Help me with a motherboard, please

[Creative_Munster]

Okay, this will be my last thread begging for computer advice for a while. I hope anyway. I'm planning on upgrading to a 2.4 Gig AMD Athlon Processor, currently I have a 1.2 Gig. I'm going to need a new motherboard in order to handle this. I would like the motherboard to have onboard sound support. The one I think I will get is a Gigabyte motherboard and you can see it and the specs here http://www.telectronics.com/. It's the first one listed for $99.00 Gigabyte-GA-7N400L1 (Nf2). Can some knowledgable people give me their thoughts on this particular board and perhaps some recommendations if they find it lacking? Thank you.

[The_Raven]

Howyadoin,

Sounds like a ton of features for the price! There are a couple of issues, according to the attached review. The most serious is the inability to boot from a SATA drive. This isn't a big deal now, but in a year or two it could be problematic... The Realtek audio hardware sucks compared to the nVidia Soundstorm, and I'm not sure of the performance hit you'll take from using it. Not a lot of reviews out there for this board yet, might want to keep an eye on hardocp and the like for a more thorough review.

http://www.epinions.com/content_116124782212

I've used the Asus A7N8X Standard on a couple systems with good results. It's about $15 more, but you get the real nVidia audio chipset and nVidia NIC. This allows you to use only the nVidia Unified Driver to run everything, which makes a big difference in avoiding potential conflicts.


BTW, you really should warn people about that website, I barely had time to reach for my goggles!

-Rav

[The_Raven]

Oh yeah... One thing on the nForce2 chipsets, always get your memory in 2 identical DIMMS, if possible... The nForce2 uses 2 separate memory controllers, so if you populate 2 separate banks, each has a controller dedicated to it. This improves memory throughput.

-Rav

[Creative_Munster]

So, you recommend the Asus. And that particular board has the nVidia Soundstorm which should be more than satisfactory? I would be willing to shell out $15.00 extra if the sound is a lot better. Can't get a sound card for that price.

[Creative_Munster]

Hey, I'm also planning on getting a Radeon ATI 9600 Pro. I read in the review from that web site that you posted a link to that the motherboard might cause the card to not function or the image to tear at 195 Mhz. Is this something I need to be concerned about?

[DougC]

- - - Try looking around here:
http://www.motherboards.org/
.....
- Somebody else probably does.
~