I recently purchased a AMD athlon 64 3700 cpu and now I have to make a choice on what motherboard to match up with it. I want to spend maximum 130. Something that is a quality product and wont crap out on and will be able to peform. Any suggestions ?
You know you can get a decent motherboard for about 50 bucks like the ASUS K8U-X or the GIGABYTE GA-K8VM800M... but if you want something a bit higher end and you wanna be the cool nerd on the block, then the Gigabyte K8VNXP or ABIT KV8-MAX3 are both bad mofos. There are some nice mid-range ones too that will run you about 75 bucks. Whatever you get just stick with an Abit, Asus or Gigabyte and you'll be fine...
I'm assuming your chip has FSB of 2000mhz, so you should get (for maximum quality/speed etc.) a motherboard with around that. Ofcourse, this all depends on your typical use of the PC. I'm looking to buy the 3500 chip, and this awesome MB but the MB is in the higher 100's.
It's also going to depend on what form factor you choose with your case. I just recently bought that exact same CPU and chose this motherboard: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813131570 I put it inside an Aspire Q-pack small form factor case. Great mobo, and very inexpensive. Put a BFG 7800 GT OC and 2 GB of Corsair XMS memory.... I haven't run any benchmarks as of yet, but I am running BF2, COD2 and FEAR with pretty much all the settings maxed out.
Oh yeah...IMHO this motherboard also has great built in sound....I didn't add an expansion sound card and am very satisfied.
awesome... Thanks for all the help guys.. if you have any more info feel free. take care.. go rockets
ASUS A8N-E Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 Ultra ATX AMD Motherboard- $109.99 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813131530
