ABIT MB BD7II Intel 845E chip P4, FSB400/533, ATX, ATA100, USB 2.0, Sound, AGP, 5PCI, 3DDR, lan 10/100 what do YOU think about it?
I've actually heard that the BD7 series wasn't all that great. Depending on your budget, you might wanna look into Abit IT7-MAX (or even MAX 2) board. They are rather expensive, but you'd just need a graphics card, CPU and RAM. Asus seems to be making some good P4 boards from what I've been reading. They tend to be kinda expensive for what you get, but they have some of the best P4 boards available. Another couple of companies I'd recommend based on past experience are Iwill and MSI. Both offer moderately priced boards will a good number of features. If you're into overclocking, Iwill generally offers better options here. Besides support for a 2GHz CPU, are their any particular features you want on the motherboard? I could give some better suggestions.
i was looking for a motherboard that could support USB 2.0 and a 2ghz processor. no overclocking. really looking for a most-bang-for-the-buck one. and i am ready to pay for reliability and compability. p.s. what are the most important things, when choosing between different motherboards? cause i'm really a dumbuser. thanks for your other replys. they've been really helping.
Well, stability should be very important. Next features you want at a price you are willing to pay. Personally, an extra RAID controller that can be used as extra IDE ports is a big one for me, and on-board LAN is something that's growing on me. Firewire and USB 2.0 are relatively new, but pay attention to what chip is being used to power these. While I typically don't mind Via's chips, their USB 2.0 ones are supposed to really suck. Any P4 motherboard that features ICH4 will have USB 2.0 as it is part of the motherboard chipset, and doesn't require an extra controller chip. If the USB 2.0 is all you really care about, but still want something good, the MSI 845E Max series of boards would be up your alley. MSI tends to make several variations of the same board, but these ones do feature the ICH4 and an Intel motherboard chipset. These also use DDR, which is what you want in the first place. You can find them for under $100 online. Personally, I recommend Newegg They have pretty good prices---not necessarily rock bottom, but ususally pretty low, and great service. I don't know how often you plan on upgrading, but it'd be a wise idea to make sure whatever motherboard you buy supports the 533MHz bus P4's. That way, you'll have a better upgrade route at a later time and have one less component to purchase.
I'd check out the following Asus Card. It has everything you're looking for as well as with it being an Asus board you're pretty much assured a reliable board with fairly regular bios updates.
