Looking for a motherboard

I built a new system 3 years ago and have been mostly content with my speed, so
haven't been looking for an upgrade. But recently my Athlon XP CPU died, and I
had to go to 4 local computer shops before I could find a replacement chip to
fit my existing socket 462 motherboard, and then had to settle for a much slower
Duron.

So now I'm forced to start looking for replacement hardware, but without a large
hardware budget. My current old motherboard is an Asus A7N8X Deluxe. I need
to reuse my current AGP video card, and my current PC2700 memory (so no SLi or
PCI express and no DDR2). I'm looking for a socket 939 mobo, I need on-board
sound, and at least one Firewire port (which I would have thought all boards
would have by now, but many don't have that listed). I need some hints as to
which current lower-priced motherboards will fit my current needs. I haven't
decided yet if I'll go the cheap route and put an Athlon 64 3000 or the more
expensive route and put an Athlon 64 x2 3800 (but either way it won't be one of
those new kilobuck FX-60s).

(Darren Garrison) wrote:

http://www.asrock.com/product/product_939Dual-SATA2.htm

This seems to be well reviewed by websites and users, and it's
incredibly cheap given the flexibility it offers. No firewire that I can
see, but adding a PCI card's not going to strain the budget given the
price of the motherboard.

Andrew McP

PS Your memory speed might be a bit of a problem, but I'm not sure.
However even if it is I see no reason why you can't underclock whatever
CPU you buy until you can afford something faster. Memory's pretty cheap
now, after all.

Darren Garrison wrote:
I built a new system 3 years ago and have been mostly content with my speed, so
haven't been looking for an upgrade. But recently my Athlon XP CPU died, and I
had to go to 4 local computer shops before I could find a replacement chip to
fit my existing socket 462 motherboard, and then had to settle for a much slower
Duron.


Well my girlfriend (who mostly does photoshop) just outgrew her XP2200
and I just built a new unit for her based on the AMD X2-3800.
If you do video editing or Photoshop the X2 , though more expensive
really does a nice job.

Although I usually buy from Newegg...I got most of the stuff for this
machine from Monarch Computer...
If you check them out, they have a very good selection of motherboards...
and I'm sure they'd have several with the specs you are looking for.

Since I already had some of the parts...
my total cost was under $1000