MoBo/other Hardware advice.

[Wmaker]

I'm building a system and have some questions.

Components that I've allready decided on:

Cpu: Amd Athlon XP 2600+
Gfx card: Club-3D Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB (or possibly 9700Pro)
Monitor: Samsung Syncmaster 959NF 19"

So, what about the rest?

I especially need advice about the mother board!

[Tarmac]

I've got nothing but good things to say for my Asus A7N8X deluxe motherboard.  It was in the first system I built, and it went off without any major hitch.  Granted I don't have much experience with other motherboards, but the fact that a computer building newb had no problems says something.  

The built-in sound on the deluxe is great too, so you'll save the cost of a sound card.  

For RAM, I went with Crucial pc2700.  

Vid card I went with a GF4 Ti4200, but that was about a year ago.  If I had to do it again now, I'd get a A7N8X deluxe board (revision 2), and an ATI card of some type.  Probably the 'budget-performance' Radeon card (9600 I think it is).

[boxboy28]

for CPU i wouild get a barton 2500 not the 2600 (it ocver clocks better and is a better chip over all)
for ram go for atleastr DDR3200 recomended by ASUS is you go for that board, and get the Nforce 2 ultra chip set not the via KT400 or KT400a or KT600.

youll be much much happier

[Reschke]

I have had both the ASUS A7N8X Deluxe that got fried and it was a great board. I now have a Gigabyte GA-7N400 Pro that works great now that we have RMA'd the first one with 3 bad RAM slots.

I also run an AMD 2600+ CPU and have not had any trouble out of it. I don't OC anything at all now but I do know that the 2600+ will not OC more than just a few MHz over what its default is. So if you want to OC your CPU then go with a 2500 or higher but skip the 2600 altogether. I have a GeForce4 Ti4400 that works great and am thinking about using that in a different machine and getting a ATI 9800 or FX5900 board to go in the machine I just built.

[Roscoroo]

what about the 2400+ athlon on the same board (ASUS A7N8X Deluxe)
 how far will it oc with 333 ddr ???
I just put mum together one of these ... so far it seams to run real nice ... first night with it running .. I probly wont OC it but im just curious ...

[Pfunk]

Overclocking depends on several factors not limited just to the motherboard and processor you have.  Only way to truely find out how good an overclocker you have is to overclock it.

[possum45]

INTEL:D
And here is why.
my systems stats.
p4 2.4 OC @3.7 1200FSB 170.00
Stock Cpu voltage.
Abit IC7-max3 motherboard. 225.00
512 ram Mushkin pc3500 BH-5 chips. 215.00
prometiea phase change cooling. 1.200.00
CPU temp -25c
enermax 430w power supply 99.00
WD 80gig HD 130.00
WD120GIG HD 160.00
plextor dvd cd rw 100.00
sony cd 75.00
leadtek a250ultra 128 G-force 4600ti Vid card 350.00

2.724.00 bucks
not to bad for a machine this fast and stable.
AMD has nothing that can touch it.

[ebgb]

I've nothing but love for MSI's boards.  Seen the Kt300, kt400, and now the Nforce2 board.  No problems whatsoever with any
of them.  

Given that the 1ghz setups are still viable with many recent programs, most anything you get running will be just peachy for quite awhile I'm sure.  You can spend extra bucks on the best
available memory and what not, but really the deciding factor is chiefly your video card.  That 2600 with DDR on an Nforce2 board running 2 sticks of quality ram will run real well.


g

[Wmaker]

Thanks everyone for your advice!

I'll tell you what kind of system I came up with later.