Any recommendations for new MB?

Hope this is the right place to post - sorry if not!

I'm looking for an upgrade mobo for my girlfriend. She's currently using my old Intel 440bx with a PII 266 CPU. It's solid as a rock (and will be the basis of a new fileserver) but it's way past the time to upgrade :)

Call me a snob, but I prefer Pentium as a CPU. So I need a board suitable for P4 anywhere between 1GHz and 2Ghz. I want a fairly bare mobo - the fewer on-board bits the better. Ideally no on-board NIC, video or sound. It needs at least 3 PCI. Ideally 3 PCI plus AGP or 4 PCI. I want to re-use the existing case if possible - I think the formset is ATX.

The PC is primarily used for playing RPG games (things like Baldur's Gate and all the various spin-offs) plus browsing the 'net and playing MP3s.

We've got a whole lot of SDRAM that I'd like to re-use if possible (last time I upgraded my own mobo I didn't check with anyone, and ended up needing new Rambus memory and a new video card - it worked out far more expensive than I wanted, and memory is still ridiculously expensive!!) Looking for a board that can support at least up to 2Gb, possibly more.

Anyone got a similar system, and can recommend a suitable board? The most importnat thing is that it is stable and reliable. I plan to run Win2k on the system.

So then:

Pentium CPU between 1 and 2 gig
Fairly standard memory (not Rambus)
The fewer on-board bits the better
Something that will fit in a case which was designed for ATX (midi-tower)
Memory at least up to 2Gb
At least 3 PCI - ideally 3 PCI plus AGP


Thanks for any advice you can offer!
Dan.

If you want SDRAM 168 pin stuff and not DDR SDRAM then you are probably either looking at a horrible onboard everything or a second hand motherboard. All new motherboards (I have seen) are DDR.

My preference is for Asus, with an intel or sis chipset.

Thanks NooNoo.

DDR is cool - as far as I remember (it's been a while since I bought any new bits) DDR is not all that expensive. Just so long as it isn't Rambus, as last time I bought some it cost me over £100 for 256MB :eek2:

Just as a matter of interest, what setup do you have? My preference is for Pentium, but I don't really know why - perhaps I'm just some sort of snob :) Maybe it's time I looked at other CPUs.

Dan.

What setup... hmmm in relation to which computer? I have a range to choose from :D