AMD 64 Chipset???

[Paddy]

I'm building a computer for a colleague at work.
What motherboard would you recommend?
He wont be interested in overclocking, so I am looking for a good compromise between price and performance. He just want's it to be 'Vista' compatible
Say a budget of £800 for the computer minus monitor.

I was thinking of an X2 CPU. 939 or AM2???
What mobo/chipset would you recommend?

Cheers guys.

[Dr Mordrid]

MB sockets:

Price: 939
Upgrade-ability:AM2

Chipsets:

ATI or NFORCE-4 series for 939

ATI or NFORCE 550/570/590 for AM2

With ATI's look for the SB600 southbridge. The older southbridge lacks some newer features.

ATI is the slightly faster performance choice and is better at overclocking. You can OC them like crazy just putting it in "Auto" mode.

NFORCE 5xx is the choice for advanced LAN features, but save for LAN-partying or videoservers these are mainly for boasting. NFORCE's "LinkBoost" auto OC'ing mainly adjusts around the edges, not to the level of making much difference.

Otherwise look at the specific features of individual boards. Both offer excellent options.

I wouldn't put a VIA chipset in if it were free

Dr. Mordrid

[Paddy]

Cheers matey

Thanks

[Mehen]

X2 4200+ S939 and stock up on the RAM bigtime while its cheap.

[Paddy]

PC8000 is rated at 1GHz right?

I assume this would be much better than the standard PC3200 DDR2?

[Mehen]

well, PC2-8000 would probably be pretty expensive, if you stuck to 4200 or 5300 you could probably get like 2GB+ in that machine

Or if you stuck with S939 you could get a ton of PC3200