Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Hardware and Software => Topic started by: Toad on December 01, 2002, 01:33:23 PM
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My graduated son's sweetie needs a new "college/working" computer. She doesn't game. Probably the most taxing thing she uses her present machine for is using the USB camera/internet option for chatting with her true love.
I can build her 75% of what she needs with the spare parts sitting around here but I need a good, simple mobo that provides decent on-board sound and sufficient on-board video for college work and, of course, the video conferencing.
I'd prefer a Celeron board as I have some CPU's sitting here that will do the trick, but I could spring for one of the low price XP Athlons.
Ideas?
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I've read many good things about intel-brand P4 boards. They have celeron options and some come with onboard sound, video, and LAN. Most intel boards are pretty stable with good enough performance. They make a DDR board (845?) that should work just fine, and it will probably only cost $50ish more than a similiar bargain board. I'd expect to make up the cost in time, not having to worry about VIA or SiS drivers, compatibility, etc etc.
YMMV of course, but I haven't heard anything bad about intel brand-name boards and they're typically quite trivial to install. My brother installed an intel i815 board in his own system a few years back and it was the first time I've ever seen a system install go that easily. Every single thing in that system worked right the first time.
Of course, the usual other considerations apply. Pick a good power supply and case, for example. Do some checking online to find a quiet hard drive since some drives are significantly noiser than others. That sort of thing can really make a difference when judging non-gaming system satisfaction. Not having to constantly fiddle with the system is worth much more than saving $20 or getting the last 5% of speed.
You might also consider the tiny P4 or AMD systems from Shuttle. They have one with an AGP slot that is quite slick. Tiny, lightweight, pretty quiet especially if you get a quiet hard drive, and plenty power for even light gaming. I'd personally get a P4 system to ensure a more stable heatsink mounting (safer if you expect the system to be moved occasionally) but they both have nearly identical features and decent performance. Plus with one AGP and one PCI slot, you can go with whatever level of video or sound performance you like and change it later too. Plus they look cool :)
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Go to http://www.newegg.com get an ECS K7S5A mobo for $53, get the athlon XP1600+ for $52 free shipping on both, the ECS mobo includes onboard sound and onboard lan. Get a cheapo ATI card for like $30 and there you go.
Opps edited
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ure link dont work Pfunk...
Try gettin rid of the comma ;)
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Non-Gaming Mobo
BLASPHEMER!
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Asus A7V266-VM is really good for a simple computer.
Integrated GF2-MX video, integrated 5.1 sound, integrated LAN.
The whole chipset is made by Asus so no many compatibility worries.
Works with Athlons.
http://www.mwave.com has them for $70.
You can get Athlon XP 1700+ for less than $60.
Mwave will sell you bundles with CPU and RAM pre-assembled. I have built several PC's for family and friends from these bundles.
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Yeah, Funked, that's exactly the combo I was thinking of actually. Was looking at multiwave last nite, too.
Seems it would take her on through grad school with plenty of horsepower.
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The Asus A7N266-VM is a GREAT office machine board that has decent enough integrated graphics to make a decent low power gaming rig. It has excellent onboard sound and even onboard LAN. (I noticed someone else recommended it too.)
It uses the Nvidia nForce 1 chipset, which is very stable and well supported.
The only downside (potentially) is that the board is a MATX (micro ATX) board.
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Guys PLEASE!..the K7S5A is cheap for a good reason. I have had it for 5 months and had only PROBLEMS. Search on the web on problems with this mobo and u'll see that you want to go away from the decision to buy it.