Board + Processor = Happy Gaming Goodness?

[Knightshade Dragon]

Any familiarity with these boards / chipset / processor?

ABIT "KV8" K8T800 Chipset Motherboard for AMD Athlon64 CPU -RETAIL
http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProductDesc.asp?description=13-127-177&depa=0

AMD Athlon 64 3200+, 1 MB L2 Cache
http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProductDesc.asp?description=19-103-413&depa=0

I usually go with Asus, but their newest board is horribly overpriced just to add wireless I already have...
Thoughts?  Concerns?  Horror stories?

[jimmyorr99]

none at all, good choice! i recently got a 3000+ with an A8NX-X (somthing like that) and its working like a charm.

[th'FOOL]

anytime I'm looking for a good mobo, I find what's on sale at fry's and do this:  http://www.google.com/search?q=ABIT+%22KV8%22+K8T800+review&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

[stiffler]

I have the Asus K8V-Deluxe with an Athlon 64 3400+.  It is an amazing system.

I didn't get the wireless addon, as I don't yet have any wireless gear (or a need for it).

[Fellow]

Abit and Asus are usually both sure bets. I've used both boards in the past, and have never run into problems with either one of them.

[Knightshade Dragon]

Well, thanks to Fry's having only open boxes to select from for Asus and Abit, I'm now running a Gigabyte board.   I fought like hell with this board to get it up and running as I kept getting error after error and drops to BSOD during XP install.  So out of pure anger and frustration I did the only thing I could in this situation...I called Gigabyte.  Seems that my SATA drives need me to find a working system and make floppys to install (a la SCSI) prior to XP install.  I also cannot use my Western Digital without removing the jumper from it and putting it on its own chain.  Thankfully this board supports 12 drives total, so its looking stable and VERY solid at this point.  XP boots so fast that the XP boot logo appears but never shows the blue bar, its already gone before that thing can move.  Ahhhh....can't wait to finish all my installs and upgrades, its gonna be beautiful!

Thanks to everyone for help selecting the board and processor, I'm not dissapointed.

[stiffler]

XP boots so fast that the XP boot logo appears but never shows the blue bar, its already gone before that thing can move.  Ahhhh....can't wait to finish all my installs and upgrades, its gonna be beautiful!

Isn't that awesome!  My A64 finishes loading Windows before my work machine finishes checking the RAID status.

SATA and RAID remain headaches when performing a clean install.  I wonder how casual users would ever figure it out.  I needed RAID drivers for my machine and I had to get out my dusty old laptop to get the drivers on a floppy.

What are your final specs?

[happydog]

SATA and RAID remain headaches when performing a clean install.  I wonder how casual users would ever figure it out.

I don't think many casual users will get a SATA/RAID setup just yet. And if they do the probably have someone to go to when they need a reinstall.

I have been thinking about jumping on the SATA drives. At this point I think HD speed is my biggest bottleneck so I would rather spend my money on that instead of on a new proccessor.