Upgrading my Socket A mobo?

Post by **NeilBlanchard** » Tue Jan 25, 2005 12:40 pm

Hello SPCR Forumites!

I have two Athlon XP 2100+ (Thoroughbred B's) that are almost 2 years old. I bought the least expensive motherboards that I could find at the time: Asus A7N266-VM AA. I have done the mod onm them that takes away the AA status -- and allows for overclocking. But, lately I have had thoughts of upgrading the motherboard while I still can!

But of course, I still can't spend that much. Here's my current pick, and it costs only $64 at NewEgg; the GIGABYTE "GA-7N400-L" nForce2 Ultra 400.

What do you think of this motherboard? It adds some important features for me: four DIMM slots (so I can use four 256MB sticks that I own) and it adds an onboard SATA controller. And maybe, it can run the Radeon 7000 video card I bought the other day *without* slowing down the FSB?!

TIA

Chang · Post by **Chang** » Tue Jan 25, 2005 3:23 pm

Hrm. . . You're going from a mATX board to an ATX board? I hope you've got an ATX case.

SATA is nice, but unless you already have SATA drives, what's the point?

A mobo upgrade by itself won't get you much performance gain. Granted, in your case, going from 512 MB to 1GB of RAM should net you something of a speed bump.

Personally, I think you'd be better off waiting until you have more money to spend for an upgrade.

Post by **NeilBlanchard** » Tue Jan 25, 2005 3:42 pm

Hello Chang:

Yes, I have the Evercase 4252, and the Alpha HS, so it *should* fit. The other bit that I could use is USB2, since I have a Seagate 300GB external HD. (It is very quiet, BTW!)

I agree about the limited payoff -- it certainly would be a *huge* boost to build a new Athlon 64 machine (I have a 120GB Seagate SATA 7200.7, 2x 512MB "2-2-2 Special" Mushkin PC3200, and various other parts and pieces. A decent motherboard, CPU, and a case are all I really lack...hmmm.

But, I still would be interested in any feedback about the Gigabyte motherboard.