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AMD XP 2400 motherboard?

Chad Noles

Muse
C
Joined
Aug 12, 2001
Messages
534
Can anyone suggest a good moderately priced motherboard for a AMD 2400 XP CPU?I'm looking for a value priced MB,not the lastest bells and whistles.I want a good upgrade over my old system,but I'm not a big gamer.I'd like something that will handle small video editing projects,a few games(non-RPG),and of course music files.I'd like to be able to use DDR 2700 memory.Any help would be welcome.
 
I just got a new MB, was about $70US.

Jetway 266B, works fine with a XP 2000, and has slots to take either DDR or SDR.

Uses the VIA KT266A chipset, onboard sound is the only extra you really get.
 
I suggest a board with nForce2 chipset. The ASUS A7N8X-X is fairly cheap and good quality. It has on-board sound and 100MBit network with low CPU usage.
I would avoid el cheapo brands like ECS, because the durability of those boards isn't always good.
 
I have looked at the ASUS A7N8X-X.It has a lot of what I want,just wish it was a little cheaper.;) I check out Pricewatch a lot to try to find the best deals.There are so many MB on the market I don't know who's good(Abit,ASUS,MSI?) and who's questionable:confused: (ECS,BioStar,Gigabyte?).Thanks for the info.I'm still in the hunting/planning stage.
 
I personally like Asus, Gigabyte, DFI, MSI, Soltek.

I am ok with Aopen, Soyo, Tyan

I avoid at all costs Epox, ECS, PC-Chips

I have never gone wrong with an Asus board. An a7n8x-x is pretty cheap at around $73, but it lacks dual channel memory support. The a7n8x adds it in for about $85 and is a great board.
 
Thanks DVFinn.I think I may have found what I want...ASUS A7V8X-X +2400XP
for about $125.I don't really understand that dual channel memory support.Can you splain it?Or I could look on Techtv.com;) .Thanks for everyone's help.
 
Dual channel support really isn't that important. Basically it means that there are 2 paths between the RAM and the memory controller, so that you can address 2 sticks of memory simultaneously and in theory double the rate at which information can be exchanged.

It yields some impressive looking numbers on paper but unless you're an enthusiast the real world performance gains are not that big of a deal.
 
If you are planning on working with video, trying to get a good disk plan in place will help a lot. SATA, serial ATA, is a lot faster than the old parallel interface. Also a fast spin rate with a big built in cache. It can help a lot to have two disks, if you are planning on running big conversions. That is, have the source data on one disk, then convert it over to the other disk.
 
Hi Unique,I already have two drives for the MB.One is a ATA133 @7200 and the other a ATA 100 @ 7200.I don't think there will be a problem with two different ATA speeds on the same cable(EIDE) will there?Not entirely sure though.I'll only be doing short video clips at a time.Not more than 5-10 mins at a time.With 60Gb of storage on the one drive for data only,I think I'm ok.Thanks for your input.I just can't afford all the newest stuff,though I wish I could.;)
 
I would not put the source/target on the same drive. You have two drives, so a little planning will speed up the job a lot. Rather than have the head racing all over the place to read/write, one will be reading from a roughly contiguous set of data, the other writing.

Also helps if the drives aren't too full when you are working with large files. You don't need the latest/greatest/most expensive equipment to do a little basic tuning. One way to speed it up a bit is to put the IDE drives on separate channels, if you won't be downloading the data from a DVD/CD at the same time onto a hard disk on the same channel. Like I say, just think ahead, and that alone will save you a lot of time.
 
Buy a shuttle xpc based athlon system. power supply, video (good enough for editing or 3d) sound, network, etc, all in a small quiet case.

These mini-itx systems are very appeasing to me and I have been building my own since the 8 bit ISA card days.
 
I just built my brother a computer and used the ASUS A7N8X-E Deluxe. I chose the board because I wanted to stick with Asus as I have never had a problem with their boards. My old Asus boards have taken a beating and they are still going strong. The A7N8X was voted number one by users. Can't remember where I read that though. I installed the board with zero problems, and it works great.
Because the board is so popular there are plenty of places to go if you have any problems, particularly http://www.amdmb.com/
 
FFed,thanks for that link!Lots of good info there.The more I know,the more dangerous I become.:D
 
Hey FFed,I noticed that the AMD website said that power supplies and certain memory sticks were very important to good performance.What did you use on your brothers computer?I think that they would be good choises since the motherboard I'm looking at is very close to the one you used.TIA.
 
Chad Noles said:
Hey FFed,I noticed that the AMD website said that power supplies and certain memory sticks were very important to good performance.What did you use on your brothers computer?I think that they would be good choises since the motherboard I'm looking at is very close to the one you used.TIA.
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When I built my computer, I bought a good Enermax 450W power supply and have had no problems. My brothers computer was starting to get a little too expensive for him so I just used the stock power supply that came with the tower. For no extra charge I got the guy to change the 350W to a 450W. From what I have read, 350W should be enough, but I have seen a few posts over at amdmb.com from system builders about making sure you have enough wattage so I used the 450W. Since on my computer, I have two case fans, two cd drives, I thought I should play it safe and make sure I have enough wattage.

As for RAM, it is easy to find the recommended RAM for an ASUS board at http://www.asus.com and I suspect other board manufactures do the same. I just looked up the specs for the board I wanted, but since there was no RAM specs for the A7N8X-E Deluxe, I used the A7N8X - Deluxe. HERE and at the bottom of the page you see the recommended RAM. The DIE part no. is written on the RAM chips so I just printed out the chart and took it to the computer store. I bought the Samsung 512
My A7V333 board is picky as well, and I have tried RAM that wasn't on the asus website and it did not work. Only the suggested RAM for my board worked. All the times when I wanted to buy the specific RAM, the computer store guys all kept saying how it doesn't matter and any stick will do. One guy didn't understand why I wanted to look at the RAM. I learned the hard way to make sure I buy RAM recommended by the boards manufacturer.

I am a big believer in buying parts that are tested and recommended from manufacturers. I think this is why I have not had any problems building the few computers I have built. AMD has good support for system builders, and the first place I started was at AMD using their suggested motherboards. You can find that HERE
 
Samsung and Crucial/Micron are good RAM vendors. Corsair is the the best you can get.
 
I'd like to thank everybody who has helped me in this thread.You guys ROCK!I may not have everything straight,but I've learned a lot in a little time.Thanks,hopefully I will have enough pennies to get going on this project very soon.I may have a few other questions,but for now these links will get a workout.Thanks again.
 
Chad Noles said:
I'd like to thank everybody who has helped me in this thread.You guys ROCK!I may not have everything straight,but I've learned a lot in a little time.Thanks,hopefully I will have enough pennies to get going on this project very soon.I may have a few other questions,but for now these links will get a workout.Thanks again.
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Now ask us who to vote for. I can guarantee you will feel better and live a more fulfilling life if you vote for a lefty candidate.
 
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