mobo

[BroadbandPlacey]

need advice, want it to be asus or msi, support amd athlon 3000, nforce 2 chipset, no onboard video, onboard LAN + sound preferable. around £80 max £100.

cheers

[Agent]

Why asus or MSI ?

[Austin]

Well you don't leave many options really. If you want great sound you need to ensure it uses Soundstorm or at least nVidia's sound chip (brilliant) rather than ordinary onboard sound (passable). I don't think MSI offer a mobo with SS but Asus A7N8X Deluxe does just like Abit NF7-S ... the bits in bold are what mean they include SS. In terms of running XP3000+ 333FSB all nForce2 should do that with ease. The early (original) nForce2 didn't guarantee 400FSB. The IGP (onboard gfx) ones also don't usually guarantee 400FSB. The newer nForce2 'Ultra 400' and '400' guarantee you 400FSB so will work with XP3200+ (the Ultra gives you Dual Channel so 5% speed boost). AFAIK all nForce2 give you at least one LAN, quite a few give you two as well as firewire, SATA etc (these tend to be the deluxe type models). From what you say I heartily rec the Asus A7N8X Deluxe v2.0 (nForce2 Ultra 400) which should be around £80.

[Speedo]

A7N8X Deluxe v2. Question answered.

[BUFF]

Originally posted by Austin
) I don't think MSI offer a mobo with SS

Yes, they do - K7N2 Delta-ILSR which strangely enough is around £80.

(Basic K7N2 Delta L is about £55.)

[Lexeus]

Yea, whats up with this guys ?
WHY does everyone seem to keep saying that MSI only offer a budget Nforce2 board
I bought the MSI Nforce mobo, see in my sig
IT DOES EXIST !!
Anyway if you are going to have a windowed case I would go for the MSI, even though my case has no window
I have had a couple of probs with the borad, such as having to get different RAM because it didn't like the corsair VS i bought to start with, but thats more an nforce2 chipset problem and all nforce 2 mobos can have osme probs with RAM. It works fine now I have same samsung original which is on the Nforce2 approved list. It did work with the corsair, its just about %60 of the time it would keep beeping and hanging on start (beep meaning Ram prob).
I like the mobo, if a bit disapointed with the tech support, or lack of it.
But Asus aren't the greatest either, when i had a prob with my asus A7v133 mobo, it took them about 2 months to respond lol, I had totally forgotten about it an fixed it by then.
I am tempted to say I would go for the Asus now, partly due to its dual onboard Lan, and also the gigabit Lan port it has.
Its a bit of a tie really.
I really like the d-bracket feature on the MSI which tells you what the sytem is doing when booting up, so if it hangs then the LED's on the d-plate will tell you what its doing when it hangs, very useful

anyway you decide, oh and the MSI comes with a rounded cable which is really nice, and if your lucky you may even get a video out bracket with it like I did, even though I bought the version without onboard graphics ... lol