Need suggestion for new MOBO, please help (1 Viewer)

[Vince Maskeeper]

I'm ready to give up on my mobo and get another but I'm not sure who to look to for a stable athlon based mobo. I have mine which is an Abit (along with the 2 others I just built)- and all of them are a bit sketchy physically.

I have an EPOX for my HTPC, but it took me 3 different OS changes before it would not lose the NIC (and I still have audio drop out problems).

So is anyone making a decent Athlon Mobo, but because of my audio card it must be AMD 760 (762), VIA KX-133 or VIA KT-133 chipsets (cannot be AMD 750)-- I think 266/266a chipsets are fine as well?

I also have need for extra IDE controllers- does anyone know of Mobos that offer 4 controllers (the Abit has 2 and then 2 highpoint raid controllers which support extra IDE drives)---

Does anyone know if if the Microstar K7T266 Pro2-RU or Pro2-R Promise RAID controller can be used as regular extra IDEs for drives (support for ATAPI??)... Can I hook a CD drive to them??

-Vince

 

[Brian E]

The raid connectors support HD's only. MSI makes some good boards. I've used them in my last three personal builds and all machines have been/were great. Many people are also fond of the Soyo Dragon+.

 

[AllanN]

Check AMD's site and make sure you get one that is on there recomended list. I have a Biostar M7MIA I got the oroginal version no RAID :frowning:. But its a trooper. No problems with it. It has a 1200Mhz Thunderbird on it. Im not sure if that mobo will use the new XP+ series processors. The next thing im lookign at getting is a Dual MP ATI mobo and MP processor. Then get a new processor a fiew months later after the prices drop a bit.

 

[Rob Speicher]

I like the Soyo Dragon Plus. Onboard 6 channel sound (good enough to replace most sound cards), onboard 10/100 Ethernet, and onboard RAID which you can use as an IDE controller for a total of 4 IDE ports.

There's also the Soyo Dragon Ultra which supports all of the above plus USB 2.0 for about $20 more.

 

[Brad_V]

Be sure to check out the ECS/EliteGroups K7s5a (6a now?) board. I don't know if it has all the options you want, but for the price and speed and stability, few things can compare. Usually consumer goods are "price, performance, quality -- pick any two," but not with these. It's hard to find a bad word said about them.

 

[Glenise]

I have two older Asus motherboards.

My Athlon 950 uses an Aopen motherboard.

I'm satisfied.

It came with Norton 2002 but it only good for 90 days on the virus signatures.