mobo (for my XP2k) advice needed, thnks.

[hooligun]

g'day blokes,
i've read too many reviews, comparisons, tech specs etc. and now my heads in bits. can you just tell me my best bet for a mobo for my AthlonXP2000? oh and i have these restrictions im afraid;(
<$75 americano and im still on pc133 sdram:[ (but i will be comin up soon :] ) alright, nice one, thanks in advance etc.

oh yeah one more thing, is it just me or does ami bios blow compared to award :?

:afro:

[Darthtanion]

Yes, the AWARD BIOS is far better than the AMI versions that are around. That is probably why a vast majority of the performance boards hitting the streets use the AWARD version.

As to your problem, do yourself a favor and wait until you have the cash for both a good motherboard AND DDR memory. Otherwise you would be limiting yourself to something along the lines of the old SiS chipset that allows both SDRAM or DDR, and to be honest, you wouldn't be doing yourself any favors there. Once you have that little bit of extra money, get something using the nForce2 chipset (unless something better comes along) and then get some good DDR memory to round out the system.

[hooligun]

aah thems wise words i reckon. obliged, much obliged, i shall follow your advice m8, n1 ty. when i gets the ddr how much $pondooley$ am i lookin at for the good stuff? and is there a clear diff between corsair, kingston and crucial or are they all "quality" ?
thanks again. :cheers:


:afro:

[Darthtanion]

All three brands that you mention would be considered "Quality", but some will overclock better than others. I have always used Crucial myself, though, and it is extremely stable and overclocks reasonably well.

As to how much to get, well, that really depends on the operating system. If you're using any of the Win9x platforms, then don't get any more than 256MB. These systems are notorious for not effectively using anything more than this and several systems have gone haywire when trying to add memory to the mix. But if you're using Win2k or WinXP, then the sky is the limit. It is likely that either of these operating systems will be able to handle more than your new motherboard can. :D

[hooligun]

aah I see, looks like winXP is looming on the horizon then. is it true its slower than win98 ?
oh and btw do you hold the world record for the quickest forum responses ever ? ;p













:afro:

[Darthtanion]

LOL... not likely. I just happened to be going through the forums when you posted the question. I go through several times a day and try to help where I can.

As to the WinXP question, it is not really any slower than Win98. There was a negligible difference when it first came out but that has long been taken care of. Since switching over, I have found that I am at least as fast, and probably faster than with the older operating system. Plus the ability to have a program crash without the BSOD is wonderful. While the little messages are annoying when something craps out, it is far better than the mandatory reboot that was required when using 98.

Plus, the native driver support and the ability to use ghastly amounts of memory are great! I'm using 1GB of DDR at the moment myself and there are no problems at all. :)