Motherboard Advice

[Spinal]

So a fuse blew yesterday, and once I got power back I found my PC wouldn't boot. I think the BIOS is corrupt (it freezes after verifying the DMI data and displays some very interesting blue characters on the screen).

Needless to say, I've reset the CMOS memory, unplugged all extra components and tried, with no luck.

Given that its an old P4 motherboard (running RAMBUS none-the-less!); I thought I'de sell off the ram to raise funds for a new motherboard. Problem is, I'm a bit out of the loop and don't know what new mobo to get!

I'm looking at something that supports:
-Intel Dual or Quad core (or even two separate processors )
-at least 1 PCI-e slot for graphics
-at least 2 PCI slots for a proper audio card and my USB/Firewire card
-onboard SATA support
-at least 2 PATA/Ulra DMA connectors for my current HDs/DVD burner
-ATX or mini-ATX form factor
-Support for 4gb or ram, possibly even 8...

Should I be looking out for anything else in particular?

Any recomendations? I saw the "Asus P5N-E SLI 650i Socket 775 PCI-E Onboard Audio ATX Motherboard" which seems to tick everything and costs only £60 (plus a processor and ram...)


TIA,
Michele

 

[GazCaff]

How much do you want to spend? Good luck selling that Rambus memory, you'll need it!

Perhaps you'll be able to donate it to a museum?

 

[Spinal]

For some odd reason, RDRAM-800 (rambus) still sells on eBay - though prices seem to fluctuate wildy! 2x512mb sticks seem to sell for between £40 and £115; so depending on which end of the spectrum I land on I might be lucky

As for how much I'm willing to spend, I think £100 on the mobo is a reasonable amount; but if I see something that I'm dying for - well :grin:

Michele

 

[GazCaff]

I've got a Gigabyte GA-P35-DQ6, which is an Intel P35 based motherboard. It supports DDR2 Ram (although there are DDR3 Versions available) and DDR2 Ram is dirt-cheap at the moment. Sadly it only has one IDE connector, which I think is going to be your main stumbling block if you are looking for something more up to date. It's a great motherboard for sticking a cheap dual or quad core in and turning everything up to 11 though!

 

[andy_k]

another vote for Gigabyte


http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/mainboards/display/ga-p35-ds3l.html

We've got two of these running quad cores - no issues at all

Andy

 

[DieselE]

I bought an ASUS motherboard earlier this year, the P5K3-Deluxe Wi-Fi. I can strongly recommend it. It ticks all the boxes you listed.

Only potential downside is it takes DDR3 memory only and that is more expensive. Here is the specification from ASUS's website.

CPU

Intel Socket 775 Core™2 Quad/Core™2 Extreme/Core™2 Duo/Pentium® Extreme/Pentium® D/Pentium® 4 Processors
Compatible with Intel® 05B/05A/06 processors
Support Intel® next generation 45nm CPU

Chipset

Intel P35
Intel ICH9R
Intel Fast Memory Access Technology
Front Side Bus
1600/1333/1066/800 MHz

Memory

4 x DIMM, Max. 8 GB, DDR 1333*/1066/800 Non-ECC,Un-buffered Memory
Dual Channel memory architecture
*The chipset officially supports the memory frequency up to DDR3 1066MHz. Tuned by ASUS Super Memspeed Technology, this motherboard natively supports up to DDR3 1333MHz
Please refer to www.asus.com or user manual for Memory QVL.

Expansion Slots

2 x PCIe x16 (blue @ x16 mode, black @ x4 or x1 mode) supports
2 x PCIe x1
3 x PCI
Storage

Southbridge
6 xSATA 3 Gb/s ports
Support RAID 0,1,5,10,JBOD

JMicron® JMB363 PATA and SATA controller
1 xUltraDMA 133/100/66 for up to 2 PATA devices
2 xExternal SATA Gb/s port (SATA On-the-Go)
Support RAID 0,1
LAN

Dual Gigabit LAN controllers, featuring AI NET2Marvell88E8056® PCI-E Gigabit LAN controllers
RealtekRTL8110SC® PCI Gigabit LAN controller

Wireless LAN

ASUS WiFi-AP Solo
54 Mbps IEEE 802.11g and backwards compatible with 11 Mbps IEEE 802.11b
Software Access Point mode
Station mode: Infrastruceure mode and Ad-Hoc mode

Audio

ADI® AD1988B 8 -Channel High Definition Audio CODEC
Coaxial / Optical S/PDIF out ports at back I/O
ASUS Noise Filter
IEEE 1394

Agere® FW322 1394a controller supports 2 x 1394a ports (one at midboard; one at back panel)
USB

10 USB 2.0 ports (4 ports at mid-board, 6ports at back panel)