Suggest a motherboard given my projected setup

I

InorganicMatter

[H]F Junkie
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Oct 19, 2004
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My current setup is heavily dated (9600XT, Rambus, Intel 2.6 400MHz FSB) and I want to give it a complete overhaul. I want this overhaul to last a few years, and I want to go AMD and nVidia. I'm thinking an X2 4400+ and a 7800GT. I considered SLI (I don't get to upgrade often, so the add one later sceme would work nicely for me), but I then found out that you can only use SLI on the top-of-the-line G70 card. Way out of my price range. What motherboard should I go with here? I may do a small ammount of overclocking, but it will mainly be for a learning experience (I have never OC'd before, so I figured I might play around with it a bit). I use this computer for school, so stability is a must. What chipset should I go with and what manufacturer? Here's a recap of the bill it must fit:

Light overclocking
Dual-Core support
PCI-Express grahpics, no SLI needed
On-board LAN and sound would save me some money
Stable (Can't stress how important this is)
 
I just suggested this board to someone else in a different board. I would definitely go with a DFI board for stable, and if it's your first OC adventure, it'll keep you running solid. check out newegg's selection of socket 939 boards by DFI and jsut pick the one that best suits your budget.
 
poddo said:
I just suggested this board to someone else in a different board. I would definitely go with a DFI board for stable, and if it's your first OC adventure, it'll keep you running solid. check out newegg's selection of socket 939 boards by DFI and jsut pick the one that best suits your budget.
Click to expand...
I've heard that for someone who is new to tweaking, DFI boards are the hardest to get off the ground. True? A friend of mine swears by ASUS boards for stability, is this true or is it brand loyalty?

Here are my candidates so far:

DFI nF4 Ultra-D
ASUS A8N-E

I take it nForce 4 is the way to go?
 
I recoment nforce4 as long as you can find one with AGP (for your needs). I don't have a histroy of problems with DFI, but maybe I just get lucky. I don't know much about ASUS, but i know a lot of people like them a lot. So really between your two boards I'd say its really up to waht features they have that you like.

the DFI you listed has SATA2 support, which could help you in the future if you decide you want a SATA2 drive. It also appears to have better onboard audio, and 2 more usbs than the ASUS. considering that, if I were you I'd take the DFI. again, thats my 2 cents
 
Right now NF4 is the way to go. I think the ASUS would probably tend to be a little more stable than the DFI, but either one is nice.
 
Is there an economical ASUS with SATAII? I think the A8N-SLI has it, but that's way out of my range.
 
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