New motherboard - socket A please

[ShyBoy]

My cpu is socket A so I decided to get a new socket a motherboard. Any offerings? I have a micro atx crap thing from msi at the moment, I want a new motherboard that's BIG! I know asus ones are often quite large so I was looking at: http://usa.asus.com/products/mb/socketa/a7n8x-e-d/overview.htm

Thing is I already have a wireless PCI card so I don't think I'd use all the wireless stuff.

Things that matter: modern support (maybe I should just get a newer generation of motherboard) but things like firewire, sata, all the usual stuff. Hopefully not looking to spend more than £60 but you know... we all get carried away sometimes.

[Mist]

Asus are usually pretty reliable. I have the A8V deluxe myself.

As a choice in which to keep your exisiting stuff, it would be ok.

Personally though, if I were updating my motherboard, I would try to buy a future proof (ish) one, and get one that has PCI-E, and socket 939. this baby should keep you going for a while

http://usa.asus.com/products/mb/socket939/a8nsli-d/overview.htm

Yeah, admittedly you'd have to replace your CPU and your graphics card, and to get the most out of it you'd have to buy two identically Nvidia SLI cards and run them both, but ooo, that'd be nice then.

[ShyBoy]

I think going with ultra modern things is going to be a refit I'll do in later years. At the moment I'm working on silencing my computer and getting it to a good standard on reliablity not performance - currently it performs fine! Maybe in a year or two if I have the cash (I'll be a student then) I might go for a new one altogether.

When I built this computer I did it for £300 and as such the motherboard i got was pants. I just want a top-end socket A one - but with more emphasis on quality than the quanitity of features and stuff. I have a workhorse radeon 9800 for graphics and my 2400+ cpu is ok for the minute. Will probably invest in another 1/2 gig of pc2700 ddr ram (same speed as the one I've got in there).

I'm not one who just wants the most powerful PC, just as time goes by I'm increasingly aware some of the components I bought were 'cheap' ones and am now upgrading to teh 'quality'. Most of them are pretty cheap - which is why I only intended to pay up to £60 for a new socket A motherboard too.

[Mist]

Okay in that case I think that is a reasonable motherboard, I would get it.

[ShyBoy]

Stupid question and I think the answer is no, but are some different socket types interchangeable? So stupid a question I needn't really have asked :p since otherwise they'd have just the one, right? But on the other hand you get agp, agp 4x, agp 8x etc.

[Mist]

You can bridge some Intel chips onto other sockets, but as far as I know the socket a stuff is not transferable to anything else.