getting a new system and i am thinking of the Athlon XP 2600+ (333fsb) and corsair pc3200 cas2 memory. just need a recommendation for a motherboard.

I think it was anandtech.com that recently reviewed 6 new nforce2 amd boards. They all performed ~8% faster than Via KT400 based boards.

that's funny i just read that article. they say the asus nforce2 is the best athlon xp mobo on the market. but from what i understand i will need two sticks of memory to run it. pleaze elaborate!!!!!

Hehe.... Correction... "The Editor's Choice Gold Award for best value motherboard goes to the Epox 8RDA+. The combination of speed, solid features and a bargain-basement price are what makes the Epox 8RDA+ our Editor's Choice Gold Award for best value motherboard in the Athlon XP market. It doesn't hurt that the Epox 8RDA+ ended up overclocking the best out of any other motherboard. Value users should also be pleased with Epox's excellent tech support and RMA policy." It all comes down to which features best fit your needs. The Asus board is recommended if you're planning on running "SerialATA RAID" (Serial HDD's aren't available yet, although the feature is there if you want to upgrade your hard drives too..) Asus also features Dual NIC's, but unless you're planning to utilize ICS and use your board as a bridge, this feature is useless as well. The Asus is priced approximately $40 to $50 more too. As far as memory, the Corsair DIMM's seem to have run into a few problems from what I'm seeing on the various OC channels and message boards. (Thank God I went with OCZ) All of these boards function as good as the KT400 motherboards when operating with one stick of memory, but the advantage of the nForce chipset is the ability to expand your memory bandwidth from 64 to 128 bit when two or three DIMMs are inserted. Performance in everyday use will pretty much be the same, but you will see an improvement in 3D gaming. If you want the Dual NIC's and SerialATA, go with the Asus. If you want FAST, overclockable, great support and affordable, go with the EPoX. Guess which one I chose... (here's a hint) ************************************** My new system: EPoX 8RDA+ nForce2 Motherboard AMD Athlon XP1700+ @ 166 X 12 = XP2400+ (2) 512 MB DIMM's of CL2 OCZ PC3200 DDR SDRAM (in 128 Bit Dual Channel Mode) Gainward GeForce4 Ti4200 @ 300c/550m

UTLLAMA, Hi have you done any benchmarks with your configuration yet.I'm just curious to know how good of a score that mb and your hardware does.I just built a P4 system and with all default settings no o/cing I scored 11977 on my first run. p4 2.4b w/coolermaster hsf asus p4s8x mb antec 430watt psu 512mb kingston(2700)ddr maxtor 80g 7200 8mb cache pny geforce 4600ti 128mb soundblaster audigy gamer liteon dvd lian li pc60 case personally modded side window and blue cathode lights misc. case fans etc. and a few other things. I'm not trying to compare i'm just curiuos what kind of scores other motherboard configs. get. I also have a AMD system I built I'm using right now and use most of the time.ecs k7s5a 1800xp athlon pny4200ti vid.card this system is very durable me and her been thru alot anyway ai'am rambling on here.have a good one, macdaddy

Which benchmarking program are you using... I'm feeling adventurous and up to the challenge.

3dmark2001se