Need a new AMD board, but can't seem to find the right one...

Damascus

Damascus

New Member
I'm looking around for a motherboard for a gaming rig for a friend of mine, and I need to keep it cheap... He already has his mind set on a GTX 260 C216 for it, and wants to keep the price of the motherboard under $115... if possible.
I've been looking around zipzoomfly.com (my preferred site), and a little on newegg, and I can't seem to find what I'm looking for...
I've decided to go AMD, since they're CPU's are a tad cheaper, and this is going to be a budget gaming system, but all the ones that I've found that seem to be in the right price range all have onboard graphics!!!
I know I can disable the onboard VGA, but I prefer to buy a board without onboard graphics... anyone know of any boards for this???
The specs I need to meet are:
**Needs to support quad core AMD, or at least X3
**Needs to have PCI-E x16 2.0
**Needs to have SATA 3.0
**Preferably ATX form factor, rather than mATX

Anyone have any suggestions for a good board??? I'm not against Intel, I'd buy an Intel board if theres a great deal on one...
As stated, I've been out of the system-building business since 2006, and all this new tech is much different from back in the day of the single core S939 Athlon 64's....
Also, other things for this board - The main concern is SPEED. I want the fastest chipset available, also, need it to support DDR2, not DDR3. Overclocking is not important, as he won't be OC'ing any. Quality, stability, and speed are my main concerns.
Thanx a MILLION for any quick help on this matter!
 
I have and highly recommend the following board. http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?Sku=A455-2863
It's about as cheap as a full featured board can get and still have a low price. I realize it may be a little sort on connections only 2 SATA and 1 IDE. It has 4 built in USB ports and 3 USB headers for a total of 10 USB ports. It supports AM3 chips with a BIOS update. I've had the system for abotu a month now and it's been great on Windows 7 with AMD Athlon X2 5000+ CPU and 4GBs of RAM.

From Tigerdirect.com "The Asus M2N68-AM SE2 motherboard features the NVIDIA Geforce7025/nForce 630a integrated chipset, which combine multiple graphics solutions and highlight NVIDIA PureVideo technology that deliver the outstanding graphics performance. It supports the latest AMD socket AM2+ processors including the latest Phenom X4 Quad-Core processor. Memory compatibility includes up to 4GB of Dual-Channel DDR2 memory at speeds of up to 1066MHz."
 
Last edited:
Damascus said:
I'm looking around for a motherboard for a gaming rig for a friend of mine, and I need to keep it cheap... He already has his mind set on a GTX 260 C216 for it, and wants to keep the price of the motherboard under $115... if possible.
I've been looking around zipzoomfly.com (my preferred site), and a little on newegg, and I can't seem to find what I'm looking for...
I've decided to go AMD, since they're CPU's are a tad cheaper, and this is going to be a budget gaming system, but all the ones that I've found that seem to be in the right price range all have onboard graphics!!!
I know I can disable the onboard VGA, but I prefer to buy a board without onboard graphics... anyone know of any boards for this???
The specs I need to meet are:
**Needs to support quad core AMD, or at least X3
**Needs to have PCI-E x16 2.0
**Needs to have SATA 3.0
**Preferably ATX form factor, rather than mATX

Anyone have any suggestions for a good board??? I'm not against Intel, I'd buy an Intel board if theres a great deal on one...
As stated, I've been out of the system-building business since 2006, and all this new tech is much different from back in the day of the single core S939 Athlon 64's....
Also, other things for this board - The main concern is SPEED. I want the fastest chipset available, also, need it to support DDR2, not DDR3. Overclocking is not important, as he won't be OC'ing any. Quality, stability, and speed are my main concerns.
Thanx a MILLION for any quick help on this matter!
Click to expand...

If you not planing on running SLI

AM3
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128392

AM2+
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128376
Alittle more
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131381
 
^^ Gotcha I dont plan to sli in the near future but, I have been looking at that first gigabyte board for a while now.
 
