Motherboard question....

Hello!!

I am upgrading the motherboard on my system... I am also purchasing a new case as I've grown out of my mini-tower. My question is this: Does anyone know where I can go to compare motherboard features / chipsets / manufacturers, etc ?

I have done many searches already for this information, but none of the sites have what I'm looking for; either the information is out of date, or I get a comparison chart between motherboards from a single manufacturer.

Frankly, I'm unsure of what to buy. I know what I want, but what manufacturer / chipset do I go with? I want to go with a company that has a US site (please, I only speak English) - I want to go with a company that supports their products (my old mobo's manufacturer doesn't support ANYTHING..)

A comparison chart between manufacturers, that lists the mobo features would be wonderful!!!

Any help at all would be GREATLY appreciated! Thank you so much in advance ;-)

-Don

 

Tom's Hardware is a good place to start. Read his report on motherboards. I did before i bought my new Gigabyte board.

 

Thanks!

I'll be checking out that site! Any advice on which mobo to get? I prefer to stick with an AMD processor, as I've had good luck with them, and they're generally cheaper than Intel.

Any advice? (What has been your experience with different boards?)

 

Personally, I really like Abit boards and am a big AMD advocate. KT7A and KT7A Raid is a great board for everything up to about 1900+. It will take a 100mhz or a 133mhz bus speed chip so you cover a pretty broad range. KG7 is a great DDR board for everything up to about 1800+ but there are some Highpoint controller conflicts with the IDE controller on the Raid version if you go above 1800+, even with the last 2 bios releases. I had a bear installing a 2000+ and getting proper HDD recognition - wound up having to disconnect all IDE devices to get the HDD's recognized by the Highpoint controller - not easy to do an install with no CDROM (hehehe). Once installed, no problem and was able to load new Highpoint drivers - still, one of the hardest installs I've ever done. Have just bought a SOYO Platinum Plus Dragon to try with a 2200+ because none of the Abit boards will handle this chip yet. Will let you know what I think when its finished.

Name the processor you like and I'll make a further recommendation for you.

 

I use ASUS boards (with AMDs) in my machines. I have used three different versions of the A7V board. All of them have worked pretty much flawlessly. The only conflict I had was resolved by a bios update. Just stick with top-teir manufacturers: ASUS, abit, gigabyte and you should be fine.

http://www.amdzone.com/

Amdzone is a good place to start looking for MoBos.