Worth getting a new motherboard?

OFDM

I'm considering giving my computer a bit of a jizz up, and instead of starting a whole new system from scratch (which I can't afford at the moment anyway), I'm thinking getting a new motherboard & cpu to start with.

I also recently got a 300GB SATA drive and controller card, but they cause audio interference with the sound card when the SATA drive is accessed, so I'm hoping a motherboard with SATA ports will solve this problem.

Here's my current system:

Motherboard:
Abit KR7A-133

CPU:
AMD Athlon XP1900+

Memory:
1x PC2100 DDR-DIMM 256MB
1x PC2100 DDR-DIMM 512MB 

Video Card:
Creative 3DBlaster GeForce4 Ti4400 128MB

Audio Cards:
Creative Soundblaster Audigy 2
Creative Soundblaster Live 5.1 Digital

CD/DVD-ROMs:
Plextor PX-708A
Plextor 14/10/40A

TV Capture card:
Hauppage WinTV PVR 350

HDDs:
Western Digital WD1200JB 120GB PATA
Western Digital WD800JB 80GB PATA
Maxtor DiamondMax 10 300GB S-ATA

Controller Cards:
Sunsway PCI SATA 2 Port
CNet 10/100 Mbps PCI Ethernet

CPU Fan:
Cooler Master DP5-7H53 (up to Intel 1.4GHz & AMD XP2000+)

Case & PSU:
Chieftec Dragon Midi Tower with 340W PSU

Things I need from a new motherboard include:
Plenty of USB 2 ports
Several PCI slots (at least 7)
SATA ports

I do a bit of video editing and will getting back into graphics intensive gaming when I get the chance, so they're conderations also.

All advice on what motherboard/CPU/RAM etc I should go for is welcome.

WizZard

Why on earth do you need 7 PCI slots?

OFDM

WizZard wrote:

Why on earth do you need 7 PCI slots?

Well looking into my machine now, 5 from 7 are used up. I suppose if I only use one sound card and don't need the SATA controller with a new mother board, only 3 slots would be used up with the sound card, vidcap card and ethernet card.

Let's say 5/6 pci slots so...

gline

well all depending on how much u wana spend the 2 real options at the moment are socket 939 and socket 775 for a bit of future proof. Id recommend a cheapish socket 939 mobo (around 100euro will do) and a 3000 cpu and maybe overclock that to 3200 speeds or above if your into that, which will require better ram, i think you will need to buy better ram for any new mobo and cpu upgrade as pc2100 just doesnt cut it these days

lynchie

OFDM wrote:

Well looking into my machine now, 5 from 7 are used up. I suppose if I only use one sound card and don't need the SATA controller with a new mother board, only 3 slots would be used up with the sound card, vidcap card and ethernet card.

Let's say 5/6 pci slots so...

Most new boards have onboard ethernet, sound and sata so you would not need that many pci slots.

Raz

I've always been a fan of MSI's mother boards, they're more feature packed than pretty much anything else on the market. For example This One.
It's an AMD socket 939 board which will support the new Athlon™ 64 FX 64-bit cpu's.
This has 8 SATA headers in all as well as the usual IDE channels. The NV Raid controller chip has SATA II ports which will support up to 300MBs transfer rates.
Allows up to 10 USB ports, 4 on the back and pinheaders for up to 6 others (you'd need to have some of the ports seperately, I think the D-bracket has 2 on it)
It also has 2 gigabit ethernet ports, up to 1000mbs, and a firewire port with a pinheader for another.
You can also use up to DDR3200 (400mhz) RAM in dual channel mode, up to 4GBs.
You've also got PCI express on there, the x16 standard for the graphics cards, the x4 standard for future PCI cards and some of the usual PCI slots.
You've also got built-in 7.1 audio (though nobody ever really trusts built-in audio do they!)

That would get rid of your Network card, your SATA controller card and if you wanted, your audio cards.
Drawback is that you would need to get a new graphics card aswell as CPU. You could stick with the Ram you have if you want to save a bit of money.

It's on komplett here for €149 (they havn't gotten any details on it yet and they havn't got stock right at this moment either though).
Ram that I'm looking at getting myself is the Kingston XMS DDR PC3200 on www.elara.ie These seem to have good timings and you can get them in kits of 2 modules for setting up Dual memory.

A couple of reviews
http://www.bleedinedge.com/reviews/mobo/msi_k8n_neo4/msi_k8n_neo4_01.html
http://www.tbreak.com/reviews/article.php?id=339

If you're looking to go with an Intel processor instead then I think that socket 775 is the best but I'm not too sure about the intel options at the moment.

gline

but ur forgetting he also needs to buy a cpu and cooler, so thats mobo+cpu+cooler+pci-e gfx, could turn out to be pretty pricey, could go for an agp socket 939 if you wana save some doh and use your old gfx with it

OFDM

Good advice all round. Many thanks.