A question for you AMD wizards

[cyberhh]

A friend of mine is looking at upgrading to the thunderbird 1Ghz. These are the options he is considering:

Aopen AX37 Plus mainboard: S370 Via Pro 266, ATA 100/Raid DDR w/266 Mhz FSB ($179)

vs.

Asus A7A266WOA ALiMAGiK 1 chipset, 2100 DDR + PC133, 6 USB, 266 Mhz Bus, ATA 100 - NO RAID ($179)

Which board would you reccomend? One of these, or something else in the same price range.

T-Bird 1Gig: 200 or 266?
256 MB Ram (DDR)

What new video card - he does not play games?

Thanks.

[Darren Wilson]

Abit KT7A-RAID not DDR but as fast as.

[Rocinante]

I just replaced one of my Abit Kt7-R with the MSI KT7266Pro with DDR ram. Totally honest guys, the DDR motherboard is quite a LOT faster when I am rendering Video, 3d Graphics etc. Expecially with the new MSI performance bios. I would recommend however the asus A7M266 over the MSI. Crucial memory prices are good right now too.

[GirlGeek]

I have to agree, I'm now running 512 mb of DDR 2100 and this thing screams. I've seen a huge performance increase over pc133.

[Rocinante]

Thanks GG. I sometimes hate pointing things out, especially when no one will back you up, so i appriciate it. Happy easter all btw

[BIGGS]

Asus, they make the best board, btw, it has a software raid which you can choose to install but the average user wouldnt use raid

[imd14u]

If you catch the latest MaximumPC mag, you see the Showdown of the Gaming PC. Real High end performance machines.

2 use the ASUS MB
1 uses a Biostar MB

I'd go with the ASUS. They've got a strong background on producing great MB's.

[cyberhh]

What video card should he use - he is NOT playing games.

[MacGyver]

I would have to say Matrox since they seem to be shifting towards the business market while ATI and Nvidia are going after the gamers. How a Matrox G450 card with DualHead? Those cards mean business!
http://www.matrox.com/mga/business/home.cfm

With big the fight between ATI and Nvidia, Matrox seems to be overlooked and forgotten. Don't underestimate them, they make good stuff and have been for a long time.

[Kymera]

Nvidia is starting to hit the business sector. We, well at least I, have started ordering ELSA GeForce2 MX twinview cards for our new desktops. I like the commitment that Nvidia shows to their products with new drivers just about every month. ATI is in all of our laptops . . . I guess Compaq just likes to use them.

[Sorry_I_Win]

Originally posted by BIGGS:
Asus, they make the best board, btw, it has a software raid which you can choose to install but the average user wouldnt use raid

I would have to disagree. With many new machines coming with a cd/dvd drive, cd-rw, one hard drive, and a zip drive, they are already maxed out on ide devices. What if they just want to add a hard drive in the future? Having that raid controller makes all the difference in the world, especially if they want the machine to last.

And if u use raid, you can have fault-tolerance and extra speed increases practically for free since the cost of a non-raid and raid board is nearly the same now.

Definitely go DDR if you can, the performance increase is well worth the added cost (which is hardly anything these days), and the life of the machine will be longer. Pretty soon the majority of new PCs will be built with ddr memory.

[overallniceguy]

I myself have never had good luck with ASUS and their tech support. They are hard to get a hold of, and when you do they rarely have any answers. Just thought it might be a deciding factor.

Also, I'm using the Abit Hot Rod 100 Pro for my raid array. It works great and doesn't cost much. I would go with a 3rd party raid card over proprietary any day.

[Ruslan]

Originally posted by MacGyver:
I would have to say Matrox since they seem to be shifting towards the business market while ATI and Nvidia are going after the gamers. How a Matrox G450 card with DualHead? Those cards mean business!
http://www.matrox.com/mga/business/home.cfm

I definately would go with Matrox. I've even heard from professional designers,who are spending whole day in front of monitor,what exactly these and only these cards produces lesser overworking for eyes. It might be sounds weird (another cards also have seems to high enough refresh rate),however,
professionals prefer Matrox. May be,though,what that's only their personal opinion.

[Imon Fyre]

get the matrox.. as stated above they are looked over by many ppl today because they never were the strongest game cards.

back when i was still starting out on computers(like 4-5 years ago), i had a mystique 220 4mb, and i loved it.. couldn't play glQuake on it, but hey.. i could still play in software at a decent resolution

[ShAzAm]

I would go DDR and go with a motherboard that has an AMD 761 chipset on it. http://www.tomshardware.com/mainboar.../kt266-05.html

MSI-6341 "K7 Master-S"

Check out the findings. Eventhough minimal gains are attainable over PC133, the AMD 760/761 based boards are the ONLY way to go!