Best ASUS board

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MJM News

Looking to build a new system.....

Any recommendations on the best ASUS board to build....

Stability and ease of setup are most important features.

MJM
 
Looking to build a new system.....

Any recommendations on the best ASUS board to build....

Stability and ease of setup are most important features.

MJM
Click to expand...

Well, I just recently completed an Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe, and it was
very easy to set up and completely trouble-free for me, and I'm really
a novice. It's been rock solid with an Athlon 3200 and 1 GB of Corsair
RAM.
 
Looking to build a new system.....

Any recommendations on the best ASUS board to build....

Stability and ease of setup are most important features.

MJM
Click to expand...

There are probably 70 or 80 boards we could recommend.

1) What is your budget ? Do you want "super-cheap" or "my
budget is unlimited" ?

2) Do you want to reuse your old components, or fork out
$1200 for all new stuff.

3) There are a number of sockets and processor makers to
choose from:

Intel S478 (obsolete P4), S775 (new P4 package)
AMD S462 (athlonxp), S754 (athlon64 single channel),
S939 (athlon64 dual channel),
s940 (athlon64 dual channel, registered memory)

AMD is for gaming (due to superior game benchmarks),
P4 otherwise. AthlonXP is a good way to do budget systems.

4) Memory choice - DDR or DDR2. DDR2 is more expensive.
Reusing old SDRAM would be a lot harder.

5) Video card choice - built-in graphics, AGP slot, or
PCI express slot or
PCI express SLI dual slot

A little more background about what system and components
you are currently using, and where you want to be after
the upgrade, would allow a more focused answer. Since
graphics cards are so expensive, your choice of graphics
card will make a big difference to your system cost.
Same with the use of DDR2.

HTH,
Paul
 
see comments below


Paul said:
There are probably 70 or 80 boards we could recommend.

1) What is your budget ? Do you want "super-cheap" or "my
budget is unlimited" ? all new parts

2) Do you want to reuse your old components, or fork out
$1200 for all new stuff. about $1K

3) There are a number of sockets and processor makers to
choose from:

Intel S478 (obsolete P4), S775 (new P4 package)
AMD S462 (athlonxp), S754 (athlon64 single channel),
S939 (athlon64 dual channel),
s940 (athlon64 dual channel, registered memory)

AMD is for gaming (due to superior game benchmarks),
P4 otherwise. AthlonXP is a good way to do budget systems. P4 w/ 800MHz FSB

4) Memory choice - DDR or DDR2. DDR2 is more expensive.
Reusing old SDRAM would be a lot harder.

5) Video card choice - built-in graphics, AGP slot, or
PCI express slot or
PCI express SLI dual slot not sure

A little more background about what system and components
you are currently using, and where you want to be after
the upgrade, would allow a more focused answer. Since
graphics cards are so expensive, your choice of graphics
card will make a big difference to your system cost.
Same with the use of DDR2.

HTH,
Paul
Click to expand...
 
MJM said:
*see comments below*



*> AMD S462 (athlonxp), S754 (athlon64 single channel),
Click to expand...

I just built a system similar to what you are looking for with the
P5P800 motherboard, 3.4 GHz Prescott processor, and 1 GB of DDR400 RAM.
These parts cost less than $550 from Newegg. This board uses a
standard AGP video card so you can get a very good one for about $200.
Adding hard drives (IDE or SATA), CD/DVD, and case/power supply should
add less than $250 which would fit within your budget. I could have
gone with one of the PCI-E motherboards but the expense would have been
much higher and I would have needed to get a PCI-E video card.
 
Paul said:
3) There are a number of sockets and processor makers to
choose from:

Intel S478 (obsolete P4), S775 (new P4 package)
AMD S462 (athlonxp), S754 (athlon64 single channel),
S939 (athlon64 dual channel),
s940 (athlon64 dual channel, registered memory)

AMD is for gaming (due to superior game benchmarks),
P4 otherwise. AthlonXP is a good way to do budget systems.
Click to expand...

Even though the P4 might perform slightly better in the field of office
apps, I'd still opt for the AMD 64. This will allow you to switch to
64-bit computing without having to switch hardware again, and if you
plan on using the rig for say three years, and everyone is slowly
switching to 64bit computing, you will not feel left out - at least you
have a choice.

I'd pick up an S939 board - wait a few weeks for the A8N - pair it with
a not so overpriced Athlon 64, and that would still leave plenty of cash
for other components, such as memory, SATA drives, good PSU, PCIe vid
card and a dual layer dvd burner. A good starting position for software
and hardware upgrades in the future.
 
"MJM News" <[email protected]> said:
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see comments below



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Click to expand...

