motherboard & cpu question

this is my first post on your site though i visit often. i learn a lot from just reading other posts and the responses. my company just sent myself and the rest of our tech dept. to A+ certification school. i squeaked by and am now looking to build a second comp. for home use. i have XP Pro to load onto it. i found a DFI NFII board with nvidia chipset, sata, 5 pci, i agp, socket A. the cpu would be AMD Athlon 2800+. does this sound good to you? the board is $77. not trying to build a supercomputer, just a nice one. also, do you think sata is the way to go? seems to me to be a faster and cleaner setup. any input is appreciated. thank you.

 

I have not used a DFI motherboard myself, but I have not heard many bad things about them either.

If it were me, I would go with an ASUS A7N8X-E Deluxe. I am running my 2800+ in the original A7N8X Deluxe and I love it, no problems ever.

SATA is definetly the way to go, it's quite a bit faster than parallel ATA and the slim cable is a nice benefit as well.

what you have going looks good so far. Pair it up with at least 512MB of pc2700 or pc3200 and you'll be on your way. If you get 2x 256MB sticks of RAM, you can utilize the Dual-Channel feature and have some performance gain also. I'm assuming you wont be playing many 3D games, so grab a cheap $40-$60 video card and then you'll be set.

best of luck to you, and welcome to your first post on MajorGeeks!

 

I've got an A7N8X Deluxe 2.0 with AMD xp2500.
Mobo and cpu retail both came with 3yr warrenty. ( I believe all ASUS MOBO 3yr warrenty)
I love mine is my favorite, I have 5 other rigs at the moment.

Next month getting A7N8X-E Deluxe, they are around $95.

 

i've got an A7N8X-E Deluxe with a 2600+ and 1 512 stick of Geil PC3200...will add another later. rock solid setup.

 

Whichever motherboard you settle on, SATA hard drives are the way to go. The old Parallel ATA is being replaced with it, and in a couple years it will be the standard. Gives you more likelyhood of being able to pop it into your next system.

 

I would step it up. According to PC mag. The AMD Opteron 64 3400 + is supposed to be a great by and perform just a couple of points lower then their FX series. It's also not that much more expensive than the 2800+. The other nice thing is that it will allow for a faster ram speed (increasing overall performance) and will also be compatable with the 64 bit operateing systems (aka longhorn). This means a better longevity and speed again. Definitely go with SATA. It's much faster and cleaner that EIDE. AND WHATEVER YOU DO BUY WHATEVER WARRENTY UPGRADES YOU CAN. This ensures that you do not get a second (referb) which have a major tendancy to fail. Trust me it's worth every penny.

 

i'm guessing you're referring to the Athlon64 3400+, not the AMD Opteron, which is a server chip.

in any case, it would be a nice performance gain, but you're talking hundreds more expensive. An Athlon XP 2800+ is only $77 OEM and a suitable mobo is about $85 give or take. to go 64-bit, the processor is at least $100-$150 more, and nearly the same for the motherboard. Not worth it unless you're an extreme pc gamer/ enthusiast or work in graphics/video editing.