Recommend a cheap motherboard?

[Nuno]

nForce2 is better than SiS 746FX. There isn´t any serious issue with the nForce2 chipset (neither with 746), and it performs better. It officially supports 200Mhz fsb. There isn´t any reason to bash it, nd you can get the Epox 8RDA for more or less the price of a 746FX. Soltek nforce2 board is also decent and even cheaper.

[Ssin]

If you have the option I would recommend Asrock (manufactured by Asus) or Gigabyte. Both are in a price range that's about 2%-5% higher than the ECS mobo and offer much more flexibility and reliability. Support is also better with Gigabyte and Asrock.

[Nuno]

About Asrock - yes, its 746FX board is very decent, despite lacking multiplier/voltage controls. Good price too. Beware of Asrock Via chipset, because it´s based on the outdated KT266A, that isn´t much better than sis735 and definitly much more troublesome.

[Kurt]

get him a new + fast hard drive first.

the good price point for amd is the 2400+ now, only +/- 10 € more than the 2200. the asrock k7s8x looks pretty decent. look for boards with the 746*FX* version. they have official support for 166MHz FSB, not the older 746.

don't bother with sdram either, ddr is at the same price and getting cheaper.

wait and see on the vga front. Matrox should maybe hopefully anyday this friday or another hypothetically announce something. othewise the nvidia gefried fx 5200 will do (can't beat the price for a dx9 part).

[Paddy]

So, 746 FX is the mobo to go for... cheers lads - I'll let you know what he thinks

[Nuno]

the nvidia gefried fx 5200 will do (can't beat the price for a dx9 part

Sure. How about a Radeon 9500?

[Paddy]

he's not after a graphics card at this point... although, I would like my G400 back!

[Gurm]

Nuno,

There IS a problem with the nForce2.

It's made by nVidia. Their driver support is worse than VIA's, although the nForce STARTED more stable than VIA has ever been.

I don't CARE that the nForce2 outperforms the SiS 746FX. I know that SiS is 100% rock-solid. It's the most stable chipset you can get, it NEVER crashes, and I'll take a 5% performance hit to get that.

That said, you can get the 745 so cheap it'll make your head spin. $50 or something, depending on where you shop... and that alone is a huge speed boost over anything prior.

I have spoken.

- Gurm

[Belwarrior]

argghhh!!.. i am backdated .. the pc i am using is also an A7V with Duron 1.2G, 512 SDRAM with G400...

i really need to upgrade before it becomes "My Grandad wants to upgrade his A7V........" *grin* :P

[Paddy]

Ah, at least you have a 1.2gig machine!

[Nuno]

Nuno,

There IS a problem with the nForce2.

It's made by nVidia. Their driver support is worse than VIA's, although the nForce STARTED more stable than VIA has ever been.

I don't CARE that the nForce2 outperforms the SiS 746FX. I know that SiS is 100% rock-solid. It's the most stable chipset you can get, it NEVER crashes, and I'll take a 5% performance hit to get that.

That said, you can get the 745 so cheap it'll make your head spin. $50 or something, depending on where you shop... and that alone is a huge speed boost over anything prior.

I have spoken.

- Gurm

I know, I do have a sis chipset
But browsing nforce2 users forums it doesn´t appear to be too much troubles with those boards. Not more than SiS users, at least. Definitly less than Via users. Asus A7N8X is a bit flaky as it doesn´t allow T-bred users to access lower multipliers, how useful...

Ok, everybody should have noticed by now I´m itching to buy a nforce2 board

[Gurm]

After all the crap nVidia has put me through, I have no desire to own anything associated with them ever again.

- Gurm

[Fat Tone]

Sounds like prejudice rather than objective opinion to me.

Times change - even Abit use a different cap electrolyte now

[Gurm]

Nah. I'm also basing it on the poor design of the nForce1. Nobody has shown me how different the nForce2 is yet.

nForce1 was designed to be highly integratable. As such, it is less like a high-perf chipset and more like those horrible "let's swipe system RAM for the video card" chipsets that used to ship on SS7 boards (and now ship on some Athlon boards, I note!)

The fact that people turned in good numbers with it meant nothing when its "horrifying system crash" numbers were more in line with VIA.

The nForce2 is similar, only faster.

*shrug*

I'll take SiS any day. No crashes here, at all.

I have spoken.

- Gurm

[Nowhere]

yeah, I've senn also for example instructions "how to make your nforce2 mobo stable". WTF?!
You shoudn't do ANYTHING to make it stable...

I must say I'm considering AsRock based on sis748 when it comes out...