AboutBenedict Brand-Cotti Expertise General questions about Hardware selection, PC self-building. POST issues and boot problems, are all fine. I am also confident answering questions regarding Linux based systems.
Apple Mac is my current weakness, but I'm happy to help where I can.
Experience 15 years Building, Repairing and upgrading PC's and workstations. 5 years Supporting international customers whilst integrating a fixed wireless access systems into their networks. This includes directly training Engineers of various nationalities about our (VectaStar) equipment.
Education/Credentials Data Communications and Telecommunications at Degree Level
Question QUESTION: Hello,
My PC is now fairly outdated (with a 2.52 GHZ Pentium 4 processor 512 MB RAM and a GeFroce FX 5500 graphics card) in comparison with modern gaming standards which call for masses of GPU and memory. I am looking for the most cost-effective motherboard that will support PCIe graphics cards and Intel Core 2 Duo, can you please suggest some common and well-known models that possess these characterstics.
Thanks in advance,
Ali
ANSWER: Hi Ali,
I don't know if you have any preference regarding manufacturer?
I have tried many and found them to be of pretty equal on reliability.
One board that is particularly highly regarded is the
Biostar P4M900 Micro 775
Here in the UK it is available for around £25.60 plus delivery.
A feature packed board for your money is the
Foxconn 945G7AD-8KS2 Socket 775
Here in the UK it is available for around £26.99 plus delivery.
The advantages of this board are the Memory capacity being up to 8GB, CPU support for Core 2 Duo Extreme and the super fast SATA II support.
If you're planning to run Windows XP, then the extra memory capacity doesn't matter, XP will only recognise 3.25GB regardless of how much you have installed. It would be useful if and when you decide to migrate to a Vista Operating System.
My choice right now would be the Foxconn.
Both these and many others are available in the UK from
www.cclonline.com
When ordering, select the cheapest postage option available (It will arrive next day anyway).
I hope this helps
There is an even cheaper Biostar,
---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------
QUESTION: Hi,
Sorry I forgot to mention the "preferance of brand". Here in Pakistan, all the motherboards from various makers aren't availible in the market and those include Biostar and Foxconn. Can you please suggest some motherboards made by Gigabyte, Asus, Trend Micro or Intel as only these are availible in the market.
Answer Hi Ali,
That being the case, I would go for the
Gigabyte GA-G31M-S2L
As it is Dual and Quad core compatible and will work with DDR2 667MHz and 800MHz memory. Being future proof is all important these days, as technology is moving so fast, you don't want to be out of date in a matter of months.
