rec.autos.simulators

TIA
MadDAWG

If you've already got a Socket A board that'll take an XP3000 or
whatever, get that. If you're buying a new mobo anyway, get the A-64.
The performance difference is there, but imo it's not worth a mobo
upgrade unless you're doing one anyway.

Malc.

HTH,
Kendt

I'd be doing the motherboard as well. I want to keep my xp2100 system as
second for network racing when friends come over.

Any tips as to a good motherboard?  I'd like a "good" onboard sound like the
ASUS deluxe board for the Socket A setups.  I have been happy with my
current Nforce2 based setup so my gut feel is to stick with an Nforce3 based
board, but I really have no idea if thats the right thing to do.

MadDAWG

In which case going for the A64 would give you more upgrade potential in
the future (faster CPU) Socket A development has finished now, so only
get one if it's really good value.

Asus are a decent brand & you'll be happy with any Asus A64 mobo. MSi
are okay, cheaper and a little less 'solid', but you may get more
features for your money. I tend to get 'good enough' quality rather than
the best every time, and I find MSi meets my needs.

You'll get as many mobo suggestions as there are mobo's available, but
as long as you realise that the mobo is the most important part of your
PC & it pays not to skimp on quality you'll be fine ;-) Don't be
suckered by extra features like firewire or RAID unless you actually
plan to use them, and on-board RAID isn't a great idea anyway (if the
mobo dies you'll need the exact same mobo chipset to replace it so you
can read your data). Add-on RAID cards are cheap & won't limit your
options as much next time you upgrade.

Malc.

Is one chipset better or worse than the rest? Thats usally how I base my
buying decision on as long as its a major name brand like Asus, Abit, etc.
My current board is a Leadtek and I have had zero problems. so far its been
the best board I have ever owned for stabilty and performace, but it is also
the only one with the Nforce2 setup I have ever had.

After all the past problems with VIA chipsets in the past I have stayed away
from them. As far as onboard features go the two big ones for me are onboard
LAN and a good sound setup.  It appears that the prefered choice for the
socket A boards was the Realtek based 5.1 sound. Any ideas whats good/bad
for a Socket 754?

thanks for you help
MadDAWG

The VIA KT600 is pretty close to the Nforce2 400 (non-Ultra) for
single-channel DDR memory systems.

All the other Athlon chipsets (other VIA, all SIS, early Nforce, all
AMD chipsets) are markedly inferior to Nforce2 in memory bandwidth and
AGP performance.

RE: Stability - really seems to be more a function of the MB
manufacturer than a particular chipset.

Well if its going away then I might as well stick with the Socket A set up
with the Asus Nforce setup.

thanks
MadDAWG

The A-64 CPU's are changing sockets. A-64's aren't going away, just the
socket type so as John suggests go for a mobo with the new Socket 939
rather than the earlier type & you will get the same performance but
better upgrade potential.

Malc.

The big thing is the 939 CPUs are waaaaaaaay more money than I wanted to
spend at this point in time. Granted they are faster, but not that much.  My
original plan was to go with the Asus deluxe board with an Athlon XP 3000 or
3200 so its not like I'm really going backwards.

Thanks for you input. I appreciate it.

MadDAWG