Cheapo Upgrade Board

I'm helping my friend upgrade, from his i850. He has a 1300mhz Williamette and Geforce 2. I'm looking for the cheapest choice, while still having support for DDR, LAN and integrated audio.
The problem is, that I have only a limited selection in the store I use. They carry mobos from these manufacturers:
Abit
Asus
Chaintech
Epox
Gigabyte
MSI

Which is the cheapest choice while still having the qualifications? Doesn't matter who makes the chipset, SIS, VIA or Intel. Ofcourse, some foresight for other upgrades is also good.

Mods: Does this belong to Intel motherboards, or is it fine here?

Is that a socket 423 or 478 m/b? Does it support 1066MHz memory and / or 533MHz FSB? Even if not, a 400MHz FSB Northwood at say 2GHz would be a huge upgrade. Otherwise, you're talking about a entirely new system, m/b, processor, memory... So, budget?

Socket 478 mobo, supporting 400mhz FSB. I was thinking of getting a 800FSB board, just to make sure that upgrades would be easier in the future. Budget? Lets try to keep it around €100 (about same in USD, Finland has higher prices than newegg).
The memory will be upgraded from RD PC800 to PC3200. Its a slow process of upgrading.
Hopefully I can scavenge some of the parts for my own rigs .

For upgrading the m/b to 800MHz FSB to be worthwhile, you'll have to upgrade the processor as well. Not sure what prices are like in Europe, but you'll be hardpressed to be a decent m/b and new P4 (plus DDR) for that price. If you want a cheap upgrade, and that's a socket 478 m/b, then a 2GHz or faster Northwood will be a huge upgrade. Perhaps some more RDRAM will help as well. Depending on the particular clock gen on the m/b, it might be possible to significantly OC the FSB, in which case a 1.6A or 1.8A processor would be a good choice.

I just want to upgrade the mobo to support DDR. Then, in a while, they will also upgrade the cpu and grakka.

The problem is, even if you're going to use the old processor temporarily, there's no m/b that supports both DDR and RDRAM. Therefore you're going to have to get a new m/b and DDR at the same time. I don't think that's going to fit your budget.

The DDR has its own budget, €100 is just for the mobo.

Edit: I'm looking at the Epox P4X400D. The only problem that I can see is that the chipset is by VIA, and I've heard some bad things on how these perform. This rig won't be OC'ed.

Bleh don't go with a Via chipset if you want an 800 fsb p4 motherboard. The only worthwhile chipset to buy are intel solutions.

My recommendations are either an Asus P4P800 or an Abit IS7-E or Abit IS7, all based on the 865PE chipset. The only downgrade from the 875P chipset is that it doesn't officially have "PAT", but each manufacturer basicly found a way to implement the technology unofficially and now the 865PE chipset performs at the same level as their older brother, Canterwood.

I wouldn't recommend Epox as they are RMA machines.

Yeah, I was looking at the 865PE boards, since I have one (IS-7), but problem is, that most likely, the next upgrade will be a completely new rig. That means that this comp will only serve as a platform for their 400mhz P4, meaning I don't need 800mhz FSB. Also, newer boards also are a waste because with 400mhz procs, you can only run memory at 266mhz.

I'll try to talk them around to buying a newer board, so they can just swap it into the new rig later on.

In that case the ASUS P4PE is a nice m/b. Officially supports PC2700, although only a single channel. Could probably handle a fair OC.

Bensa,

Are you sure it's a P4 1300 socket 478? Cos Intel's website says there is no such beast - socket 478 starts from P4 1.4 GHz.

So please check again.

If your friend does have a Socket 478 Willamette, stay away from 865PE/865G/875P chipset based boards - they only support Northwood processors.

Try to avoid via or sis chipset boards; you'll be better off with an Intel 845D/845E/845PE/845GE/845GV based board. 845GE and 845GV have the integrated graphics (no AGP slot for 845GV based board).

Chaintech, Gigabyte, MSI - they might have some less pricey boards. However, I have no idea about Finland market.

MSI has a couple of affordable good models also: MS-6580 845G Max(845G chipset), MSI 845 Ultra-C (845D chipset) or MSI 845PE Max.

An 845GV based model selling in US for under $65 is the Gigabyte GA-8I845GV. ANother board u might want to check out is the GA-8IG (845G) - this one is has an AGP slot for an add-on graphics card.

Yeah, Im going with a 845 chipset. This machine will end up just as a coding machine for the father whos a programmer, and some light webstuff, excel/word.