Good Athlon-64 Mobo

stobbsm · Guru Joined: 23 May 2004 Posts: 452

I'm looking for a good Athlon-64 compatible MoBo (socket 939) that has AGP support.

Reason being, I can't afford to upgrade my video card (GeForce FX5700 256MB version), but I want the extra power you get from the 64 bit processor.

My questions:

1. I game in Gentoo (cedega and natively). Should I be going 64bit, or should I just upgrade what I have (Athlon XP 2000+), and stay in 32bit?

2. Is it possible to find a mainboard that has both AGP and PCI-X, so I can upgrade my video card at a later date?

thanks for any help,

Matt

ps. I searched google for a board with AGP and PCI-X, but couldn't find anything. Am I SOL on this?
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Sysadmin of Ubuntu systems and servers....
Although my own server is gentoo....

mpsii · l33t Joined: 11 Mar 2003 Posts: 658 Location: Jackson, TN

From my experience (both Socket 754 and 939) I would recommend any Asus, ECS, or Gigabyte mobo with an nforce chipset. Not that VIA is not good; I just have had more stability with the Nforce 3 chipsets over VIA or SIS. I have not tried any Nforce4 mobos, yet. Don't even know if they come with an AGP solution.

Personally, I find that ECS and Gigabyte have the best bang for the buck.

See at Newegg
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Michael

badchien · Guru Joined: 16 Feb 2004 Posts: 415 Location: doghouse

1) 64 or 32 bit; Athlon64 is the way to go. Even if you run a 32bit system, it is an awesome fast cpu.

2) I don't think you'll find a mb that has both. I'm not sure you would want it if you did.

Be careful, PCI-X does not mean PCI-Express. PCI-X is something different (a faster variant of regular PCI bus)

EDIT: I agree with the nforce recommendation, over via. I like MSI and DFI boards as well.

olger901 · l33t Joined: 17 Mar 2005 Posts: 625

Actually you do:

Asrock Motherboards: http://www.asrockamerica.com/Products/939DSATA2.htm

Above motherboard has 1 AGP8x slot, 1 PCI-E x16 slot, 1 PCI-E slot and 3 PCI Slots.

Asrock is a divison from Asus as far as I am aware
If ULi sounds unfamiliar to you, it was former called ALi (Acer's former Chipset Division)

stobbsm · Guru Joined: 23 May 2004 Posts: 452

Wow.....

I like the looks of that board...

Now, if only I can find a price. I'm gonna call elcosystems and see if they carry that model board, and how much it is.
_________________
Sysadmin of Ubuntu systems and servers....
Although my own server is gentoo....

badchien · Guru Joined: 16 Feb 2004 Posts: 415 Location: doghouse

Interesting. I wonder how the performance compares? It seems that some compromise would have to be made to get both interfaces onto one board.

I also just found another pci-e/agp board:
http://www.biostar-usa.com/mbdetails.asp?model=nf4st-a9
Though that one is only compatible with certain agp cards.

Still, I wouldn't buy either one. I think you would be better off buying an agp board now and upgrading to a pci-e board later.