Good Mobo for P3?

[varkk]

ok, story first, then question...

I currently have a 440bx chipset motherboard (Slot 1) with a P3 450 in it, anyway a while ago, my Voodoo Banshee blew up, so I needed a new vid card, I got myself a GF2 MX400(anything more would really be overkill for my current system) Anyway, apparently many of the BX chipset motherboards can't provide enough power for a GF2, so it doesn't run in my machine(you may remember me trying to fix this in the old forums). Since I don't have enough money to upgrade completly(Mobo + CPU + RAM). In the mean time I am stuck with a 4mb S3 virge board :(

So can anyone suggest a good motherboard for my system? It doesn't need any fancy features or onboard stuff etc, just a reasonable number of PCI slots and be able to run a GF2, and my CPU(P3 450) and ram(128 MB PC100, generic brand).

Thanks

[Maverick]

There was a guy a wee while ago selling an ABIT BE6-2 with a very low end P2 or P3 in it. You could probably get it off him (if its still for sale) for $100.

Recommended BX chipset boards that should be fine (later revision P3 boards by solid manufacturers were fine with Voodoo3's and Geforces)

ABIT BE6-2
ABIT BE6
ABIT BF6
ABIT BX133 (Socket 370)
ASUS P3BF
ASUS P2BF
ASUS CUBX (Socket 370)
MSI BX Master

Recommended VIA ApolloPro133A chipset boards:

ASUS CUV4X (Socket370)
ASUS P3V4X (Slot 1)
ABIT VT6X4 (Socket370)

And Socket370 i815 chipset boards:

ASUS CUSL2 and CUSL2C
ABIT SE6

And Socket370 Tualatin motherboards:

ASUS TUV4X
ASUS TUSL2
ABIT ST6-RAID
ABIT ST6


The later motherboards support the Tualatin P3 and Celerons, and would be a good option for future upgradability, although tualatins might not be available for much longer.

I recommend Intel Chipsets over the VIA chipsets in the motherboards listed. the Intel BX chipset is still king when it comes to memory performance when overclocked to 133MHz.

There are no tualatin capable Slot motherboards available without doing some modding with slockets. But if you are certain about holding onto Slot1 then I definately recommend the ABIT BE6-2 and ASUS P3B-F. Both are very solid boards, good overclockers.

Mav

[varkk]

Thanks for your reply, I had almost given up on looking for a suitable motherboard, and I was surprised that you could only get slotkets to plug a 370 cpu into a slot 1 motherboard not the other way around(although I think most people upgrade their cpu more often than their motherboard so that's why)

Anyway I was thinking of getting a socket 370 motherboard and a 1-1.2 gig cely, this will be about 350-400 new. Although if I can get my machine going properly again for $100 it would be better(although a faster CPU is looking quite nice) If I did that, I would look at getting 256MB ram in it eventually, and getting about 64mb second hand and convert my current pc into, hmmm well I'm sure I'd find something for it to do even if it just crunching SETI :)

[Ragnor]

My spare PC has an Abit BE6-2 rev:1.01

It has the power problem with gf2's... not to the extent that it doesn't work at all but roughly half the time it won't bring the monitor out of standby from a cold boot.

I think BE6-2 rev:2.0 and later are fine though.