Motherboard Selection

[bpaz309]

Hello everyone. I'm new to the board am looking for some advice. I'm building a system but i'm stuck on MB selection. It seems like the more reviews I read the harder it is to decide. Does anyone have any suggestions. Some of the parts i'll be using are a 60GB ATA-133 HD, 52x24x52 burner, and a SB Audigy Gamer card. I'm thinking of a P4 2.4 or 2.53 for the CPU. Is the MSI 648Max-L a good buy? The reviews that i've read are favorable for it's price.

I'm looking for a best buy for under about $120.

Any help is appreciated.

[bushmaster]

MSI makes some great boards but for a P4 I'd go with the 845pe max2. and for a few extra $$ get the 845PE-MAX2-FIR. thats a really nice board. And it'll caryy upgrades for some time to come.

[BipolarBill]

You can't really go wrong with MSI or Asus, but the Asus is a bit better.

[bpaz309]

The price and features have been leaning me towards the SiS 648 chipset. Is anyone running one of these? A few reviews picked the MSI 648Max as the best but the one's I read didn't include the ASUS P4S8X.

[paul0660]

Check out the Albatron PX845PEV PRo. It has ata133 and serial ata for about $120. I have heard nothing but good things about its performance. Albatron was started by ex-gigabyte employees and they seem to be trying to carve a niche with performance and price.....what an idea!

[omega31]

I'd go with one of the 845PE boards rather than SiS648. I went with a SiS645DX board for a customer before the 845PE came out since I wasn't really impressed with any Intel DDR chipset prior to the 845PE. Built one using a MSI 845PE-Max for another customer and liked it. I like Asus, too , as my first 2 builds (for myself) were based on Asus boards.

[bpaz309]

Thanks for the advice. One more question though. If I've already bought a ATA 133 hard drive, will it be reverse compatible with a PE chipset as the P4PE doesn't support ATA 133 or do I have to buy a PCI adapter card?

Thanks again!!

[BipolarBill]

ATA/133 is a farce. Don't bother yourself about it.

[bpaz309]

But can I still use my 133 in a MB with support for 100?

[omega31]

Yes, you can use a ATA133 drive on a ATA100 controller.

[BipolarBill]

You can use your drive on any IDE controller.