Am I being foolish picking this board?

J

jeffg

n00b
Joined
Mar 28, 2007
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6
I'm hoping to build my first machine in the next month or so. I'm not looking for anything too high-end, but want something that I can upgrade along the way. Planning on XP, not Vista. Not looking to OC. Just need a machine that can play games well, handle a large music library, do very basic video editing, and general surfing etc. Going to go with a X2 4600+.

With that said, I was looking at this board:
BIOSTAR NF4UAM2G

I like the price, but is am I being cheap at the expense of quality?

If so, I was pondering this board:
GIGABYTE GA-M59SLI-S5

Any and all comments/suggestions are very appreciated.
 
The BioStar has a nice green pcb :) ...but it has active cooling on the chipset. For me a good reason not to pick this mobo. Have no experience with Biostar though.
 
yeah, I'd prefer a heatsink...don't have worry about it dying and frying the NB...but still, the price is nice...
 
Biostar may not be as "sexy" as Asus, DFI, or Abit, but I wouldn't hesitate in saying that their motherboards are good. Neither of the two I've used have ever given me problems.
 
Thanks for the good words about Biostar, txtmstrjoe. Being new at this, I'm basically going off of what the newegg reviewers write, and what reviews I can find on the net. So it's good to hear positive things.

aggr1103: I know the Gigabyte mobo is around $70 more, it was kind of a "fallback" idea if buying a $70 mobo was just penny-wise-pound-foolish. Any other suggestions in the $70 range would be appreciated, as I'm trying to keep the whole system under $1,000, and a $130 mobo blows that budget. Thanks for the input!
 
jeffg said:
Any other suggestions in the $70 range would be appreciated, as I'm trying to keep the whole system under $1,000, and a $130 mobo blows that budget. Thanks for the input!
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Can I ask what your planning to do with this comp, and what other parts your planning on using in this comp? A $1,000 bucks can go a very long way when you're building your own computer. To be honest, I don't think I've ever spent more than $600 on a personal build. So, with a budget like you have, seems you have alot more options than just a $70 mobo.
 
aggr1103 said:
Can I ask what your planning to do with this comp, and what other parts your planning on using in this comp? A $1,000 bucks can go a very long way when you're building your own computer. To be honest, I don't think I've ever spent more than $600 on a personal build. So, with a budget like you have, seems you have alot more options than just a $70 mobo.
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As I said, this is my first build, so I may be using an elephant gun to hunt a mouse. If so, I am very happy to scale back. But I'm starting from scratch, so I need to buy everything from the case to the keyboard.

I want to play stuff like Oblivion at high/max settings (No first person shooter stuff, though, which I understand is more demanding on the video card), do some light to moderate video editing, be able to run my media player/spreadsheets/multiple browsers/games/etc. simultaneously without too much slowdown. I'm not looking for a hardcore gaming or editing rig, but I'd like to be able to handle today's software well, and leave enough headroom to handle non-Vista stuff for the next couple of years. It'd also be nice if I could upgrade this machine a couple of times in the future to stay current.

Here's my current shopping list. open to changes:
  • EVGA 256-P2-N624-AR GeForce 7900GS 256MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 KO Video Card - Retail (~$155)
  • HIPER HPU-4K580-MS ATX12V v2.2 580W Power Supply - Retail (~$90)
  • X2 4600+ (~$120)
  • G.SKILL 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) F2-6400PHU2-2GBHZ (~$190)
  • Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3320620AS 320GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive (~$85)
  • EVGA 256-P2-N624-AR GeForce 7900GS 256MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 KO (~$155)

Throw in a 50 buck case, a cheapo keyboard, a decent mouse, the OS, a DVD burner, a CD drive, and a card reader and I'm around $900. That leaves around $100 for a mobo.

Thanks for all the input!
 
Sir you may want to look at the abit am2 boards. The kn9, kn9s, kn9 sli are all very good boards. Ive used the kn9, and the kn9s for recent builds and all were perfect builds with out any headaches. I updated the bios to the latest versions and used ddr2 800 ram with the 3800x2 cpu's. The other nice thing is the cooling is done by fanless heatpipes so they are silent. I personally prefer the active cooling [with fans] but these heatpipes did a good job of keeping temps low. The boards did a good job of o/clocking also. The customers wanted these rigs for there office so i put all back to stock speeds and voltages
but for the 5 days i ran the rigs i had them o/clocked to see what they would do. I was very pleased with the speeds i attained.all were stable and no crashes running orthos for 12hrs on each machine.
The price of these boards are very affordable too. So speaking from personal experience as to the quality of these abit boards I can honestly say id reccomend these boards without hesitation. Take a look at them and see if they fill your needs.
Personally im waiting for the am2+ boards to be released before im going to give my 939 system the backup role and ill be looking at the abit motherboards for sure. Abit is back and the latest am2 boards and c2d boards seem to prove this to be true.
 
