Hey guys I'm looking at building a new pc my current one is dying. My both my ram chips has bad sections, video card has been running too hot lately and not starting properly when I turn on my pc (both under windows or Linux), and my devices keep disappearing so I think my onboard IDE controller is fubar also. So I'm pricing parts and locations where to find them and have hit a snag was wondering if someone might know of a motherboard that has the options I want/need This is my current hardware Plans to use DVD+-RW DL: Pioneer 111D 16x Ram: x2 1GB Dual-Channel DDR Sound: Creative Labs SoundBlaster Audigy 4 Pro Video1: XFX Geforce 7300GT 256MB (Dual DVI) Video2: XFX Geforce 7300GT 256MB (Dual DVI) if someone here can help me with some good motherboards that can handle what I want that could help me out alot on deciding which motherboard I should get. James
You're going to need a new CPU if you want 2 PCI Express x16slots. And if you want that, you'll be lucky to find a board that has 3 PCI slots. Since you want a VIA SATA controller, you cannot get SLI because SLI is only possible on nVidia chipsets. So if you REALLY want to flash your X360 DVD drive, then I recommend getting a Asus A8V-SE. It is a VIA chipset and has the right SATA controller you need. And an AMD 3000+ Athlon 64 will do you good and are cheap, less than $100. And the motherboard has enough PCI slots. motherboard: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813131033
I have a Via 6421 sata controller card now that I could use its just I think the drivers are flawed all 3 computers i have installed it in and plugged in the dvd drive windows freezes and unfreezes every 30-60 secs and just repeats. I have the Hitachi GDR-3120L drive and only via's can flash it but my 3 friends have the samsung drive I'm the only lucky one in the group to have the hitachi.
Get an AM2 board. You'll be able to go Sempron and upgrade, or AMD 64 and upgrade to X2. ASUS do nice boards - some pretty reasonable. If you want a cheap brand, I'd recommend ASRock.
ASUS do great boards! I remember years ago when i assembled my first pc and forgot to put the motherboard on the suspenders (!). Of course it was short-circuiting and wouldnt start so i switched it off two-three times before i recognized what was happening. Well, after i fixed that everthing was just working fine. I think it was the only pc i didnt had any problems with...
Too bad they don't do skate-boards, I had to get a DarkStar;p Other than that, Asus is quality, although on the expensive side.
If you haven't purchased the 7300GTs yet, it would probably be better to get a single 7900GT or GTO seeing as they're coming down in price and will probably offer better performence than SLI'd 7300GTs DX10 cards will be out very soon which will push the prices of current gen cards down even further. Of course if you already have the 7300's then just disregard my post
no I haven't purchased anything yet. But I was looking at using the dual cards to allow for multiple Displays.
