'best' Socket A motherboard still NF7-S ?

[Snow-Munki]

Hi,

speccing a pc for a friend and was wondering what would be the best, as in most stable and with no problems, motherboard be..

is it still the NF7-S ? looking for a fairly cheap motherboard though, any others that i should consider....

thanks

[BUFF]

What's fairly cheap? An NF7-S is under £60 incl. VAT.
If she can live without SoundStorm, Firewire & SATA then an NF7 V2.0 is about £44 incl. VAT.

If she isn't going to overclock there should be plenty of stable boards both nForce & with VIA chipsets ABIT, ASUS etc. etc.

[Snow-Munki]

thanks, yeah probably won't need all the extra's so might just get the standard NF7 for £45.

any others to consider or are they are about the same... as considering the NF7 board is at least a year old now i think... nothing new has come out that's a lot better ?

[BUFF]

any others to consider or are they are about the same... as considering the NF7 board is at least a year old now i think... nothing new has come out that's a lot better ?

At that price level not much has changed. There are a few boards out with the new nVidia MCP-R southbridge with integrated SATA but the ABIT ones (NF7-S2 & -S2G) kind of suck compared to a V2.0 or AN7. No multi control in BIOS (& can't be added because the board lacks a chip that can do it), poorer voltage options & only 2 -phase power instead of 3-phase.

[pumbertot]

At that price level not much has changed. There are a few boards out with the new nVidia MCP-R southbridge with integrated SATA but the ABIT ones (NF7-S2 & -S2G) kind of suck compared to a V2.0 or AN7. No multi control in BIOS (& can't be added because the board lacks a chip that can do it), poorer voltage options & only 2 -phase power instead of 3-phase.

tbh by the sounds of it I doubt she is interested in overclocking just stability.
still get the NF7-S V2.0. rock stable and soundstorm kicks ass, 5.1 encoding not even the audigy can do that.

[Agent]

As above, the NF7-S is one of the best boards ever made for the socket A platform.