wesleys_dad said:
Sir you may want to look at the abit am2 boards. The kn9, kn9s, kn9 sli are all very good boards. Ive used the kn9, and the kn9s for recent builds and all were perfect builds with out any headaches. I updated the bios to the latest versions and used ddr2 800 ram with the 3800x2 cpu's. The other nice thing is the cooling is done by fanless heatpipes so they are silent. I personally prefer the active cooling [with fans] but these heatpipes did a good job of keeping temps low. The boards did a good job of o/clocking also. The customers wanted these rigs for there office so i put all back to stock speeds and voltages
but for the 5 days i ran the rigs i had them o/clocked to see what they would do. I was very pleased with the speeds i attained.all were stable and no crashes running orthos for 12hrs on each machine.
The price of these boards are very affordable too. So speaking from personal experience as to the quality of these abit boards I can honestly say id reccomend these boards without hesitation. Take a look at them and see if they fill your needs.
Personally im waiting for the am2+ boards to be released before im going to give my 939 system the backup role and ill be looking at the abit motherboards for sure. Abit is back and the latest am2 boards and c2d boards seem to prove this to be true.
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Thanks for pointing out Abit. I looked at their boards, but the reviewers on newegg seemed pretty mixed, that's why I stayed away. I'll look around for other reviews on their stuff. They certainly have a decent selection in the price range I'm looking at.
 
jeffg said:
Thanks for pointing out Abit. I looked at their boards, but the reviewers on newegg seemed pretty mixed, that's why I stayed away. I'll look around for other reviews on their stuff. They certainly have a decent selection in the price range I'm looking at.
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Its been pointed out on this board several times that the folks who review on newegg review from two points - either they had no problems or they were problematic. Most problem issues come from a lack of knowledge on the purchasers part, items arriving DOA, or shipping issues. I'd just say to take their reviews with a grain of salt. For example, my current crossfire mobo was spoken of well in newegg reviews, but people complained that the manual was useless. I found the manual to be straightforward and easy to follow. They also complained that things were not labeled properly on the mobo. How much simpler can it be if you label something "usb2" or "hdled"? People can be overly critical sometimes.

As far as Abit, alot of folks on here seem to have good experiences with abit. I don't know much about the Brisbane core am2's, except that people have said that the temps don't read out right on the abit mobo's right now. I'm not sure if the 4600 you're looking at is a Brisbane or not. I'd just keep that in mind.

Personally, I like asus or asrock mobos. They've always worked well for me. No complaints or problems.

If you want a low end sli, here's one:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131068

I also noticed you're wanting to sli two 7900gs cards. For the price of those two cards, you could get an 8800 gts, which would be leaps and bounds above two 7900gs in sli. You'd also be prepared for dx10 games.

Opinions are like !!!!!!!!s, everyone's got one. This was just mine.
 
aggr1103 said:
Its been pointed out on this board several times that the folks who review on newegg review from two points - either they had no problems or they were problematic. Most problem issues come from a lack of knowledge on the purchasers part, items arriving DOA, or shipping issues. I'd just say to take their reviews with a grain of salt. For example, my current crossfire mobo was spoken of well in newegg reviews, but people complained that the manual was useless. I found the manual to be straightforward and easy to follow. They also complained that things were not labeled properly on the mobo. How much simpler can it be if you label something "usb2" or "hdled"? People can be overly critical sometimes.

As far as Abit, alot of folks on here seem to have good experiences with abit. I don't know much about the Brisbane core am2's, except that people have said that the temps don't read out right on the abit mobo's right now. I'm not sure if the 4600 you're looking at is a Brisbane or not. I'd just keep that in mind.

Personally, I like asus or asrock mobos. They've always worked well for me. No complaints or problems.

If you want a low end sli, here's one:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131068

I also noticed you're wanting to sli two 7900gs cards. For the price of those two cards, you could get an 8800 gts, which would be leaps and bounds above two 7900gs in sli. You'd also be prepared for dx10 games.

Opinions are like !!!!!!!!s, everyone's got one. This was just mine.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the input, I really do appreciate everyone taking the time to help me out here.

One thing to clarify: I'm NOT looking to SLI. From what I understand, it'd be overkill for what I do. That's why I liked the cheapo BioStar board - 1 PCIE slot, so I'm not paying for anything I don't plan to use. Probably a misunderstanding that's my fault based on the fact that the pricier Gigabyte board I listed in my initial post is an SLI board.

That Asus board you rec'd looks pretty nice, I'll definitely put it on my "short list."

Anyway, point taken about NE reviewers. I use them as a "smell test," but by no means a final word. That's what [H]ard Forums are for ;)
 
I built my new computer, outside of an optical and floppy drive, monitor, keyboard, and mouse for 490 shipped with a case. You can pick up some great components for cheap. Keep shopping around ;)

If you aren't looking to SLI, I just picked up an ASUS M2N-E board. Great northbridge chip with heatpipe technology, easy setup, and some great software that comes with the board.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131022

13-131-022-04.jpg
 
94.27% of newegg reviews are worthless.

Download the manual for any board you are considering and read it, twice.

If you intend to OC, build it out of the case, make sure it works stock, then carefully access what needs to be "tweaked" (mainly chipset heatsinking) and do it before you install it in the case.
 
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