Best AthlonXP motherboard

[Pace]

Thanks Just reading some Anand stuff at the moment.

[K6-III]

OCWORKBENCH is also a great source on anything SIS-related...

[GT98]

Pace,

I have a SIS651/962 Chipset in my Shuttle Mini Box and the thing is great so far! Just as nice as the SIS 745 Chipset for my AMD system. Making sure I got a SIS chipset in the minibox for me was so important that it was my first Intel CPU in years that I've gotten for personal use. The other alturntives for Minibox chipsets where Via (yuck) and Nvidia (double yuck). SIS has my motherboard busniess for the the foreseeable future!

[Pace]

Me too, or the i870

[Wombat]

*cough* *cough* *cough*

[Pace]

/me hands the poorly MURCer some cough medicine

[Nuno]

A bit late, but for the nth time:

Stay away from Via.

I may have been cursed by via gods, but I´ve got issues with every Via hardware I tried/owned.

It´s not only the PCI bandwidth, it´s a lot more. There´s always some new, hidden bug that will cause some anoying problems. Just one example for the only Via hardware I use now:

My laptop has a via KX133 chipset (basically a KT133 with integrated S3 savage) and I have a annoying problem with it - I use it with my usb cable modem and most of the times (but not always) when the laptop starts up the cable modem is unusable for like 3-4 minutes. If I use the "safely remove hardware" XP gizmo, and unplug/plug again the usb cable it works right away. If I start windows and only after plug the usb modem, it always works.

Needless to say I went the long and painfull path of a typical via user: multiples 4-1 tries, usb patches/filters, cable modem drivers, usb tweaks, you name it. Never been able to solve the problem.

It always work as it shoud with my SiS 735 main system. Of course. Same OS, same modem, same drivers, same settings. Only not Via crap anywhere.

[Pace]

Eu amo a Nuno! xxx

Edit: Just talked my mate into a Iiyama VMPro452, 19" NF niceness. So, just the motherboard to sort out

Oh, what's better - WD800JB 80GB or Maxtor D740X 80GB?

The list sits at:

Athlon XP 'Thoroughbred' 2200+ OEM (CP-025-AM) Price: £135
MSI KT3 Ultra2 Deluxe RAID (MB-002-MC) Price: £95
19" Iiyama VM Pro 452 (MA901U) 0.25dp NF 30-96KHz Price: £240
PNY Geforce 4 4600 128MB Price: £205
SOUNDBLASTER AUDIGY PLAYER Price: £52
THERMALTAKE VOLCANO 7 Price: £20
Crucial 512MB DDR PC2100 CAS-2.5 (MY-006-CR) Price: £115
IBM 120GXP UDMA100 82.3GB (HD-005-IB) Price: £70
Chieftech Dragon DX-01GND Golden Green (CA-012-CT) Price: £90

Do you think he'll let me have a shot?

P.

[Pace]

Also (not just to bump the thread up as I've added the above edit), but what about VIA vs Audigy...problems? Very hard to get SiS stuff here

Any British people point us in the way of a online supplier with SiS boards from MSI/Asus?

Edit: Slap me, I must've forgot or glanced over the MSI 745 Ultra (SiS 745 + DDR333) with Audio 49.90 58.63 in Scan's website

So, above list sound good then? Or excellent? To think that this is the guy's first time building a system, it sure is gonna be a helluva system!

I'm thinking about buying the same board, CPU and RAM, see if we can get it on special at Scan.co.uk

[az]

Pace, DON'T buy the VM 452 pro. I've got one. If you substract the premium you pay for NF, there's not much money left to go into quality. Of course, mine could be a bad one. I'm just in the process of having it RMA'd

Iiyama support is great, though.

AZ

[Ribbit]

I think the WD drive will be faster than the Maxtor. I'm sure others will have more to say on other factors.

Edit and PS: Storagereview on the Maxtor http://www.storagereview.com/article...6L080J4_1.html and WD http://www.storagereview.com/article...WD800JB_1.html drives.

[Rob(QG)]

I got my MSI 745 Ultra from ebuyer, they also stock the ECS K7S6A. http://www.ebuyer.com

I was actually after the ECS version, but it wasn't in stock at the time, as my previous MSI PIII board had zero support on the MSI site

Saying that tho the 745 Ultra has been blinding and very well supported

[Broon]

what if the IBM 120GXP UDMA100 82.3GB was changed to a Maxtor DiamondMax D740X 80GB, any one have any thoughts?

[Pace]

What was wrong az? I love my VMPro450, and its NF (although the NF prices have dropped).

What about the HighBrightness tubes on the VM Pro 1451 17" and VMPro454 19"?

Edit: Also, what memory should I combine with the 745:
Branded PC2100 (£90), Corsair PC2100 (£140), Branded PC2700 (£100) or Corsair XMS PC2700 (175).

They are all 512MB (DDR duh) modules, and there's quite a difference between the standard and Corsair RAM (PC2700 is 75% more). Worth it? I'm guessing there's something special about this RAM, but I haven't found it yet

Edit 2: What about some Arctic Silver or similar? What'll we put between CPU and heatsink?

P.

[az]

Don't know about the other Iiyama NF models, but they're supposedly OK. My monitor had problems from the start - "waves" running up in the lower-right corner, then it started beeping, and now it started buzzing for ~20 seconds after switching resolutions. As I said, this might be due to a bad model. But worse yet, it isn't sharp at 1280x960@85 (It's really not usable, because you can't read this site at that resolution anymore without getting very close to the monitor, and getting eyestrain), 1024x768@85 works almost fine though. White icons on a black background kind of "shine" - like you have fat on your glasses and look at a light.

I have not yet had it RMA'd because the shop I got it from forgot to have me pay

Iiyama support will pick it up in a few days though and repair it (or give me a new one), and I'll get a replacement 19" monitor for the time. If you have a little more time before buying (~2 weeks) I can give you my experiences with Iiyama support (has been very nice and fast so far), and if the repaired monitor is any better. Maybe the replacement they give me will be a 452 too, so I can definately tell you if the sharpness issue is because of a bad model.

I can't believe my Hercules 3D Prophet 4500 (Kyro II chipset) has that worse image quality at 1280x960x32@85Hz, so I blame it on the monitor. I've only had a Matrox Millennium before, which is not at my home anymore, so I have no means to check whether it's the monitor or the card.

Wow, that was long

AZ