Help selecting AMD 64 Motherboard....

[spmiz]

Currently I am running AMD XP 2000+ and am wanting to upgrade Motherboard. I really like the AMD 64 3000 however my head is spinning over all the Motherboard choices. What I could use is some help sorting some things out: ( I am presently not into OCing).

1.) What are the best couple of board manufactures? I have built systems in the past with Abit and Gigabyte with great success, but have no clue with the 64 series......

2.) What is the best chipset to look for?

3.) Other key spec's to pay attention to?? That will allow me grow for more then 2 days......

Any help would be appreciated.........

Thanks

[Yoshi]

Asus, Abit, and MSI make the best 64 boards, I would go MSI

The chipset should be a Via K800 as the Nforce 3 is lacking, and if you go 64, get a 3200, the 3000 is not worth going all 64 techy for

[sm8000]

ECS 755A2, or the Asus equivalent with the SiS 755 chipset - best disk I/O throughput, what these boards are all about.

[DocEvi1]

I'm looking too and I'm reading lots of reports that the current crop of mobo's aren't up to the task - apparently memory choice is critical and the amount of loss within the systems are high. This may be resolved with BIOS updates (released since the articles were writen) but they may not be.

I personally am waiting a short while for both the prices to hopefully drop a tadge and also get to rev2 boards out.

I also refer you to this thread : http://www.sysopt.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=157695 says that socket 754 isn't here to stay and will be replaced... strengthens my argument to wait a short while.

[sm8000]

Doc! Good to see you back dude. It's been a while :t

[DocEvi1]

nice to know I was missed, I've always been around, just decided I didn't like reading some of the posts certain members make, that and Uni is quite filling at the moment.