MB shopping: shuttle, gigabyte, asus ?

[tracker2000]

Greetings.

I need to upgrade to a P4 finally from a PII. Yeah I know so dont tell me its its about time...:D Anyways, Ive been looking at the following:
Gigabyte GA-8IPE 1000 Pro $103.99
Asus P4P800=VN $119.99
Shuttle AV49VN $ 40.00

I know the shuttle is cheap, but cost is somewhat a concern. I'll be using the comp for gaming, photoshop work, and general use. No video editing. The cpu im looking at is P4 1.7 or 2.0 ghz with 256 megs ram goin into it.

Ive built comps in the past, Ive just been out of shall we say touch with the newer stuff past the PII's.
Not sure if it matters, but i'll be useing windows 98se.

Thanks !

[bassman]

Welcome to SysOpt! :)

The ASUS P4P800 is a great motherboard and will allow you to upgrade further. IMO, the Gigabyte goes off the picture because it's price is almost the same as the ASUS...The Shuttle is quite cheap, but it's upgrade path is limited...though it does fit your need to spend less...
If you're using the PC for gaming and image editing it would be wise to go for 512MB of memory along with a nice video card...you can spend less on the CPU and upgrade later

[kevrob1]

I think that if you are mobo shopping then you should also be lookng at MSI. You should also consider a P4 2.4c with 800MHz fsb and Hyperthreading. Getting 2 sticks of pc3200 256meg ddr ram will allow you to utilize the dual channel capabilities of almost any new P4 board you buy. Your Photohop work will appreciate it. I would also recommend Win2k as it's quite similar to 98se in look and feel with more stability and security.:t

[Paco103]

Wow, that Shuttle certainly distinguishes itself from the bunch. Makes me think that one is not even on the same playing field as your others. You might want to consider what you'd be giving up with the Shuttle. I've never heard about any problems with the Shuttle's, and in my searching they usually seem to perform well in benchmarks, but I've never owned one. Personally I like BioStar so far. I've had 2, they're cheap, stable, and perform quite well, as long as you don't care about all the extra bells and whistles like firewire/SATA/RAID, which is left off of most models.

My opinion, they're all decent boards (manufacturers anyway, haven't looked at full specs), so pick what features you want and what fits in your budget.

[bassman]

Originally posted by Paco103
You might want to consider what you'd be giving up with the Shuttle.
He'll be losing P4C processors support (it only supports 533MHz FSB) and SATA/RAID, Firewire, etc...though the latter may not be so important in this case...

I second kevrob1's opinion on the OS, you should go Win2000. As to buying two sticks of 256MB, IMO it's preferable to save a few bucks (that's the objective here) and go for a 512MB DIMM, which, in the future, will allow another 512 DIMM for a dual channel setup. Smoother upgrading...

[Paco103]

I can agree on the single 512MB for now, and 1GB later, if you have any desire to go that high anytime soon. Dual Channel DDR is mostly hype from my experience, so that could leave you a better bet for upgrade down the road. I run Dual Channel and I can't hardly tell the difference between Single Channel.

[tracker2000]

Thanks for responces.

I also saw the Asus P4P800 S, which has 5 PCI slots instead of the 3 on the VM. I dont like intergrated stuff, prefer to put my own in. As for the suggestion on Windows 2000, I'll stay with 98se or go to XP. Hell they all mess up at times anyways, if they didnt Gates would be out of a job!