mobo recommendation please?

[jerrygarcia]

Give me some suggestions for a mobo please.

I am building a machine for my brother and he is upgrading from a Comcrap. I am beginning to aquire parts and am second guessing myself on what mobo to build on.

I might be one of the very few that has built numerous computers successfully with no problems on the ECS K7S5A. I like the board myself and run only these boards.

I'm looking to build a price vs. performance machine that will include the following;

512mb PC2700 stick of Crucial(already have from Slickdeals , $43.00!)
CD-RW(preferably Lite-On)
DVD-Rom(same, Lite-On)
XP 2400+ to XP2500+
GeForce4 Ti4200 128mb ddr 4x-8x
Generic FDD
40g 7200 HDD
Case and monitor(probably a 19" CRT) I will pick up locally.

What mobo will complete this package? I could go with a K7S5A Pro board, but what is out there? When I built my machines, 266fsb was the top. I got such a great deal on the DDR that should I look towards a 333fsb board with an NForce2 chipset?

I'm trying to build this machine at as low of a price as I can. I prepped them saying I would try to stick to around $400.00 without the monitor.

Help me out please with your suggestions.

[Omardeth]

well if you do go with the ecs that will help bigtime keeping the price down . and if you are happy with them i would say go that way . the ti4200 is 1/4 of the 400 already , well there about if you hunt you can find them under 100$.

[jerrygarcia]

Any help out there? Remember price vs. performance.

I forgot to add that he will be moving up from dial-up to roadrunner. This machine will open his eyes. He couldn't play games with his on-board grapics before. I'll loan him Alien vs. Predator 2 and UT2k3 to show him what it can do.

Do I really need a 333fsb mobo to match up with the PC2700 I've already bought? I am leaning towards the XP 2500+ Barton.

Help?

[JPMiller]

If your lookin at combos...
On the higher end of scale....
http://www.bzboyz.com/store/product2267.html
http://www.partspc.com/store/product2840.html
or build a combo here....
http://www.monarchcomputer.com/Merch...gory_Code=AMDC
They are pretty highly rated...you can get Biostar M7VIT Pro KT400/XP 2500+and cheepo fan or an upgrade for $170+$10 shipping.
Almost seems ashame to stifle the other parts youve chosen with a slower mobo but here are some more inexpensive midrange combos........
http://www.tufshop.com/store/product2585.html
Otherwise your lookin at another K7S5A

[jerrygarcia]

Thanks JP. Right now I'm looking at the Epox Model# EP-8RDA+

Anybody have one? How are they? $85.00 at Newegg right now.

More suggestions?

[shawshank62]

epox 8rda

The people around here like the epox, i would definetly go with that if your looking to use 2700 ram. If your looking for something to last a long time i would get a mobo w/ 400 fsb, but then again within 2 years all these mobos will be usless anyway w/ pciexpress and the such. i would say get that mobo. if ya got the money you could try picking up one of these gigabyte's I got it 2 days ago, and when my new processor get here i cant wait to give it a whirl.

[Omardeth]

ya alot of people like the heck outta that epox board . but i don't know if it will do the 400fsb cpus amd is releasing . i know the asus a7n8x rev 2.0 and the abit nf7 rev 2.0 do run them and have the same chipset as the epox i think . if they do then i bet a bios flash will also let you do the 400fsb amd chips on the epox also . but dont hold me on that .

[jerrygarcia]

Any owners out there?

And their last 600 celly comcrap lasted 4 years, so I think a XP2500+ should hold them just fine. I do like features of the EP-8RDA+. I'm leaning toward that one right now.

Other close matches with close to those features?

On-board sound
Don't need on-board video as I'm getting a Ti4200
PC2700 or better
On-board LAN
I also like the IEEE 1394

[Omardeth]

for the price i don't think for that price you can get the same options . thats a nice board from what i read . i have never used it but it seems really nice and ALOT of people speak really highly of it . newegg has a abit nf7 refurb that is only 59$ but no firewire . for 85$ you gotta jump up to like 100$ or more to find something that compares .

[NerdyDuffman]

is says on newegg that teh epox 8rda only goes with 3200 ram is this true?