Help...I'm confused

[Stroker]

I'm a newbie to these forums but a good friend referred me here....so here goes
I'm gonna attempt to build a puter but looking at all the mobo's just to get started is throwing me for a loop.
I'm building a pc to do a lot of online gaming, and am looking for a Mobo that is stable, & that i can grow with....
Don't know what I really need can you all give me a hand? It sure would be appreciated.

[jadison]

Welcome Stroker, glad to see ur with us :)

Now, I'll be adding more input soon but for now this is what I have:

I'm an AMD-based fan for now so I'll recommend going with an AMD-based system for all that gaming. As for motherboards, here's a great article (http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,674366,00.asp) Extreme Tech wrote on the latest KT400 Athlon XP Motherboards ( a roundup of 6 motherboards from Abit, Asus, Gigabyte, MSI, Shuttle, and SOYO ). That should help you out for now...as for the CPU - for now the best price/performance cpu is the Athlon XP 2100+ @ $87 (IMO).

Now before I suggest anything more, what is your price range? And, do you have all the other peripherals chosen (i.e. vid card, sound card, HD, optical drives, etc) ??

[Stroker]

Thx for the reply jadison....great article & it certainly is helpful, I've heard that AMD is the way to go with gaming, & that is the direction I am leaning.....
As far as price range, I will spend most of my money on Mobo & CPU rite now....don't care how much(let me take that back) I want quality in those so that I can upgrade as necessary. The only peripherals I've chosen is Nvidia prob the 4600(in the near future) but rite now Nvidia 420 is what I have. The others I'm going to have to learn about.....I have a feeling this is going to be a loooong road for me LOL.....any help is certainly appreciated.
Stroker

[madfish]

Hey EZkill, it's about time ya showed up :D peeps here were starting to think I made you up hehehehe

{SOD}Shark

[Stroker]

You did just make me up didn't you , I'm just a figment of your imagination :lol:Now I need to know what you've been sayin about me LOL :rolleyes: Nobody believe a word he says it's :bs:

[madfish]

follow this link http://www.xtremepccentral.com/vbforums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=2663


now we better get into the lounge with this chat befor the bossman gets upset over the thread capping/nefing

:D :D

[blackwatch]

i vote MSI motherboards...KT3 ultra series is rock stable and good. KT4 is new and is on the new via chipset. it all depends on the options you want and the price you want to pay. how about listing some options and a mobo budget and we can make suggestions from there? oh and madfish is full of http://www.xtremepccentral.com/vbforums/images/smilies/bsflag.gif :D

[Stroker]

hey Blackwatch,
My budget is gonna be $100-$150 with the ability to stretch it a little if I need to....I've heard quit a few good things about the KT4 & the Soyo Dragon series, as far as options I'm looking for stability, I don't think I could handle the overclocking peeps talk about. Mainly what I want is something thats upgradeable later if I need to.

[blackwatch]

that should be fine...how about options like usb 2.0/firewire/raid 0 capability/ ata133 motherboard controller/ onboard sound/video/
what speed of ram...what type of processor? 333mhz ram/ 266 mhz ram? amd athalon that has a 266 bus or a 333 bus?

lots of choices to make. Soyo/MSI/ASUS all stable boards. what i did when choosing my msi kt3 ultra-aru was to go over to www.amdmb.com and surf through the individual motherboard forums...people post help topics, easy way to see common issues with each board.

[Stroker]

Out of those options that you listed the only choice I have made is NO onboard video...going with Nvidia there AGP of course...onboard sound would be cool.....seems you've given me a few things to think about, I'm gonna check out the site you posted now. Thx Blackwatch

[jadison]

I'd definitely agree with blackwatch on checking out amdmb.com. They've been a prime source of my attention ever since the site went online. They produce great articles/reviews and the forums are quite helpful and informative. And, the press releases always help...of course ;)

You might want to take a look at this article: Via KT333 Roundup (http://www.explosivelabs.com/reviews/kt333_roundup/) for AMD mobo suggestions as well. The mobo that won their Editor's Choice award won it for rock-solid stability, that board was the Gigabyte GA-7VRXP.

As far as the KT4 chipset is concerned...I'd let that mature a bit before buying one. Even tho I mentioned the Gigabyte mobo above, I still have to agree from my own limited experience and that of my peers online that MSI motherboards are reliable and stable if anything.

Now, since you're gaming you probably want the best price/performance AMD CPU - well the 2 candidates are the AthlonXP 2000+ (http://www.pricewatch.com/1/3/4398-1.htm) and the AthlonXP 2100+ (http://www.pricewatch.com/1/3/4657-1.htm) both priced at $73 and $87 accordingly. The next fastest CPU is the 2200+ priced at $137 but of course that's more than you'll be paying for the mobo itself (most likely).

As far as the other components of your soon to be built PC are concerned, just let us know when you're ready to move on to them and we'll be happy to help you out! :)

[blackwatch]

if he is waiting until jan or feb...the amd barton cores will be out and the 2700&2800 should drop...then he can take advantage of the 333 bus speed on the processor.

[jadison]

true - we'll see how much the higher-clocked XP's drop

[Stroker]

Man this is some good stuff, ya'll keep talkin & bouncing things off one another & it certainly won't be anything for me to make up my mind. LOL Like for instance regarding the options, which in your opinion are the most important to take into consideration...
you two talking about things like this is (to me) educational
Thanks guys,
Stroker

[blackwatch]

haha...no prob

usb 2.0 is important...ata 133 isnt. onboard ethernet/lan control is nice but only for the reason that it frees up a pci slot so you dont have to plug in a lan card.im not a fan of onboard sound either. bluetooth onboard is nifty...but again hasnt matured, so i could take it or leave it.

[blackwatch]

the nforce2 chipset is another option that will be around by the time your looking. it is an alternative to the via chipset. another thing to think about is the video card. how spendy do you want to get? AGP 8x will be out and the new geforce fx cards will be as well. so do you buy a mobo that supports those...or just buy a 4x agp and a geforce 4 ti 4600?

http://www.nvidia.com/view.asp?PAGE=geforcefx


also dual channel ddr ram...another thing to look into.