My computer died after a lightning strike so I need to build a new one. What is the best mobo/chipset/processor combination around at the moment? I don't mind whether it is Intel or AMD based. Thanks.

For the moment that's still a motherboard based on the Intel 845PE chipset (by Asus, Aopen or Intel) in combination with a 2.4Ghz or 2.53Ghz P4 CPU.

By tomorrow that will be an Intel i875 chipset. That's when Intel reases it's Canterwood chipset to the public.

Well, I've just installed Windows XP on an Asus A7V8X motherboard after a lot of pain. Basically the installation locked up at one point every time we tried it and nothing I could do with the machine changed that. I eventually got it working via the bizarre method of pulling the hard drive out of my current machine (a Gigabyte 7VRX) and installing XP on that, and then moving the hard disk back to the A7V8X. Surprisingly, it actually detected all the hardware and completed its installation with no problems. Naturally I took a ghost image of the entire thing once it was set up just in case I should ever have to install XP on that thing again.

Not that it isn't a very good board - SATA, Firewire, USB 2.0, RAID, Gigabit LAN and onboard sound. But that experience would make me wait to buy another one...

HTH,

Paul

If you're going with AMD, nForce2 SPP (like this board) with dual-channel DDR is your highest performance chipset.

Warning: I experienced very bad stability problems with an nForce2 board. I think it was not the chipset's fault though.

I have the A7N8X and I'm lovin' it. Great board.

Seconded!

I have just read about the new i875 chipset on Toms Hardware - it would be nice but you always pay a premium for cutting edge technology. The Intel processor/chipset combinations do seem to have a reputation for stability, however the nForce2 chipset has a few more goodies, and AMD processors are cheaper! However reliability is more important to me than ultimate speed in the long term and on that criteria Intel-based combinations appear to have the edge - does anyone else have an opinion on that?

Paul, thanks for the reply, sorry to hear your install was difficult. Now that you have it up and running, how have you found the performance/stability?

Rob, what do you think caused the stability problems with this board if it wasn't the chipset?

I like to go with the smaller guy usually. Hence, I am an AMD fan. Athlons are totally stable. The chipsets out there are another issue, but most of them (now) are stable. I wouldn't hesitate to use VIA, SiS, ALi, nVidia, or AMD chipsets with an AMD CPU. They are now mature enough to be very stable.

That said, you can't beat Intel, on Intel, on Intel (Intel CPU, chipset, and motherboard) for stability. Intel boards are now becoming options again now that they're making boards with features. Even though I say that, I am currently running a P4 with VIA chipset as my main machine. It is rock solid despite Intel claiming VIA doesn't have the rights to make a P4 chipset. It also happens to be very inexpensive.

Rob, what do you think caused the stability problems with this board if it wasn't the chipset?

I think it was the board itself. Something was not right. Sometimes RAM would not POST properly and other weird things (yes, we changed the RAM). After being on for an hour or two, the OS would start to get corrupt. Sounds like a memory problem to me, but like I said, we tried 3 different sticks of RAM.

I didn't really test it flat out. I ran distributed.net on it for about a week solid, and it didn't complain, and I ran a DVD player in software decode mode with no skips and only marginal stuttering (I hadn't installed the video drivers that allowed hardware decoding). All that was pretty solid. Interestingly, distributed.net was faster in XP than in 98 (6.02 vs 5.86 Mkeys/sec)

The friend of mine who owns it is going to do video processing and encoding on it, and that'll take a while to set up. If there's anything significant I'll let you know.

Have fun,

Paul

Not a surprise, unfortunately. Installation is when you easily detect bad memory dimms, unstable mobo, or any other sort of hardware problem. It is an extremely hardware stressful procedure, for some reason. It happened to me several times that Windows NT/2K/XP would not install but then run fairly well after installing on other machines, as you did. Try to stress out your PC with very intense CPU workload and see if it hangs, out of curiosity.

Once I could not install XP in an overclocked machine. I had to downclock, install, and then overclock again. And it is till working fine now, overclocked, 24h.

It is an extremely hardware stressful procedure, for some reason. It happened to me several times that Windows NT/2K/XP would not install but then run fairly well after installing on other machines, as you did. Try to stress out your PC with very intense CPU workload and see if it hangs, out of curiosity.

Once I could not install XP in an overclocked machine. I had to downclock, install, and then overclock again. And it is till working fine now, overclocked, 24h.

