[ubuntu-uk] OT: Motherboard recommendation

[Rob Beard]

Kris Douglas wrote:
> 
> 
> On 19/11/2007, *Rob Beard* <rob at esdelle.co.uk 
> <mailto:rob at esdelle.co.uk>> wrote:
> 
>     Hi folks,
> 
>     I think after my PC died last week it's about time for an upgrade
>     (especially since my other half's Celeron I'm using is painfully slow!).
> 
>     Now I'm looking to upgrade to a dual core machine.  As my old PC was a
>     Socket 754 Athlon 64 with DDR memory I'm going to have to replace my
>     board, CPU, memory and video card.
> 
>     Traditionally I've been a fan of AMD.  I found their CPU's
>     price/performance ratio was top notch, although I can't help but notice
>     that AMD is getting trampled on a bit by Intel with the Core2 processors
>     and I really don't want to have to wait until the AMD Phenom is released
>     and prices have come down to a more reasonable level.
> 
>     I don't play games on my machine so I don't need anything fancy like
>     multiple video cards.  I do play videos, music, browse the net and all
>     things like that.  I'm trying to set my budget around the £150 mark,
>     for
>     a CPU, motherboard, 2GB memory and dirt cheap PCI Express video card.
> 
>     Now the problem is, I'm not sure what is considered a good mid range
>     board these days.  I presume for about £150 I'm only going to be
>     able to
>     get something like the Pentium Duo (or a very low spec Core2Duo), I just
>     wondered what would be considered a good board to match with such a
>     processor?
> 
>     Could anyone recommend a decent board for about the £50 mark?
> 
>     Ta,
> 
>     Rob
> 

Hi Kris,

> Hi rob, for around that price you will probably do better with an 
> Athlon, good motherboard, 128-256 nvidia gfx card and 2gb ram...
> 

I was interested in the Athlon X2 BE-2350 although it seems that the 
Pentium chip overclocks better according to some of the sites I've read. 
  I'm open to suggestions though.  Am I right in thinking that with the 
newer AM2 (AM2+?) motherboards that a Phenom chip can be dropped 
straight in?

> have a look on aria.co.uk <http://aria.co.uk> I find they have some good 
> deals, and there is Overclockers.co.uk <http://Overclockers.co.uk> who 
> are also ok.
> 

I bought my old Athlon 1GHz from Overclockers.co.uk.  The chip died a 
couple of years back but the board is still going strong.  I didn't 
realise that Overclockers.co.uk was still going.

> If you would like me to list some of the components I use in the servers 
> i make, which are pretty cheap, just ask :)
> 

Yeah that would be great thanks Kris.  I've been trying to keep up with 
the hardware but it seems to change on a weekly basis!

Rob