Thanx for all the helpful replies! I try to steer clear of ECS boards, I bought one back in the day for my first Socket A Athlon T-Bird build... lasted all of about a month before the fan connectors failed. I know it's bad to stop buying an entire brand based off of one bad experience, but I can't help it ;)
I found this ASUS board on newegg (thanx to Fatback) with a good combo deal - a Athlon X4 Phenom II 955 quad-core to go with it ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131381 ), which should be all I will need for a little while. Already got a GTX 260 c216 to go with it, and 2 x 2 GB of DDR800.
Anyone think this would be making a mistake?? I don't care about SLi or Crossfire, also don't care about how many USB or SATA connectors it has, as long as it can run 2 of each. Now, just need to select a good PSU and case ;)
 
On this ASUS board that I am getting ready to purchase (I'm buying one today) - it mentions some kind of limitation when using DDR2-1066? I already have some DDR2-800, but I found a great deal on a 2x2GB set of GSkill DDR2-1066... the extra speed would be nice, can I run that on this board? I'll only be using the 2 chips, 2 x 2GB, in dual channel, and won't be upgrading from that.
This ASUS board that I am considering is using the AMD 770 chipset... I have a GTX260 c216 setting on my shelf for sale - which is what I'm going to use in this new setup, but since I'm using an AMD CPU and AMD chipset, I'm considering getting a HD 4870 1GB instead, to keep everything more "meshed"... I wish I could find some reviews that all agree on which card is better, the 4870 or GTX 260...
 
The ASUS board I chose can run AM3, right? Or do you mean the ability to run DDR3? Right now, I don't mind getting 2x2GB of high end DDR2-1066 for less than the price of low end DDR3... for my purposes (gaming only), the Muskin Redline 2x2GB DDR2-1066 set I just bought should serve fine... Also decided to stick the XFX GTX260 c216 I had on the shelf into this new system, so it should game fine...
Now, just gotta find a good <$70 PSU and a cheap full-tower case...
So, it be ASUS M4A78 Plus, Phenom II X4 955 Black 3.2Ghz QC AM3, Muskin memory aforementioned, and XFX GTX260 c216 (I had a bad experience with this brand when I bought a 5600-U several years ago, but with the new warranties on these, thought I'd give them another day in court)... so it should be a decent 'nuff system to game for a year or two.
 
Power Supply. Good enough for a GTS 250 with some overhead
72.50 with 20 buck rebate
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817341019

Cases- Full- cheap
Not crazy about Enermax but a good case for 90 bucks and free shipping
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811124121

or
100 bucks- free shipping
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811103011

Or
Doesnt come with all the fans but a good case
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811146054
 
Nice, thanx for the input on that...
That PSU you say is enough for a GTS250, but what about a GTX260? I'll never be running SLI, when I need more power than the 260 can provide, I'll sell it and get a faster single card. Wouldn't I need to get something with more than 18A on the 12v rails? I've never delved into the intricacies and details about PSU's, I've always just bought the biggest Antec or OCZ I could afford and went forward... I hear Corsair is making some fine PSU's now as well, but I have no experience with them...
Also, other considerations for PSU is that I'll be running 2 optical drives, and 2 SATA HDD's.
 
dude i just build with a ECS black series A780GM-A today it was a breeze and cheap. It doesn't say pci e 2.0x16 on newegg but it does on the box and if you look at most indepth reviews they run a nice highend new gpu. Newegg says it doesnt have 2.0 because ecs just calls it gen 2, and the manual says it will run pci express 2.0 x16.
 
Great!
I know I should probably re-post this in another forum, since I'm talking about PSU's now, but it does have to do with the mobo I just bought lol...
How would these work? Can someone tell me which is the better deal? They are both OCZ, both 700W, and both the same price... which is better???
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=10009502
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=10009531

All I need is the BEST PSU I can get for less than $90, and I don't care if it's silent or actively cooled - I'm using 2x120's and 1x140 on this system, so I'm not too worried about noise..
 
I keep finding myself going over-budget looking for full-tower cases on newegg and zipzoomfly...
Does anyone here have any trouble running this large of a graphics card and a full ATX mobo using a mid-tower case?? Theres many mid-towers that I like and can afford, but I don't want to risk not being able to use the new system when it arrives because the case is too small...
 
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