I need some help picking out a new mobo

[cyber mouse45]

I need some help picking out a new mobo. I currently have an Asus A7V-266 that’s two weeks old, but there’s some things about it that I don’t like, and some other things on there that are kinda messed up I think. So I’m thinking about sending it back and getting a new one. But mobos are one of the few things that I know absolutely nothing about. So here are my questions:

1. What’s a good brand? (I would rather not go with Asus)

2. Then out of that brand, what’s a good board? ($90-$150)

3. Is that Nforce? any good? If so, I may want to get one with that so I don’t need to get a new graphics right away. (My Voodoo 5 just isn’t cutting it any more)

4. Do other brands aside form Asus come with the AwardBIOS?

5. Are there any mobos that take both DDR 2100 and pc133 SDRAM?

6. And why do Asus mobos look so ugly?


Whatever mobo I get needs to support an XP 1800+, DDR 2100 (a gig would be nice), it needs to be very good at oc’ing, it MUST have at least 3 USB ports, at least 5 PCI slots, and I would like it to have that RAID thing. (I’m not sure what it’s called) Other than that, I don’t have a clue of what I want or need. All this stuff about chipsets and whatnot is very confusing to me.

If you guys could help me out in any way, I would very much appreciate it. Thanks!!!

 

[Kato]

1. Soltek, Epox and Shuttle are all good brands.

2. the SL-75DRV5($115 at newegg) from Soltek is pretty good, but with no RAID. 8K3A+($115 at newegg) from Epox is good too, and it comes with RAID. both boards are cheap compare to other brands.

3.the Core in Nforce is Geforce2, if you are not a hardcore gamer, its enough. if you are, then i would suggest the Geforce3 ti200 or the coming soon G4 Ti4200(around $150 US$ maybe?).

4. not sure on this one.

5. i think most ECS takes both standards, but why would you go for pc133 SDRAM? they will bottleneck your XP1800+.

6. LOL, i've been wondering the same too. yukky green.

hope this help.

 

[NeoMoses]

I just bought the Epox 8K3A+. It looks to be a very good board, with all the features you need for overclocking.

FSB up to 200 MHz
1/5 and 1/6 dividers (so you can get 166 or 200 FSB in spec)
Huge range of voltage adjustments
Highpoint RAID

I'll let you know how I fare with it, as this will be my first Epox board.

 

[cyber mouse45]

I just bought the Epox 8K3A+. It looks to be a very good board, with all the features you need for overclocking.

I'll let you know how I fare with it, as this will be my first Epox board.

Thanks, that would be great if you could let me know how you like it.

Oh, does it have those holes for mounting water blocks on it??