P4C800-E S478 $180 (bus overclock without video artifacts)
3.0E Prescott $188 S478
2x512MB DDR 2x$120 (PQI PC4000 CAS2.5)
6600GT AGP $229 (Apollo, hopefully better brands to follow) or
9800Pro $205+ (Ati, older generation)
Case/Disk/CDROM/Mouse/Kbd ~$200 (PSU is 20pin ATX plus 2x2 12V conn)
Total = ~1037

P5P800 LGA775 $94 (watch for artifact issues if overclocking...)
http://abxzone.com/forums/showthread.php?p=914703&highlight=p5p800#post914703
3.2E Prescott $219 LGA775
2x512MB DDR 2x$140 (OCZ EL Gold PC4000 rev2)
6600GT AGP $229 (Apollo, hopefully better brands to follow) or
9800Pro $205+ (Ati, older generation)
Case/Disk/CDROM/Mouse/Kbd ~$200 (PSU is 24pin ATX plus 2x2 12V conn)
Total = ~$1022

P5GD2 Deluxe LGA775 $187 (seen anandtech 915 reviews)
3.2E Prescott $219 LGA775
2x512MB DDR 2x$140 (Crucial DDR2-533 PC2-4200 roughly = PC3200 DDR)
6600GT PCI-e $190
ATI has no midrange --- X700 is wimpy compared to 6600GT, and
X800 is $400+
Case/Disk/CDROM/Mouse/Kbd ~$200 (PSU is 24pin ATX plus 2x2 12V conn)
Total = ~$1076

The P5GD2 PCI Express solution has a slight price premium in
this example, but the board is probably a better base in terms of
compatibility with future hardware. The other solutions are
more "frozen in time". I selected the Deluxe over the Premium,
due to the Deluxe having 1394A and the Premium has 1394B. The
1394A Firewire runs at 400Mb/s, but Windows OS drivers will work
properly, whereas 1394B 800Mb/s is currently a nightmare.
The Premium has two Ethernet interfaces (for ICS if you want),
while the Deluxe has one Ethernet. The Deluxe balances this
by having an extra PCI slot, good if you like add in cards.
I'm not sure which of these products has bundled wireless, or
whether you even care.

Note - I'm not really up on all the current gen video cards,
and the marketing decisions seem somewhat random to me. It
would probably take a couple days of solid research to refine
the video card suggestions. There isn't a nice jumbo video card
performance chart, with all the new crap in it. I simply
tried to find something for $200.

Have fun,
Paul
 
Paul said:
P4C800-E S478 $180 (bus overclock without video artifacts)
3.0E Prescott $188 S478
2x512MB DDR 2x$120 (PQI PC4000 CAS2.5)
6600GT AGP $229 (Apollo, hopefully better brands to follow) or
9800Pro $205+ (Ati, older generation)
Case/Disk/CDROM/Mouse/Kbd ~$200 (PSU is 20pin ATX plus 2x2 12V conn)
Total = ~1037

P5P800 LGA775 $94 (watch for artifact issues if overclocking...)
http://abxzone.com/forums/showthread.php?p=914703&highlight=p5p800#post914703
3.2E Prescott $219 LGA775
2x512MB DDR 2x$140 (OCZ EL Gold PC4000 rev2)
6600GT AGP $229 (Apollo, hopefully better brands to follow) or
9800Pro $205+ (Ati, older generation)
Case/Disk/CDROM/Mouse/Kbd ~$200 (PSU is 24pin ATX plus 2x2 12V conn)
Total = ~$1022

P5GD2 Deluxe LGA775 $187 (seen anandtech 915 reviews)
3.2E Prescott $219 LGA775
2x512MB DDR 2x$140 (Crucial DDR2-533 PC2-4200 roughly = PC3200
DDR)
6600GT PCI-e $190
ATI has no midrange --- X700 is wimpy compared to 6600GT, and
X800 is $400+
Case/Disk/CDROM/Mouse/Kbd ~$200 (PSU is 24pin ATX plus 2x2 12V conn)
Total = ~$1076

The P5GD2 PCI Express solution has a slight price premium in
this example, but the board is probably a better base in terms of
compatibility with future hardware. The other solutions are
more "frozen in time". I selected the Deluxe over the Premium,
due to the Deluxe having 1394A and the Premium has 1394B. The
1394A Firewire runs at 400Mb/s, but Windows OS drivers will work
properly, whereas 1394B 800Mb/s is currently a nightmare.
The Premium has two Ethernet interfaces (for ICS if you want),
while the Deluxe has one Ethernet. The Deluxe balances this
by having an extra PCI slot, good if you like add in cards.
I'm not sure which of these products has bundled wireless, or
whether you even care.

Note - I'm not really up on all the current gen video cards,
and the marketing decisions seem somewhat random to me. It
would probably take a couple days of solid research to refine
the video card suggestions. There isn't a nice jumbo video card
performance chart, with all the new crap in it. I simply
tried to find something for $200.

Have fun,
Paul
Click to expand...

As a first-time-builder-to-be I have been pondering the same question and
educating myself for a few months now. My new system would replace an aging
PIII at home and be used for mild MS office apps (wife), gaming (kiids and
I), and family home video processing (me). Stability/reliability is
important, as is an active tech support group (you folks). For those
reasons, I'd worked up a system based on the P4C800E.

Overclocking at some point in the future is a possibility, but not in the
cards right now. I don't have the time for another full blown hobby.
Stability and reliability, as I said, is high on my list.

The P4C800 alternative is a system based on a newer board which could permit
expandability lacking in the P4C800 system. My budget is in the $1300
range. I see the A8V (mentioned elsewhere) and the P5GD2 as potential
alternatives. Bottom line is I'd like learn and assemble a system, but do
not have the time and resources for a lot of experimentation (I don't have
spare cards, drives, etc to debug with).

Dwayne
 
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