Thought I'd ask here.
Looking at getting a new board and processor. Have the processor picked out AMD XP 2500+ or AMD 2600mobile, and now just need some help in choosing what I really need in a mobo. The MOBO should be OC friendly, as I plan on unlocking the 2500 and running it at near 3200+ speeds (a jump of 700mhz) if stable (which I read it is).
Would SATA onboard be any faster then a SATA card later added to a PCI slot? I dunno if PCI would be a bottleneck or not.
Here are the three I'm aware of, seems as if every time I look I find another though that meets my requirements. I'm a true bargain shopper, what was the best last year is probably what I'm looking for--no need for todays technology.
Albatron KX18D ProII $89 -- What I'd really want but out of my price range ideally. SATA, Firewire, USB2,
6 PCI slots, etc...it's all here plus more...nForce2 400 FSB chipset, etc. If anyone knows of something between this and the Shuttle in terms of features that's cheaper I'm all ears.
Shuttle AN35N-Ultra $54 -- This is a "bare bones" sorta board, which I don't really mind--the only thing it lacks that I might want is SATA. The bonus with this board is the nForce2 chipset and that it's easily overclocked thru the BIOS (if anyone knows other budget nF2 chipset based boards good for overclocking let me know).
Soyo SYKT600 Dragon Plus - $37 A real steal of a price on what looks like a sweet board. The SATA on board and 8 USB2.0 ports is nice, as is the active cooling on the northbridge. However it uses the Via KT600 chipset which is slower/seemingly less well regarded as the nForce2. Apparently it can't be overclocked easily either, requiring changes to jumpers. This was initially my main choice but since been nearly removed from the list after reading up on chipsets/overclocking. Just as a note, if anyone is interested in a Slot A board and has no interest in Overclocking this would be an extremely good buy/upgrade.
Any intellegent opinions/suggestions highly appreciated!