what type of motherboard??

Question

Im going to build my own computer..and i cant choose a motherboard. i prefer one under $100, one that lets me add on my graphics card, tv tuner. im going to be putting a amd athlon 64 3800. I cant decide which one to get! ill find a good one but reading the problems on reviews gets me turned off. this will be my first time building a computer..so i need it to not have alot of problems lol

thanks

Jason

Answer 1

When reading reviews, especially of motherboards, you need to account for the idiot factor, which basically means that a lot of reviews are written by people who really have no business working with a motherboard, and then when THEY screw something up, they blame it on the board.

ASUS are generally the best quality, Gigabyte are also good. There are quite a few to choose from, so if you have a few that you are torn between, send me an email with links and I will look at them for you.

Answer 2

Jason I've been using Gigabyte motherboards for many years now and love them, here is the link to their web page http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products/Motherboard/Default.aspx , one of the features that I always liked is that they all come with Dual BIOS and now Quad BIOS setups for better redundancy on your BIOS system, this is in case that your BIOS gets corrupted that you can restore your BIOS system and have a botable computer instead of you needing to buy a new board. I personally have used this feature once and it was a life saver. It's the little things that count. I've had and worked with ASUS, MSI, Biostar, Abit, Intel and many others, and personally in my 3 desktop PC's at home I run gigabyte motherboards, they probably will not be the cheapest out there but you do get what you pay for and a motherboard is not something you want to skimp on.

Also since this is your first build, don't get scared with what other people say, everything is very easy to setup now days, the only thing that you have to be very careful with is your processor, when your installing it make sure you don't try to force it in, this is a very common mistake and if you bend you processor pins you pretty much have to buy another one so make sure you pay attention when installing your processor and processor fan, everything else plugs in in one way, so there us no real way you can mess your system up. Hope this helps.

Answer 3

personally i wouldnt build one if you cannot afford to have problems,i would advise acquiring a couple old pcs and take apart and see and get used to whats what before you go about building one for yourself,im not saying its mega difficult but mistakes can happen and be expensive when they do,a misplaced screw can kill the motherboard in a flash,please dont feel im trying to put you off but i would hate to think you made a mistake and lost a lot of money.like i say buy a system ready built and mess about with some old stuff that dont matter ,once you get the feel of how things work then build your next one.
good luck with whatever you decide.

Answer 4

If this is your first attempt at building a machine then try to build something daft like a 700Mhz-1Ghz See if tit runs okk then work your way up like you could get the fastest board with the fastest chip and the fastest RAM and a big F off PSU and when you put them all together Bang you PSU goes pop and you dont know why but start small work your way up.
Financially it makes sense.

Answer 5

take a look at all the am2 socket motherboards.. try newegg.. as i understand its ur first time building computer.. great. while u read the reviews.. dont get turned off only because someone who has no idea how to put the mb broke it.. always read the cause.. most products that pass the qc from all companies are oki.. gl with ur computer

Answer 6

My personal choice for mother boards is Asus. My current PC has a 4 year old mother board and it always works. Folks that have problems are more likely to post a review than someone that had no problems.

Answer 7

I've built a few. Recently I bought a Gigabyte GA-KAU. Socket 754, DDR 400, IDE and SATA, LAN, USB2.0, AGP 8x, Sound
Works awesome!!