Budget Socket A Motherboard

deicistdeicist Manchester, UK
edited July 2004 in Hardware
Hi, just wondering if anyone can help me out.... I'm looking to build a new fileserver / downloading machine for my home network. Currently I have a PII-266 doing this job, and it works fine... but it's a tad slow. I was hoping to win an Ebay bid for a dual pentium III-600, just because I wanted to play with a duallie, but unfortunately I overslept this morning and the bidding finished at £51, my maximum bid yesterday was £50, I was a bit gutted :(

anyway, I've been looking at a budget socket A solution.

For a CPU I'm thinking of the cheapest socket A chip I can find at the moment, which is the Duron 1.6GHz for £27.91(inc). Since I'm not particularly fussed about performance, this should be fine.

I'm a bit stuck on a motherboard though, again performance isn't really an issue but I would like SATA support, and if possible Gigabit LAN. The best price / feature board I've found so far seems to be the ABIT-KV7, which I can get for £43.48(inc). However, this board doesn't have a Gigabit port, and I would want to upgrade to gigabit at some point in the future.

So, any comments, suggestions or ideas? I'm not completely stuck on a socket A route, if you can provide a suggest a similarly priced alternative then go for it...

Comments

  • ShortyShorty Manchester, UK Icrontian
    edited July 2004
    Manufacturer: Asus
    CPU Socket: Socket A for AMD Athlon XP/Athlon / Duron Thoroughbred/ Barton Core Support
    Front Side Bus (FSB): 400/333/266/200MHz FSB
    Memory Type: 3 x 184-pin DIMM Sockets support max. 3GB unbuffered non-ECC PC2700/2100 DDR SDRAM memory (PC3200 up to 2 DIMMs only)
    Form Factor: ATX Form Factor 12"x 9.6"(30.5cm x 24.5cm)
    Chipset: VIA KT600 ~ VIA VT8237
    AGP type: AGP 8X
    USB2.0: Yes
    SCSI: No
    Firewire: No
    Audio: Yes - ADI AD1980 SoundMAX 6-channel CODEC
    LAN: Yes - 3Com 3C940 1000 Mbps Ethernet controller
    SATA: Yes
    VGA onboard: No
    Onboard IDE/RAID: Yes - 2 x UltraDMA 133/100 ~ 2 x Serial ATA with RAID 0, 1 function
    PCI Slots: 6
    Back Panel I/0: 1x Parallel ~ 1x Serial ~ 1 x PS/2 Keyboard ~ 1 x PS/2 Mouse ~ 1 x Audio I/O ~ 4 x USB 2.0 ~ 1 x RJ-45 Port ~ 1 x S/PDIF output
    Internal I/O Connectors: CPU/Power/Chassis FAN connectors ~ 20-pin ATX power connector ~ Chassis Intrusion ~ GAME/MIDI connector ~ CD/AUX/Modem audio in ~ S/PDIF out connector ~ Front panel audio connector ~ 2 x USB 2.0 connector supports additional 4 USB 2.0 ports ~ 2 x SATA ports ~ COM2 connector

    Asus A7V600 with G/bit LAN and Serial ATA, average web price is: £49.50 inc VAT :D

    Ps.. why get a Duron when you can have an Athlon XP 2100+ "Thoroughbred" OEM core chip for under £40? :ukflag:
  • Omega65Omega65 Philadelphia, Pa
    edited July 2004
    Also any Athlon/Duron 1.4ghz & higher will be faster than a Dual P3 600 !! :)
  • deicistdeicist Manchester, UK
    edited July 2004
    Omega65 wrote:
    Also any Athlon/Duron 1.4ghz & higher will be faster than a Dual P3 600 !! :)

    I know, but I've never had a duallie and just fancied one to play with....

    Cheers shorty, I'll look into that board. What kind of performance increase will I see with the thoroughbred over the Duron? worth the £10 (plus more for a cooler) price difference?

    edit: according to www.overclockers.co.uk the Asus A7V600-X (Socket A) Motherboard (MB-055-AS) only has 10/100 LAN onboard... is this a budget version of the board you're referring to? They don't seem to stock the A7V600 with gigabit.
  • ShortyShorty Manchester, UK Icrontian
    edited July 2004
    http://uk.asus.com/products/mb/socketa/a7v600/overview.htm

    ASUS page on the A7V, says gigabit eth :)

    http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=72247

    Scan have them in stock :)

    Duron is a slower chip, lower L2 cache. A baby athlon XP. That's why for £10 or so extra, it's worth the extra. Btw, there are no retail durons, so you would need a sink if you went Duron anyway ;)
  • muddocktormuddocktor
    edited July 2004
    You know that you are asking a lot to find a cheap board that supports gigabit ethernet and SATA, huh? That's not exactly low end features, even now.

