have an ASUS motherboard and video card. I had problems with the video card initially and ended up replacing it, but there was no support from asus for my troubles. I also like epox as a brand.

-Steve

[Speedfreak]

You are going to build your own motherboard???

hehe..

Well, I have always liked and used Abit boards. The only problem I have run into with Abit boards is that it is picky on the kind of memory it will run stable with. That is not that big of a deal, though. I just didn't realize that at first and I was thinking it was unstable because of other things.

I just got the Abit KT7-a RAID and built my new system. I am very much loving the speed of the raid.

[race301]

Thanks, I meant build my next computer.

[clutchy]

Abit kt7a is nice if your not planning on going ddr. The 266 bus is really great and makes a pretty big difference performance wise. i haven't personally seen to many applications where raid does much of anything so if u don't think you'll need it don't get it.

[giambona]

I haven't used Abit in a while, but when I did there were a lot of problems with the Soft BIOS (but at that time that was a very new thing). Asus doesn't have very good tech support. They generally returns and a lot of the tech support to the reseller/oem/isv.

[race301]

I wanted a p-lll, is that better then a amd? I like games, and mess with mp3s a-lot.? Dave.

[diehrd]

Go AMD and get into some nice afforadble super computing !!

Abit KT7A with a nice 1 gig will not be a major expense,And after a little moding you wil bench mark higher than the P-4

Or jump out there and go 1.2 I did last week and have a smooth as silk system running at 1.4 on the ABIT KT7A.

[epoxi]

yeah man, go amd....amd's out benchmark p3's, be it duron or thunderbird....

[Speedfreak]

Originally posted by diehrd
Go AMD and get into some nice afforadble super computing !!

Abit KT7A with a nice 1 gig will not be a major expense,And after a little moding you wil bench mark higher than the P-4

Or jump out there and go 1.2 I did last week and have a smooth as silk system running at 1.4 on the ABIT KT7A.

What fan are you using. I have the same mobo/cpu setup (only mine is RAID) and it seems to run to hot to do much overclocking. I am running 1263 (133x9.5) stable, I tried higher but I will get lockups after pushing the system for awhile. I have an Alpha PAL6035 and Arctic Silver.

Also, did your cpu come unlocked? No pencil trick for me.

[diehrd]

I am at 1.43 on the 1.2 266fsb processor.I use the alphh 6035 also my temps are idle 29c load 41c.What main bord do you have ??

[Speedfreak]

Originally posted by Speedfreak
I have the same mobo/cpu setup (only mine is RAID)...

So, KT7a-RAID

[clutchy]

ok race, i love AMD i'm going to get that out to begin with i think they make a great product for being such fast upstart company. I've built 2 systems recently my friends 1.2 on an asus a7v and a 1ghz on a kt7. They both use tbird "b" processors with 200mhz system bus. the "c" tbird which i recommend highly and so does darth, comes with a 266mhz system bus. Now both asus and abit make the an A variety board(the A board supports the kt133a chipset which allows a 266mhz bus the others do not) to go with the C tbird processors the abit is the kt7a and the asus is the a7v133. Of the 2 systems i built using AMD chips i've had the least problems with the abit board. the asus one has been giving me a great number of problems related mostly i think to the promise ata 100 controller which i've heard give almost everyone problems. Fan wise i used a fop38 w/ arctic silver on the 1.2 system and a generic fan on the 1ghz system. The fop38 is sooooo loud, but it does keep your computer at a reasonable temperature anywhere from 38C to 49C. the other chip with the generic heatsink fan generally runs at 46C up to around 55C which is a little too hot for my tastes. Ambient temp. makes a big difference as well. i would recommend a well ventilated case with a really really good fan heatsink combo especially if your considering the 1.2 which right now you can't beat the prices. I also recommend crucial ram which a 256 stick of pc133 cas2 is $94 right now or maybe cheaper. Sharkyextreme will be able to guide you to the cheapest memory and processors on their weekly columns. Also darth just finished a review of the two different amd chips the b and the c great review by the way check it out. I'm trying to think of anything else u need to know about building a system, but i can't remember anything. Oh yeah i think most of the new A mainboards come with raid honestly u won't use it ever so don't bother with it if you don't absolutely need it. two guys i know both have raid boards and 2 hard disks and neither of them have them in raid. So yeah it's cool and yeah it's fun, but practical no. Have fun with it man and you can't ever go wrong with AMD they make a great producut for an incredible price. pricewatch.com is also great for finding the cheapest prices out there. Also if you're planning on going all out don't short yourself on the video card gf2 gts all the way they're only 170 right now as compared to 100 for an mx.
Hope i could help man.

[race301]

Thanks, thats what I will do. I will let you know when its done. Dave. PS, Darth likes the ASUS A7M266.

[Edited by race301 on 03-20-2001 at 06:35 PM]