Which kind of begs the question, why were you overclocking a machine that never gets CPU-intensive workloads?

Peter

For the fastest, most feature packed mobo with the best value get this one: the MSI K7N2G-ILSR. Here are some reviews:

http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleid=1342&page=1

http://firingsquad.gamers.com/hardware/msi_k7n2g_ilsr_review/default.asp

and here:

http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NDMzLDY=

Here's a quote from the last review listed: "...it is comforting to know there is support for the latest and greatest features and technology ( including the Barton-cored Athlon XP ) and the platform has proven to be solid as a rock. Plugging in a next-generation AGP8X graphics card, this consumer is sure to be gaming with a state of the art system. In the end, I find it hard to imagine anyone going wrong with this motherboard. Aside from the meager overclocking potential, this motherboard exhibits a stellar combination of price, performance, and functionality that consumers have only dreamt of until now. "

I just picked this puppy up last week and I love it. I'm still finding new ways that I can take advantage of all its features.

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Which kind of begs the question, why were you overclocking a machine that never gets CPU-intensive workloads?

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The question is extremely appropriate, and the answer is simple :
It was a very stupid matter of principle (and less stupid curiosity)! I had it overclocked for years and would not understand why on earth the OS would not install.
(btw, I am talking of the famous Celeron 300 Mhz "Mendocino" which would run at 450Mhz, anybody remembers?)

Anyway, still working fine at 450Mhz. It's a machine I use for testing, now and then, and honestly I don't really care whether it runs @300 or @450, as long as it runs.

(btw, I am talking of the famous Celeron 300 Mhz "Mendocino" which would run at 450Mhz, anybody remembers?) Anyway, still working fine at 450Mhz.

Oh, for sure. My main print server is still running that chip at that speed. Piece of tape over the pin (which one was it? B21? Don't remember) and you're golden. God, what a great hack. I even still use this as my animated Win98 bootup logo even though my desktop system has been long since upgraded. Note the piece of tape in the illustration.

Hehe, that's great Tony! I've still got my ol' 366 Celery running at 550. My new triumph is an Athlon 1700 running at 2400

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(which one was it? B21? Don't remember) and you're golden. God, what a great hack. I even still use this as my animated Win98 bootup logo

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Hey that's a cool boot up logo, Tony! I remember laughting when I saw it couple of years ago when I first subscribed the empeg bbs and visited you're homepage!

Anyway I don't remember what pin that was. I bought an ABIT mobo at the time, which I am still using, that allows overclock bypassing Celeron's frequency check, so I never had to use tape.
That's true, that was really a great hack. Clean and simple

Thanks for the replies everyone. After some more research on the web I have narrowed the choice down to either the Asus P4PE or the AOpen AX4PE (both Intel 845PE chipset). Please can anyone give me some feedback on either of these boards and on the companies products in general? Thank you.

Asus is top of the food chain.

AOpen is not really on the same level as Asus, but I wouldn't expect any problems. Most likely place to find an AOpen board is in "white box" computers. Asus is more of an enthusiast's board, but they also do a large amount of OEM work.

I would normally choose the Asus, but at first glance the boards seem very similar (except for the black color of the AOpen). I don't think you can go wrong with either one.

Sorry Rob, have to disagree with you here.

While I agree that Asus is on top of the food chain, sometimes they are too quick in releasing new boards and then the boards end up with bugs. Mostly fixable with a new bios, but sometimes a solder iron is needed (I had that happen to me once)

Aopen on the other hand has never let me down. I myself am using the AX4PE Max right now in a watercooled system, letting a P4 2.4Ghz run at 3Ghz. It's rock-stable.

Even better news might be that the Aopen is also cheaper than the Asus.

I've had (up till now) 5 Asus boards en 6 Aopen boards. Of those 5 Asus boards, 2 of them failed one way or the other. One had a dodgy keyboard connector and one was actually missing a capacitor (It had to be soldered on manually) and because of this was unstable as hell. Asus fixed this with a new factory revision of that motherboard in the end.

A friend of mine who has a PC shop actually stopped selling Asus boards (except on special order) because their RMA rate was so high. He now sells Aopen almost exclusively and I can't say I blame him. Of all the systems he built last year with Aopen boards (1000+), only TWO were DOA's.

Aopen boards arrive usually a little later with the newest chipsets, but every board I've ever had by them has been extremely reliable. Their slower ETA has a lot to do with this IMHO. I believe Aopen's boards are tested more thoroughly before they are shipped out.