    With that said, I did find this Asus A7V880 at overclockers.co.uk and it has SATA, gigabit ethernet and DC memory for £56.69 Including VAT at 17.5%. I don't know anything about the company obviously, since I live on the west side of the pond ;), but I'm sure some of your UK bretheren can fill you in about if that vendor is reliable.
  • muddocktormuddocktor
    edited July 2004
    Shorty, the A7V600-X, which is what the UK companies that I've looked at are selling, are a different and cheaper mobo than the A7V600, which you linked to. The A7V600-X only has 10/100 lan, not gigabit lan. Here's the spec page on the A7V600-X.

    EDIT: OK, I see you found a vendor that is selling the A7V600. :) Still for just a little more money you can have true DC memory performance with the board I linked to, if that vendor is reliable.
  • ShortyShorty Manchester, UK Icrontian
    edited July 2004
    muddocktor wrote:
    Shorty, the A7V600-X, which is what the UK companies that I've looked at are selling, are a different and cheaper mobo than the A7V600, which you linked to. The A7V600-X only has 10/100 lan, not gigabit lan. Here's the spec page on the A7V600-X.

    EDIT: OK, I see you found a vendor that is selling the A7V600. :) Still for just a little more money you can have true DC memory performance with the board I linked to, if that vendor is reliable.
    They are a little expensive but they have the board in stock :)

    It's upto the gentlemen paying the money, for a few extra quid here and there, he can have a higher spec board, or an even higher spec board :)

    Nice find though Jim :cool:
  • Omega65Omega65 Philadelphia, Pa
    edited July 2004
    deicist wrote:
    What kind of performance increase will I see with the thoroughbred over the Duron? worth the £10 (plus more for a cooler) price difference?

    edit: according to www.overclockers.co.uk the Asus A7V600-X (Socket A) Motherboard (MB-055-AS) only has 10/100 LAN onboard... is this a budget version of the board you're referring to? They don't seem to stock the A7V600 with gigabit.

    All Athlons have 128K L1 cache. The Durons have 64K L2 cache, while the Tbreds (& Socket A Semprons) Have 256K L2. The extra cache gives you 5-10% more performance. The Barton 512K L2 Cache CPUs will give you an additional 5-10%.
  • deicistdeicist Manchester, UK
    edited July 2004
    Okay, cheers for all the input guys.... I think I'm going to drop my gigabit requirement, if & when I upgrade my network I can always buy a gigabit NIC.... so I'm leaning towards the Asus A7V600-X from www.overclockers.co.uk for £39.89 (inc)

    I'm still stuck on processor choice though.... it's amazing how many options there are at the budget end of the market. After reading the semperon review today I'm wondering if I should hold out until they're released? Anyone know a release date for the semperons on this side of the pond? The shop I usually buy from is quoting £45.83 for a sempron 2400, £42.89 for a thoroughbred 2000+ and £55.52 for a barton 2500+.... ideally I'd like to spend under £90 so the barton is a bit out of my range... the sempron isn't in stock yet, so the thoroughbred is looking like a good bet.

    so, it looks like I can get a decent processor & board for a grand total of £82.78.... not bad at all :)
  • ShortyShorty Manchester, UK Icrontian
    edited July 2004
    deicist wrote:
    Okay, cheers for all the input guys.... I think I'm going to drop my gigabit requirement, if & when I upgrade my network I can always buy a gigabit NIC.... so I'm leaning towards the Asus A7V600-X from www.overclockers.co.uk for £39.89 (inc)

    I'm still stuck on processor choice though.... it's amazing how many options there are at the budget end of the market. After reading the semperon review today I'm wondering if I should hold out until they're released? Anyone know a release date for the semperons on this side of the pond? The shop I usually buy from is quoting £45.83 for a sempron 2400, £42.89 for a thoroughbred 2000+ and £55.52 for a barton 2500+.... ideally I'd like to spend under £90 so the barton is a bit out of my range... the sempron isn't in stock yet, so the thoroughbred is looking like a good bet.

    so, it looks like I can get a decent processor & board for a grand total of £82.78.... not bad at all :)
    Yep, indeed you can :)

    Sempron is effectively a Thoroughbred. The difference you would barely notice ;)

    Nice little setup for the money :cool:
  • JimboraeJimborae Newbury, Berks, UK New
    edited July 2004
    Just to let you know, if it ever does go wrong dont expect Overclockers.co.uk to be helpful with an rma. They suck ass big time for rma support & are bunch of idiots that can't even string a coherent sentence together. This i have learnt from personal expereince and would seriously advise you buy from somewhere else if you can. Just my personal opinion but, once bitten, twice shy.
  • JChretienJChretien Vancouver, BC, Canada
    edited July 2004
    the Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe is pretty cheap... it goes for 130$ cdn.. thats about what, 52 pounds.. its got SATA raid, gigabit ethernet and dolby soundstorm too...
  • JChretienJChretien Vancouver, BC, Canada
    edited July 2004
    A7n8x-e dlx Price: £56.50 (£66.39 Including VAT at 17.5%) =D
    but hey, for 100quid you can buy a nice used volvo 760GLE ;p
    (yay for TopGear!)
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