Recommend a cheap motherboard?

[William]

Hmm. I have an Nforce1 board. I bought it because I needed a new one that day (Sunday) and it was that or Via... My experiences have been mixed. IDE drivers are crap, but then again so are Intel's & Via's (never had occasion to torture test a Sis, sadly).

Intel & NV are work aroundable ones however, which endears me to them more than Via stability issue drivers. However, the system I built around the NF is stable (uptime is measured in weeks/months)

Recentley I bought an Nforce2, (it was cheap) which I got because it was cheap & easy to get when I needed another new one. My feelings on that are fairly neutral, but overall I'd rather not buy a second one (which is how I measure my overall satisaction with products I own/use

[Paddy]

Thanks mate! I think he'll opt for the 764 FX

[Kurt]

yep...nforce1 was a bit problematic...nforce2 is much better in that respect (although I suspect its delays to be due to some bugs that are still present). I've had much problem with VIA stuff -the last 10 years...SIS didn't always have happy SS7 boards...735 boards are about all ECS -i.e. some good/some bad.
don't like MSI boards too much (hence I can't rave about the 745_ultra...) as they can't seem to have adecent layout -I never liked the typical SIS layout with its IDE and floppy connectors running parallel the PCI slots...always creates some mess...latest Intel chipsets I'm not much convinced about them either, they seem to release a new one every odd week which is basically the same as the one it just replaced only adding a minor feature (the 845 series...). it's all been downhill since the BX, after they decided asynchronous was in (bad idea...)...so far I think nforce2 is the best balanced chipset around (for now). and I ....don't have a second choice. I think all the other ones are underperforming.

it's good SIS has a stable chipset but how long can it take to make sth stable? and *BTW* the boards that nobody but OEMs look at are tons more stable than your usual retail high performance board (asus, msi, and the likes). if you want stable, buy featureless -look at DFI, ECS and the likes (even if ECS has a varying QA). that's not saying that msi and asus aren't making decent boards but there's a tradeoff between performance and stability.

[RedRed]

Weird..... I have an MSI Nforce 1.... apart from a Crucial memory stick which 'went for a walk' when I doubled the ram, i have only had an unexplained crash on 3 occasions - this is on a box which is never turned off....

I will admit I had some problems getting it to work on Linux (I gave up, in fact!) but on w2K and XP it hasnt given ANY bother... so much so that I havent got a reasonable excuse to upgrade/replace it

RedRed

[Kurt]

Originally posted by ex RedRed
Weird..... I have an MSI Nforce 1.... apart from a Crucial memory stick which 'went for a walk' when I doubled the ram, i have only had an unexplained crash on 3 occasions - this is on a box which is never turned off....

I will admit I had some problems getting it to work on Linux (I gave up, in fact!) but on w2K and XP it hasnt given ANY bother... so much so that I havent got a reasonable excuse to upgrade/replace it

RedRed

stability wise it wasn't perfect, but compatibility was a problem. you couldn't put anything in them and think it'll work OK. mostly it worked, but bios fixes, new drivers and all weren't always sufficient. that and the almost inexistant compatibility list on msi's website...

it was a first try and I'm glad they've done it, but I'm also glad they moved on to the next iteration...

the asus a7n266-vm OTOH is part of the "AMD Assured" program, and I believe it does work ok. (never could find the AA kits though... )

[DentyCracker]

ASRock K7S8x working fine here. No problems with creative soundcards and video capture here.

[RedRed]

That may be the case - there is NOTHING on the PCI slots at all on this box.....

The 'live update2' gave up at christmas - I havenet been bothered to d/l any new drivers since....

(I dont play many games - occasional Quake on it/strategy games....)

RedRed

[Ssin]

If you want my word about stability go Intel. Their chipset rock the hell out of anything in term of compatibility and stability.
Well we're speaking AMD CPU here so there's no way we're going to even think of Intel.
But if you want my thought here it is :
-1- Intel rocks (well you should wait at least 1 month before buying a new chipset)
-2- SiS has an awesome stability/price/performance ratio
-3- VIA is crap get as far away as possible from those guys
-4- nForce => don't know them.

As you no doubt have guessed I'm Pro Intel :P

[Nuno]

As you no doubt have guessed I'm Pro Intel :P

There´s nothing wrong with it, as we stand now, Intel PIV is finnaly an affordable and decent performer. Intel did have to sweat a bit and invest a lot on the platform, as the cpu core itself is flawed to say the least. But insane bus speeds and cache sizes, decent chipsets and finnaly some smart moves - decent pricing and going multi-channel DDR allowed them to stay very competitive.