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"Can anyone recommend me a good, fairly priced motherboard..."

for a Athlon XP2800+ 333fsb barton processor.

It needs to be reliable, with good features, support for PC3200 or 2700 RAM and preferably less than £100.


Any help IS appreciated!

Notorious Biggles wrote:
> tigamilla wrote:
>
> I bought a gig of TwinMOS PC3200 stuff for £100-110 (can't
> remember exactly) and it boots at 220 easy. Not tried higher yet.
>
> What make is your RAM and motherboard?

Motherboard: Asus P4V800-X (Its supposed to be most highly tuned single channel motherboard out there and in tests beat the 865P based motherboards), but I think being a rare and relatively untested chipset no-one really knows what it is or isnt capable of.

RAM: Kingston PC3200 512MB

tigamilla wrote:
> What Adrian was pointing out was that if in the future you want to
> upgrade to a sytem that runs a 400Mhz FSB such as the XP3000, then
> you can always use the same PC3200 module(s).

Yep, thats what I was getting at. Sometimes my brain is ahead of my hands(even tho I type fast). Wish SR would have an edit post option as theres times where after I post, I read the post and theres errors all over the place. Bet this post has at least 1 error.

Also having PC3200 will allow you to overclock your XP2800 to a FSB of 400mhz with out running RAM and CPU out of sync. Dont know what the price difference of RAM is Alex, but you might as well spend the money on PC3200 and if you upgrade in the future you can still use the RAM. Where as with PC2700 your limited to having a CPU of 333mhz FSB, or losing performance with a CPU at 400mhz FSB and the RAM still at 333mhz FSB, if you upgrade.

Just looked on one site(www.microdirect.co.uk) and theres less than £2 difference between PC2700 and PC3200, so PC3200 would be my choice.

tigamilla wrote:

> My damn MoBO wont allow me to run the RAM and FSB out of sync = max
> bootable FSB settings at 206 <-Pathetic. So Im looking around for
> PC3700 - PC4000 RAM

I bought a gig of TwinMOS PC3200 stuff for £100-110 (can't remember exactly) and it boots at 220 easy. Not tried higher yet.

What make is your RAM and motherboard?

Alexrose1uk wrote:
> Sorry, Adrian.I admit I had a bit of trouble following some of you're
> post.
> It seemed like one minute you were saying it wasn't worth getting
> PC3200 Ram, and then said it was....
> Sorry, if I'm having a moment of complete density, but is it really
> worth getting PC3200 Ram or not?
>
> Cheers!

PC3200 RAM will not give you any performance boosts over PC2700 RAM on an XP2800 system since the FSB runs at 333Mhz whereas PC3200 is capable of 400Mhz.

What Adrian was pointing out was that if in the future you want to upgrade to a sytem that runs a 400Mhz FSB such as the XP3000, then you can always use the same PC3200 module(s).

I would recommend fast RAM as it allows for overclocking in sync which as Adrian said is essential to uphold performance.

My damn MoBO wont allow me to run the RAM and FSB out of sync = max bootable FSB settings at 206 <-Pathetic. So Im looking around for PC3700 - PC4000 RAM

adrian wrote:
> Turbonutter wrote:
> I would recommend the Abit NF7, NF7-S or AN7, whichever you can
> afford. Really, I do. Very strongly. Honestly if you bought anything
> else you'd be wasting your money.
>
> I agree. I have the NF7-S and think its worth the money. Onboard
> sound is excellent, onboard firewire, USB etc. The sound is 6 channel
> and even optical out so you can hook up some 5.1 speakers to it.
>
> With a XP2800 you only need PC2700 Ram. To get the best performance
> you need to run the memory insync with the CPU so be default the PC
> will run PC3200 RAM at PC2700 if the CPU has a FSB of 333mhz, like
> the XP2800 has.
>
> Some people have said that you dont need to run them insync and
> running them out of sync wont matter. I have tried it on mine as I
> have PC3200 and a XP2800 and tests are slower, plus theres been
> hardware review sites that stress that keeping RAM and CPU insync
> gives better performance. Wont matter that you have PC3200 as it will
> just run slower, plus having PC3200 will mean that you dont have to
> upgrade the RAM if you overclock the CPU to run at FSB 400mhz, or you
> get a XP3000/3200 which run at 400mhz as standard.
>
> Another thing with motherboards is whether you go for nForce 2 or
> VIA. My last PC was VIA as its was before nForce 2 came out. My new
> PC I knew I wanted nForce 2 as I had heard it performed better than
> VIA and I think at the time had more onboard facilities that actually
> were good like the sound and onboard firewire etc.


Sorry, Adrian.I admit I had a bit of trouble following some of you're post.
It seemed like one minute you were saying it wasn't worth getting PC3200 Ram, and then said it was....
Sorry, if I'm having a moment of complete density, but is it really worth getting PC3200 Ram or not?

Cheers!

Turbonutter wrote:
> I would recommend the Abit NF7, NF7-S or AN7, whichever you can
> afford. Really, I do. Very strongly. Honestly if you bought anything
> else you'd be wasting your money.

I agree. I have the NF7-S and think its worth the money. Onboard sound is excellent, onboard firewire, USB etc. The sound is 6 channel and even optical out so you can hook up some 5.1 speakers to it.

With a XP2800 you only need PC2700 Ram. To get the best performance you need to run the memory insync with the CPU so be default the PC will run PC3200 RAM at PC2700 if the CPU has a FSB of 333mhz, like the XP2800 has.

Some people have said that you dont need to run them insync and running them out of sync wont matter. I have tried it on mine as I have PC3200 and a XP2800 and tests are slower, plus theres been hardware review sites that stress that keeping RAM and CPU insync gives better performance. Wont matter that you have PC3200 as it will just run slower, plus having PC3200 will mean that you dont have to upgrade the RAM if you overclock the CPU to run at FSB 400mhz, or you get a XP3000/3200 which run at 400mhz as standard.

Another thing with motherboards is whether you go for nForce 2 or VIA. My last PC was VIA as its was before nForce 2 came out. My new PC I knew I wanted nForce 2 as I had heard it performed better than VIA and I think at the time had more onboard facilities that actually were good like the sound and onboard firewire etc.

This is the problem you will get mate, everyone will have there own favorites and it will be hard to choose one that suits you, what you would be better off doing is choosing a motherboard you like and asking us if we think it is a good motherboard.

Colin

I would recommend the Abit NF7, NF7-S or AN7, whichever you can afford. Really, I do. Very strongly. Honestly if you bought anything else you'd be wasting your money.

MSI KT6 Delta FIS2R

The DFI lanparty is £110, but the DFI Infinity (much the same but doesnt have the black circuit board, UV sensitive PCI slots etc..) can be bought much cheaper.

I would recommend them.