Motherboards

[Destroyer^]

Im upgrading my rig for xmas

i will have about 250-300 pound and i wouldnt mind upgrading for a pci-e rig... means i would be replacing ram/mobo/cpu and graphix card

could any1 give me some opinions on what to get

or if not ill upgrade to a 3500 venice/dunno mobo/ crucial pc 3200 1gb dual channel ram as i already have a 6800 gt

[herulach]

More money. Assuming your computer isnt awful already, you wont get any benefit from going to pci just for pcis sake. 350 quid would leave you with maybe 80 quid for a gpu if you need new ram cpu and mobo out of it

[nvening]

Why would you need new ram?

I think we need to know what you have at the moment first to tell you the truth

[Destroyer^]

i have 2600 athlon xp barton/1gb of pc 2700 ram/xfx 6800 gt/480w antec true blue 20 pin connector and a ****ty pcchips mobo/ 120gb maxtor hdd

[NightshadowUK]

Keeping the PSU, graphics card and hard drive, go for the ASRock S939 Dual-SATA2 board so you have the option to upgrade to PCI-E / SATA in the future. The board will cost under £50, then get a AMD64 3200+/3500+ and some nice new RAM. Sorted!

[Destroyer^]

im wondering which motherboard would be a good one to get? and with the venice shld i buy a seperate hs and fan to the standard one that comes with it ?

[DeludedGuy]

Your gonna need atleast £400 for a decent upgrade, I'm in the same boat, and I have been looking at the following:

Asus A8N Standard
Opteron 146
7800 GT
Tagan PSU

Thats about £440, and you can sell your old pieces for abut £150 on ebay.

[Destroyer^]

ive roughly counted that ill have about 400-420 to upgrade with could i have some suggestions on what to use for a decent pci-e system bu grfx dnt need to be that good just good enough to run source and cod2

was looking at 3200 venice 112 ebuyer
mobo about 80
crucial pc3200 ram 70 quid
possibly artic cooler 12 quid
graphics card 100-120 quid
60-80 for a tagan psu

[kalniel]

Seems a lot of people are in a similar situation, for which the asrock dual sata2 board really is the best choice.

You don't need to upgrade the gfx card yet, so just get that mobo, a CPU and some memory now. Then when you need to you can upgrade to a PCIe card later without having to change motherboard.

Only disadvantage of the mobo is inability to run 1T timings stabley - if you don't know what that is then it won't be a problem! Even if you do know what that is you will only lose 1-2fps compared to the same system with 1T.

Keep the PSU and gfx card from your current set up.

[Destroyer^]

only problem is with my 480w antec trueblue is it only has a 20 pin atx connector and i most mobos use 24 pin now right?

also asrock dual sata2 is it a very reliable mobo and better then the ****ty pcchips i have atm?

btw the asrock dual sata2 looks like it can hold either a pci-e or a agp card and at 50 quid? can i ask what doesnt this mobo have that most mobos do for it to be so low?

[DeludedGuy]

only problem is with my 480w antec trueblue is it only has a 20 pin atx connector and i most mobos use 24 pin now right?

also asrock dual sata2 is it a very reliable mobo and better then the ****ty pcchips i have atm?

Yes

and

Yes

[BUFF]

can i ask what doesnt this mobo have that most mobos do for it to be so low?

layout is pretty poor imo
only has 2 fan headers incl. the CPU 1
indifferent memory performance
CPU utilisation in RAID is very high
relatively limited BIOS

However for £45 it's fine.

[kalniel]

only problem is with my 480w antec trueblue is it only has a 20 pin atx connector and i most mobos use 24 pin now right?

also asrock dual sata2 is it a very reliable mobo and better then the ****ty pcchips i have atm?

btw the asrock dual sata2 looks like it can hold either a pci-e or a agp card and at 50 quid? can i ask what doesnt this mobo have that most mobos do for it to be so low?

The asrock dual sata2 uses a 20pin connector.

It is very reliable and better than the pcchips you have atm.

And yes, it can do pcie and agp. The reason it's so cheap is that the chipset is made by ULI, rather than NVidia or ATI or Intel, all three of which have high royalty fees. It does not have SLI, it only has a three phase voltage regulator (don't know how many the Nvidia boards have) which theoritically does not give as smooth a voltage flow into your CPU. It does not have as many overclocking options as other boards - it's got plenty of options, but does not allow you to over volt the CPU or RAM by very much (you can do it a bit, but not a lot). Also, as mentioned, it can't cope with 1T timings with most CPUs.

I recommend doing some searches for reviews - they are very positive, and so is my own experience with this board.

While those lacking features may compare badly with the top overclockers board, it actually compares very well against more mainstream mobo's, only cheaper and more flexible.

Edit: reminded by the above post, the layout isn't ideal - the power connectors are between the CPU and the IO panels which means cabling ever-so-slightly interfers with air flow (not been a problem personally).

Also it only has one SATAII + NCQ hard drive connector (has 4 SATA1's as well though).

Oh and it's only up to 100mbs ethernet onboard rather than 1000 like some others.

[Destroyer^]

think ill look for a mobo that is a little bit more expensive like 60-70 quid and then update the grfx card and mobo to pci-e later on... can any1 gimme some suggestions of good mobos in 60-70 pound price range? and do u think that i will need to get a 24 pin psu?

1 last thing will a tagan that has been pci-e approved run a agp card/mobo?

[BUFF]

Also it only has one SATAII + NCQ hard drive connector (has 4 SATA1's as well though).

Only 2 SATA150 connectors


The ggod & bad
http://www.simhq.com/cgi-bin/ultimat...;f=15;t=007298

[Elessar_VPR]

only problem is with my 480w antec trueblue is it only has a 20 pin atx connector and i most mobos use 24 pin now right?

True, but you can get a 20-24 pin converter, so that shoudn't be any issue, as the Antec would still be fine.

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=153575
Should be ok for what you need.