Need a new motherboard

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maylar

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My current machine has developed hardware issues, so it's time to upgrade again.

I'm looking for recommendations for a motherboard/cpu combo that's cost effective (best bang for the buck). Price range is $250-300 including 512M RAM.

I already have an MSI 64 meg GForce2 4XAGP video, PCI lan card and a good PCI sound card, so I don't need those functions on board.

Reliability is paramount.

Suggestions welcome.
 
Interested in overclocking at all? I can give you a good CPU and Motherboard combo that'll cost approximately $165-$180 but the main point of having the combo is for OC'ing, so if you're not interested in overclocking, or don't wish to learn let me know otherwise I'll suggest something else.
 
haha nubius... victim # 4 :)

i think his idea will be perceft for your budget, as it is exactly what i am getting right now (i think, unless im on the wrong track).
 
Uhh.. no overclocking, thanks anyway.

Maybe I should have asked, "What's the going rate for a typical 2 GHz mb with an Athalon and memory?"
 
i thin kthat will cost more than 200$. i think for that much ram, cpu, and mobo your gonna have to pay more but thats if you want a good reliable sys.
 
From what I've seen online I think you're right. I'll up my budget to $350-400 and the options get much better.

Looking at Athalon 64 bit stuff... guess I gotta go to a local PC show and see what's out there.
 
actually, you can get a 2 gig processor and mb for under 200 faily easy.

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=19-103-436&depa=1 for the processor

and then really any socket A mb
this one seems to work well:
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=13-138-227&depa=1

that is about 160, so it'll easily fit you budget

for ram, this will be very good for a cheap price:
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=20-156-006&depa=1

thats a total around 230 i think, so maybe that'll help
 
Yeah man, don't let all this AMD64 hype fool you. They aren't optimized for the current OS's and environments, so until about the year 2006 AMD64's aren't even really needed, unless you want to get the big upgrade from XP to 64 done now so you can upgrade as you go along the line, but AMD64 chips will do nothing but decrease in price, so for the moment, contrary to popular belief, a Socket A system with a strong XP processor is still not outdated, but generally you either have to get a 3200+ XP which is $180 or get a chip like mine which is half the price, but you can OC it to and past 3200+ speeds, only reason I suggested overclocking, cause you can save a lot of money.

At a local PC shop the computer parts will REALLY be expensive unless you know the guy and could get nice deals or something.

But yeah, people are quick to suggest AMD64 ANYTIME someone asks what processor and motherboard they should get, and at this point in time AMD64's for the most part are a waste.

I built an AMD64 system for a guy, socket 939 MSI Neo2-Platinum 3500+ 64, 1gb of high performance RAM, and honestly when installing and finishing the loading of everything on his system, it wasn't any faster than my system. The only reason his really screamed was because he had 1gb of high performance RAM compared to my 256mb of PC2700 at the time, that and he had 10,000RPM SATA Drives, so IMO, AMD64's are WAY overrated at this point.
 
True, but if you're buying now, you probably want a comp that will hold up in the long haul, and if 2006 will be the time when 64-bit starts coming into play, that's only a year.
You can either choose to ignore that (not a bad idea of course) but why not buy 64 now instead of having to buy 2 processors?

All depends on your spending strategy and habits, but I feel I should give the 64 that much credit.
 
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