Upgrading motherboard: Asrock 939DUAL-SATA2?

[Alfiegerner]

I'm hoping I might get some advice. I'm about to build my first PC so I'm bit nervous about getting stuck with bad bits.

I'm thinking of getting a Asrock 939DUAL-SATA2 motherboard and have a few questions.

First is to do with the sort of issues I've heard via chipsets suffer from. This motherboard uses a ULi 1695 chipset (ULi M1695/ ULi M1567). Should I be safe with this? I'll be using an fx5600 in the agp slot and 1x pvr-150 and 1x nova-t in the pci slots.

My second question is what sort of cooler / fan I should use? I'll be using a Athlon 64 3200+ Venice. I think I need just a cpu cooler: do I need chipset cooler(s) as well?

Thanks in advance

[dbfresh23]

I'd suggest not getting anything that sounds like Asrock, ECS, Syntax or PC Chips for the motherboard name, they are all crap.

Good brands for AMD systems are ASUS, Epox, Abit, and Soyo. My personal favorite is Epox.

[stanger89]

nVidia or Intel chipset, or don't bother IMO. Get a "real" Asus board, or an Abit or something. I've got an AN8-Ultra (nForce4) that's great.

Seriously, don't skimp on the motherboard. You don't need a mega-$$$ gaming board, but a good board from a good manufacturer is IMO, one of the most important pieces of a stable PC.

As for cooler, I'd get a Zalman CNPS-7000AlCu. I've got one on my A64 3400 (Newcastle core) and it runs cool at something under 50% fan speed.

[Alfiegerner]

Thanks very much for the advice. That gives me some food for thought...

My problem is I'm trying to keep costs down by not getting a pci-e graphics card and trying to use my old agp fx 5600 instead. This box is mainly used as a server with only occasionaly client duties on a small tv so I'm happy enough with the 5600.

The thing I liked about this board was its combination of agp and pci-e slots, that would let me use my old card with room to upgrade later. I don't suppose you might know of a better manafacturer's board that has this?

Alternatively, if i can find a reasonabley priced pci-e board with onboard graphics (so that I wouldn't need a new graphics card) that would do the trick. I've seen some mini-atx boards like this but haven't yet seen any atx sized ones.

Any suggestions

[Opus4]

BTW: as part of researching a new work PC, I was reading some reviews of CPU coolers. The interesting thing was that the stock coolers that AMD is now shipping w/their retail CPUs did a good job of keeping the CPU cool & the custom ones didn't do much better, if any better at all. Some of them were quieter, so it may depend on how quiet you are trying to get the PC to be. (Someone can correct me if that perception is wrong, but the custom ones didn't seem to keep the CPU any cooler. I don't have a link handy, though.) If you don't have a cooler already, just check out the Zalman Stanger mentioned.

I know you aren't in the market for a CPU, but I wish I had waited a week for the recent price drops on many AMD CPUs...

And like the others were saying: don't get a Via based board.

- Andy

[Alfiegerner]

Thanks Andy - so do the the retail AMD cpu's all come with a cooler as part of the package then? I didn't realise ... i thought the OEM packages may just be cheaper due to less packaging etc. For this machine noise isn't much of an issue so I guess I'll do with the stock cooler.

[dbfresh23]

Yes, Retail AMD CPUs come with a Fan and 3 year warranty. There's no point in keeping costs down if they system isn't going to run well. An Asrock board for a server isn't even close to a good idea. They are mostly good for windows based typewritters. I'd check out Newegg and Zipzoomfly - they generally have pretty good prices.

[stanger89]

Alfiegerner,

Take a look at the nForce 6150 based boards, they've got integrated GeForce 6200TC-ish graphics, with PCIe so you could add something like a 7300 later

Andy,
Yes, the stock AMD coolers do work quite well, and (if the board has fan control) are relatively quiet (yes retail AMD cpus come with a heatsink). However the Zalman coolers are quieter, substantially if your motherboard doesn't offer automatic fan control.

[m0ng00se30]

I'll throw my vote in for an ASUS MBs for AMDs I had Abit but it didnt seem to like certain types of memory.

But the Zalmans CPU coolers don't get much better and they are CHEAP for the performance! And it you have room... the ZALMAN VGA coolers are even better!!

--Mike

[Polypro]

Have had good luck with MSI here. Speedfan is a good proggie.

P