Motherboard selection help

[acassino]

Hi
I'm interested in buying a Pentium IV motherboard with socket 775 but I don't know which model and brand to choose.
I do not want a super motherboard or a very cheap one.
I want it to have SATA with RAID, DDR2 memory and PCI express.

Which brand and models do you recommend me?
Thank you very much

[adict2jane]

Are you interested in overclocking? Are you interested in upgrading to Core 2 Duo/Quad processors in the future?

There are a ton of boards out there, what is your price range?

[zebadee]

Hi
Welcome to the forum acassino.
Abit, Asus, Gigabyte, MSI, all do a wide range of boards.
Asrock & Foxconn the value for money leaders possibly.
You need to suggest a budget really. With boards ranging from £30 > £300 (UK). It needs pruning to get the best relevant info.

[acassino]

Currently I’m not interested in overclocking and I don’t think I’ll do it in the future.
I think that in the future (1 or 2 years from now) I’ll be upgrading to a core 2 duo, but this question arises:
It is convenient to buy today a mother with two sockets instead of buying a new, improved mother in a year or two?

does a two socket motherboard sacrifice some features by allowing another CPU?

I think that I can accept prices up to U$S 200

[zebadee]

Hi
If you buy now. You might want to consider 1333 FSB as part of future proofing. That will of course push price up. Buying later will mean you get more for less bucks.
Currently the Foxconn P9657AA-8EKRS2H. Which will probably be around $150 or less. But the FSB won’t be 1333 for that sort of money. It would take around double the $$ for that.

[acassino]

Thanks for the welcome zebadee

I’ll check out the Foxconn P9657AA-8EKRS2H
Is Foxconn a good brand? and compared with ASUS, MSI, INTEL?
Thanks

[walker46]

Before you make a decision, why not check this link, (http://www.smartratings.com/computers/motherboards), first. Maybe, you can find something better here.

[DiiZzY]

Integrated graphics:
US: GIGABYTE GA-965G-DS3 (No Firewire)
EU: MSI G965MDH-FI (Superb board, includes Firewire)

Full ATX
US/EU: Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3 (No Firewire)
Alternative: Gigabyte GA-945P-DS3 (No Firewire, a bit older chipset but its still very good)

Would be my current choices at the moment mostly do due the fact they use good components (LAN, Sound etc) and seems to be very reliable in general.
//Danne

[jargon]

As a Computer technician, this is quite a common question i’m asked. Some good hardware sites to check out are Anandtech, Xbitlabs, Legion Hardware and Tomshardware.

If you’re looking to spend upto $200 US, i presume you’re looking for a high quality Board (Abit/Asus/Gigabyte).

As previously mentioned, the Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3 or S3 (cheaper, doesn’t have the solid capacitors, no big deal) is a well tried and proven board. Make sure to get revision 3.3 (latest) for FSB1333 support for future CPUs.

Another great board at an excellent price is the Asus P5N-E SLI. Based on the new Nvidia Nforce 600 series (650i) this has pretty much unmatched features and performance for the price., and as the name suggests, SLI

This is an excellent guide to buying a motherboard, though it may not have the very latest, as is a constant work in progress:
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.cfm?catid=29&threadid=1992133

Try looking at Newegg.com for prices (they’re generally the lowest or close to it) and user reviews. Keep in mind a lot of users’ reviews are from those not so technically competent even though they list their understanding as ‘high’.

Good Luck!

[DiiZzY]

Downside is that P5N-E SLI uses nCrap :-/
What I would look out for is Realtek NIC (which many motherboards uses) and AD(ADI) audio (mainly Asus use their sound codecs). Intel NIC is by far the best around but there are quite a few motherboards (in general only ViiV-certified ones) that actually has it. Marvell is decent (be sure to get a PCI-E version which all Gigabyte boards mentioned above has) while Attansic or Realtek are worse both performance and compatibility, As for sound I’d recommend Realtek ALC8**-series, its quite good for being integrated and has good drivers which are frequently updated. ADI tends to rarely update (at all) and SigmaTel (which Intel seems to favour) doesnt seem to release new drivers either…
//Danne

[eric93se]

As already mentioned the Gigabyte DS3 or S3 are excellent choices for about $100US. Later this month (or next month) Intel prices are going to drop, and there is an excellent budget core2Duo processor, the E4300, which should be about $110US.

I’m pretty sure that even the gigabyte S3 will support the 1333FSB (bios update), but it doesn’t have the beafy power supply that others have to support quad core processors (not sure its all that necessary, few people run quad cores ATM). The 1333FSB is going to be replaced by a 1600FSB in '08, so I wouldn’t even worry about 1333 upgradability since whatever you buy now will easily last you 5yrs.