another 'new mobo advice' thread

[rip_1956]

Looking for opinions on the benefts of replacing my motherboard. Currently I have a Soyo k7vta-Pro (AMD XP2000, 512mb sdram, PNY 32mb Geforce mx-200 vidcard) running Win98se. No heavy gaming is involved, our biggest resource hog would be 'The Sims' .

I'm considering getting a Biostar M7NCD Pro. That will mean new DDR ram also. I'm curious about the nForce chipset, and how much of a difference I will see. Another reason is that the Biostar is only $66 at newegg. Plus I have had good luck with another Biostar, the M7VIG Pro (No o/c'ing for me).

Adding to my list of rationalization for this is the fact that the Soyo-based system seems to get sluggish after a day or two, to the point where I reboot often just to clear it out (I have done the obvious: minimal startup entries and background processes, reformat + reload,etc).It gets so bad that the mouse pointer stutters a bit. Even Mozilla seems slow.

I plan to reuse the cpu and vidcard. New ram will be bought.

Questions:
1) Will I see a noticeable improvement over the Soyo?

2) If I go with the Biostar M7NCD Pro, what speed ram would be preferred?

3) What are the different levels/versions of the nForce chipset and is one better than the others? I have seen several types (IGP, Ultra 400, etc)

--- I just saw the Biostar M7NCD (non-pro) for $53. I assume this is the same as the Pro but 2 ram slots instead of 3. I thought I read that the non-pro does not have dual-channel suppport, but that doesn't matter to me.

And I am not limiting myself to Biostar; the price and past experience just led me there. :t

[BipolarBill]

Just changing to the nForce and DDR would not be worth the investment unless you are planning to move up to a Barton or you need the other features (USB 2.0, blah, blah)

Have you scanned for spyware/viruses?

www.safer-networking.org
www.lavasoftusa.com

www.freeav.com

[rip_1956]

Interesting. I half expected hearing that the nForce would show me a noticeable improvement. The Soyo is a Via kt133a chipset. I'm still learning, but I thought that chipset is a bit slower.

I do run Norton AV, and I do visit Panda AV on occasion. Tonight I will scan for spyware. It's been a while for that. My kids do surf a bit; they might have picked up something online.

At any rate, maybe I'm just looking for an excuse to buy another toy. Somewhere in the back of my mind a devious little voice is saying "Hey, if you do that, you will have a spare mobo, and with all the other extra parts laying around you could probably put something together..." . Know what I mean? :p

[Bat25]

M7NCD Non-Pro is single channel Nforce2 400 chipset. It has co voltage or multipliers available at all for the tweaker. but it is stable and fast. PATA only. AC97 (ALC650) sound (MCP)

M7NCD Pro is an nforce2 board with dual channel and all the bios tweaks you could ask for. But is PATA only and has AC97 sound also. Very fast and tweakable and will overclock an XP2500 to 2.2+ easily with PC3200-3500 ram.

M7NCG 400 is mATX version of the M7NCDP but with IGP (integrated graphics - does have AGP slot), and is overclockable as well.

Newer M7NCD Ultra is like the M7NCD Pro but has ALC655 sound (not ALC650) and VIA SATA controller (raid0,1). Also overclockable.