| I recently decided to upgrade my Pentium III | | | | |
| 800 MHz machine, which at the time was being | | | | |
| used as a gentoo server. I am and most | | | | |
| likely will always be a very big fan of Abit | | | | |
| and Asus motherboards. Simply because their | | | | |
| robust features, scalability and just all out | | | | Drivers installed and I log in to the first |
| performance. However at the time I did not | | | | account, once in game everything looked |
| feel like spending more than $200 to upgrade | | | | great, it was smooth no problems what so |
| this old server that hardly runs anything | | | | ever. I then ran the second copy of camelot |
| anymore except as an archive for older files | | | | and logged in. Things became a bit choppy |
| which I don't use anymore either. So I opted | | | | but nothing that I didn't expect. I left the |
| out to go a different path. I strolled about | | | | machine on and started the timer. Here is |
| a computer store and came about a Biostar | | | | some information for you on the background |
| P4M800-M7A Motherboard combo. Now being in | | | | networking of MMORPG games. These games are |
| the computer industry for about 15 years, | | | | pretty network intensive and unless your |
| biostar unfortunately in the early years had | | | | network card runs well you will go linkdead |
| quite a few too many problems for me and I | | | | often. Wether you have a fiber connection or |
| completely left them out. However I finally | | | | a DSL line it does not matter. I started |
| decided to give it a shot. The motherboard | | | | doing laundry and inbetween had the |
| comes bundled with an Intel Celeron D | | | | characters run around through heavily |
| Processor, which is pre-mounted on the | | | | populated areas. To check on the memory leak |
| motherboard. I walked over 3 feet picked up | | | | as well as to prevent from the accounts |
| a good cpu cooler. Then walked 5 more feet | | | | logging out automatically due to leaving them |
| and picked up a stick of 512MB DDR ram. And | | | | unattended. After about 4 hours of testing |
| a new ATX Power supply. Motherboard was $80, | | | | the machine was still up and running, |
| Ram was $45 CPU Cooler $25, and the new power | | | | suprized by this I started running the |
| supply $40. All out I spent just a little | | | | characters around more and testing frame |
| less than $200 for a practically new | | | | rates etc. I could notice a bit of graphics |
| machine.Very skeptical I now head home to | | | | and video lag, this was not at all bad |
| install this new hardware. Very easy | | | | however since I have seen much worse in much |
| installation as with most. Installed the CPU | | | | shorter times on higher level machines. 2 |
| cooler with the heat transfer gel it was | | | | Hours 19 minutes later the machine crashed |
| supplied. Mounted the motherboard in the | | | | while going through 2 zones at the same time. |
| case and installed the power supply. Then | | | | |
| installed the RAM and all the cables. I was | | | | |
| now just about done. I started the machine | | | | |
| up went through the basic CMOS setup and | | | | |
| configured everything as it should be. At | | | | |
| this time I was using all motherboard based | | | | |
| resources. Sound is a 16 bit full duplex | | | | This now has completely surpassed my |
| AC'97 Rev 2.3 compatible six- channel audio | | | | expectations of my new machine which I paid |
| system. I set that up and also ran the cat 5 | | | | less than 200 dollars for. Before the video |
| cable to the motherboard. Now with past | | | | card install that is.Bottom line for this |
| experience I normally never use motherboard | | | | article is : If you can't afford to spend the |
| based networking due to so many issues and | | | | big bucks to get the biggest and the best, |
| problems that come about when doing so. | | | | then the Biostar Combo Motherboards might be |
| However it was a test run so I figured it | | | | what you need. So far I now own 2 of these |
| would be worth it to see how things run. | | | | combo motherboards, I had been so impressed |
| | | | with it that 1 was not enough!The Motherboard |
| | | | Model and Information follows below :Biostar |
| | | | P4M800-M7 A |
| | | | |
| | | | VIA P4M800/VT8237R+ Socket 775 |
| Went to my online store ordered a new copy | | | | |
| of Windows XP Professional, and used my | | | | Micro ATX |
| current stock copy of Windows XP Pro to | | | | |
| install it on the new hardware. Everything | | | | FSB 800 |
| went smooth and easy. Now my type of testing | | | | |
| is not quite the same as that of most by | | | | DDR 400 |
| using utilities to test the machines. I | | | | |
| rather use a real environment test. For this | | | | Video |
| I decided to use Dark Age of Camelot - | | | | |
| Darkness Rising expansion. Why would I do | | | | 6 CH Audio |
| this you might ask? Well if you log 2 | | | | |
| accounts into Camelot by alt tabbing it | | | | 8 USB 2.0 |
| creates a small memory leak. The better | | | | |
| motherboards that I have tested run about 8 | | | | Lan |
| hours alt tabbed on 1 gig of ram without | | | | |
| crashing or major lag etc. Where as machines | | | | 3 PCI |
| with 512MB take about 2 to 3 hours to fail. | | | | |
| Installed Camelot and noticed that the | | | | ATA 133 |
| onboard screen card was not at all | | | | |
| sufficient, which by any means I should have | | | | 2DDR (2 gig max) |
| expected. So I installed a Radeon 9600 Card | | | | |
| into the machine for the test 256 MB DDR | | | | 2 SATA/RAID |
| version. It should be more than sufficient | | | | |
| to run this. Keeping in mind that this | | | | AGP 8XIf I had to give this motherboard a |
| machine is still only a Celeron with 512MB | | | | score I'd give it 9 out of 10 for price |
| ram. My Pentium 4 3.4 Gig HT rig sometimes | | | | versus performance. |
| has problems playing 2 accounts Alt Tabbed. | | | | |