What is the best MoBo

I'm thinking of upgrading my MoBo (Numerous reasons) and I know there will be some arguments over this but, I have a 3.0ghz Pentium IV Hyperthreaded CPU which I wish to keep and put in the new MoBo, socket 775 I believe? I would also like to keep my 2gb (1gb x 2) of PC4200 mem and put it in the new mobo as well but have a couple more slots so I could go up to to 3-4gb later on.

Given this what is THE BEST motherboard I could purchase? I intend to replace the currenty factory motherboard in my HP with something a few notches better.

Second question, using the same SATA disk drive with Vista Home Pro already loaded and the same physical CPU, will Vista go back into locked mode because it thinks its in a different computer or is it tied to the CPU number rather than something on the motherboard?

Thanks for any input

Steve

 

Firstly 'yes' Vista will do one of two things on seeing a new board, if it's a retail copy it will allow 3 days to activate again, if (which is likely) it came pre-loaded on the machine and is OEM it will lock and stay that way until you pay another fee, unfortunately OEM copies are inextricably linked to the hardware signing hash they first detect, change any major component and it detects the hash is different and refuses to allow it's use.

The only way around the problem is a retail copy of Vista which does allow upgrades\changes etc; it's the reason why the OEM version, which you can buy as a conditional purchase (which incidentally is against the law in the UK, but I won't go into that now) is a lot cheaper than retail.

sorry !

 

Oh do tell! I got my copy of OEM and thought nothing of it (in uk btw).

Isn't it possible just to phone microsoft when you change hardware on an OEM copy? They will give you a new activation code to enter?

 

Well, my HP came pre-loaded with XP MMC version and I purchased a 'retail' upgrade to VHP and did a clean install on it so perhaps that won't be a major problem. What about a motherboard recommendation?



Thanks

Steve

 

I think you may have a problem finding a new (better) board that can use the old DDR Ram, why not purchase a new mobo that takes DDR2 Ram which is a lot faster as prices are now quite low.

As to which to buy will depend on how much you are willing to pay and what you want to use it for. Everyone has their own opinions on which to buy, I like the Intel because I find them reliable, and don't have compatability problems with them, having used them for about 10 years. I don't overclock so don't need those features.

Others like Asus & Gigabite. these seem to be a favorite of overclockers and also reliable.

Another thing to consider is the physical size of the mobo that can fit into your case, can it take a full size ATX mobo or can you only fit a MinATX board.

2 Gig ram is plenty to run Vista, another reason to use DDR2 Ram as you were going to add another 2Gig anyway.

 

Well, after I got to looking, it DOES use DDR2 and I just mistyped what it was using. What ideally I want to do is keep the CPU and memory that I have, but have a mobo with the ability to upgrade the CPU in same form factor as they come into my price range.

I have a 3gb HT P4 right now and can't think that many of the dual cores are much better than that, at least for my purposes. I'm not a gamer, I'm a programmer. But, I would like the ability to plug in a new/faster processer such as a quad core or something as they become available from Intel.

I'm firmly in the Intel CPU camp, everytime I've tried AMD I've had miserable luck.

Steve

 

Actualy you're wrong about that. Single cores are better for gaming as games are a single process and don't run many background tasks unlike prgoramming and such. You will find that a dual core is better for programming as you can do more things at once (debug and correctcode for example) without much of a performance hit (by this i mean your mouse and typing lagging) . All in all dual core is less usefull atm as aplications aren't optimised.

 

I do very little gaming these days but i do A LOT of multitasking of all sorts and i would not dream of (shudder too think) going back to a single core processor! My previous box was an AMD 64 3800+ 2.4GHz and compared to my X2 even atthe stock speed of 2.0GHzthe difference is like night and day as far as effiency in performing various tasks. As far as the AMD vs Intel war goes well i am on good behavior today so whatever floats your boat on that end. I will say that as far as motherboards go i have run across a few Intel boards in putting together boxes for othersand i was not impressed for the price. My low end ASUS has been very forgiving considering the abuse i have subjected it too.

 

No they wont chum, OEM is tied to the hardware it was first registered\activated with, change any major component and you wave goodbye to that copy of it, even phoning MS wont help they don't have codes for OEM stuff.

 

Intel will give you an advantage in gaming due to the large caches but AMD can probably offer more for the price of one Core 2 Duo. No offense but if I was you, which right now seems to be quite close as i am buying a new due to outdated equipment (AGP, DDR, Socket 478), so if i was id consider buying a new pc altogether, unless you already have PCIe but because Intels are very pricey a good mother board and a E6750 cost me pretty much the same as a CrossFire Enable motherboard (pretty good ASUS) a 4400+ , 2GB 800 MHz A-Data Extreme Edition RAM. ....