Looking for advice on motherboard upgrade??

[stu8080]

Im looking to upgrade my current setup to a more capable processor, ive bought an Athlon XP 2500+ and am finding it hard to find out what motherboards would suit me.

It needs to be an nforce2 or greater so i can 'hopefully' get more functionality from my 350 (i still have a little faith left in it!) and mATX form, the more features it has the better, especially LAN and plenty of USB ports and firewire support.

So far these look the best options:
http://www.techstore.co.uk/browse.php?a=...neID=39145

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/..._uid=73806

All comments welcome!

[herbs]

My brother had the msi from ebuyer and it burnt up luckly it didnt take anything else with it. I have an asus a7v8x-mx which is a via km400 board with a duron 1600mhz which I can overclock to 2ghz and it works fine with 4 tuners, 2 usb and 2 pci.

[LilY0da]

Abit Nf7-sg2
edit, strike that it's not mATX, sry

[stu8080]

trouble is PVR-350 has problems with Via chipsets, not entirely sure it will work perfectly with nforce2 but ive read its preferable. also my current mobo is 133 mhz bus speed and so theres little point in just fitting an athlon 2500+.
I dont intend to overclock cos i want it to run as cool and quiet as possible.

[ShiningDragon]

Don't take a MoBo with VIA, NVIDIA or ATI Chipset of the Socket A Generation. I think you're using the PCI-Versions of your TV-Cards, right? Then you should look for some µATX MoBo's with ULi or SiS Chipset. The PCI-Performance of MoBo's with these Chipsets are more better and faster so that the qualitity of your PCI-Displaycards grow up a little.

NVIDIA, ATI and VIA MoBos are a little bit better for gamer, not for Multimedia Applications.

The Best would be that you sell your old AMD Socket A CPU and buy a ASUS A8N-VM CSV (Socket 939) and a quiet, energyefficient, very fast AMD64 like i use. In this case you can take the NVIDIA Chipset, because the NFORCE 430 is nearly bugfree (other than the older NFORCE 4 ones)

[LilY0da]

Thinking of upgrading too, but I'm a bit lagging behind on the 64bit AMD market knowledge
Anyone has a good link as to what are the dozens of new core versions that showed up since I bought my barton core 1 and a half year ago?
I read somewhere that the Venice core was the low power one, is that right? Recommended for a HTPC, or is it weaker than the other core types?

Last but not least, what's newest between a Nforce4 Ultra and Nforce4 430 or 410?

[ShiningDragon]

The Venice Core E6 (actual) is one of the best AMD64 CPU's @ Sockel 939. It's built-in Memorycontroller is very fast and flexibel. I use 4 x 512 MB DDR-Memory (Doublesided) @ 200MHz DDR without Problems (not so easy with the older Cores).

The "old" nForce 4 Chipset had a big problem if the Active Armor was activated with the NVIDIA NAM-Software. By FTP-Downloads they get EVERYTIME corrupted.
There's another Problem too with the S-ATA Controllers by copying from Drive A to Drive B from S-ATA Controller 1 to S-ATA Controller 2. The Data get corrupted too with some Harddiskdrives (like the old famous VIA 686B Southbridge Bug).
The nForce 430 has this bug not, whether S-ATA nor the ActiveArmor. I use the ASUS A8N-VM CSV and are very, very happy with this combination.

If you can, buy a AMD64 3.000+ E3/E6 instead a AMD64 3.500+. There are no real speed-differences outside from games, that you can feel.

[LilY0da]

Any way to tell the diff. between a E3 or E6?
When looking at newegg.com, the only difference I see in the list of CPUs with a Venice core is the voltage... They don't mention the E3/E6 difference
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLis...t=Property

[stu8080]

I think a 64 might be overkill for a htpc? id be looking at close to £200 to upgrade as you say with decent mobo and athlon 64, with 2500+ Barton and SiS mobo i can keep my upgrade within £75.

I have seen an SiS mobo but disregarded it as i had't read much about them and didnt want to go from one incompatibility issue to another! I'll look into it, thanks ShiningDragon

[ShiningDragon]

Any way to tell the diff. between a E3 or E6?
When looking at newegg.com, the only difference I see in the list of CPUs with a Venice core is the voltage... They don't mention the E3/E6 difference
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLis...t=Property

The E6 Stepping has a better Memorycontroller. With an older E3 AMD64 you could have Speed-Problems if you are using 4 different RAM's..., the E6 has *unofficial* DDR500 Support.

It's not really important. I had an AMD64 3.000+ E3 and replaced it now with an AMD64 3.500+ E6. Speed is no difference, but i am not the big gamer.

@stu8080

An AMD64 isn't overkill. This CPU is FAST, is COOL, has a very good Powermanagement (from 1 GHz over 1,8 GHz to 2,2 GHz by an AMD64 3.500+).
So i have the power, if i need it. The cooling is an easy thing.

For which MoBo with SiS Chipset you have felled your decision?