[Verios]

HI everyone, Iam considering upgrading my MB at the moment and Iam curious to know if any of you could recommend the Asus A7N8X-X. I currently have an Epox 8k3a MB and well it dosent have 8x agp, etc... and Iam looking for a decent priced upgrade from the stores in my area and so far from what Ive seen my cheapest opion is the Asus A7N8X-X (student budget heh) It's $106 canadian here. So what do you think? specs below.

Processor Socket A for AMD® Athlon™XP/ Athlon™/ Duron™ 600MHz ~ 3000+
Thoroughbred/Barton core CPU ready
Chipset North Bridge: NVIDIA® nForce2 400
South Bridge: NVIDIA® nForce2 MCP
FSB 400 / 333 / 266 / 200 MHz
Memory DDR 400
3 x 184-pin DIMM Sockets
Max. 3 GB unbuffered PC3200/PC2700/PC2100/PC1600 non-ECC DDR RAM Memory
Expansion Slots 1 x AGP(1.5V only)
5 x PCI
IDE Ports 2 x UltraDMA 133/100/66/33
Audio Realtek® ALC650 6CH w/built in HP amplifier

LAN 1 Ports
MCP integrated NVIDIA® MAC + Realtek® 8201BL PHY

Special Features Power Loss Restart
Q-Fan Technology
STR (Suspend-to-RAM)
C.O.P. (CPU Overheating Protection)
CPU Throttle
Back Panel I/O Ports 1 x Parallel
1 x Serial
1 x PS/2 Keyboard
1 x PS/2 Mouse
1 x Audio I/O
4 x USB 2.0

Internal I/O Connectors 1 x USB 2.0 connector support additional 2 USB 2.0 ports
CPU/Chassis FAN connectors
Game Connector(optional)
20 pin ATX power connector
IDE LED connector, power LED connector
WOR, WOL, Chassis Intrusion, SM Bus, SIR
Headphone (optional)
Front MIC
CD/AUX/Modem audio in
Front Panel Audio connector (optional)
BIOS Feature 2Mb Flash ROM, Award BIOS, TCAV, PnP, DMI2.0, DMI, Green
Industrial Standard PCI 2.2, USB 2.0
Manageability DMI 2.0, WOR, WOL, Chassis Intrusion
Support CD Drivers
ASUS® PC Probe
Trend Micro™PC-cillin 2002 anti-virus software with Windows® XP support
ASUS LiveUpdate Utility
Accessories I/O Shield
User's Manual
UltraDMA 133 cable
FDD cable
UltraDMA 133/100/66 cable

Form Factor ATX Form Factor
12" x 9.6" (30.5cm x 24.5cm)

[Vampyromaniac]

the A7N8X-X is a decent board, but is AGP 8x your only reason for a new mobo?

[Verios]

That and supports faster memory...it's Nforce2, etc..

Here's the motherboard I currently have:

EpoX 8K3A

Processor - AMD Socket A (Athlon/Duron) support
- FSB 200/266MHz support

Chipset VIA KT333 - VT8367 north bridge
- VT8233A south bridge

System memory - Three 184-pin slots for DDR SDRAM DIMM
- Maximal memory capacity: 3Gb DDR SDRAM
- PC1600/PC2100/PC2700 memory support

USB support -Two built-in and two external USB ports

Expansion slots - Six 32-bit PCI 2.2 slots

Overclocking possibilities - CPU core voltage and memory voltage selection
- Clock multiplier selection
- FSB frequency variation from 100MHz up to 255MHz with a step of 1MHz

Onboard sound - Full AC'97-compatible soft sound controller

Disk subsystem - Onboard UltraDMA133 IDE controller (two Bus Mastrer IDE UltraDMA66/33 channels with support of at most 4 ATAPI devices)
- LS-120 / ZIP / ATAPI CD-ROM support

BIOS - 2Mbit Flash ROM
- Award BIOS v6.00 with Enhanced ACPI, DMI, Green, PnP Features and Trend Chip Away Virus support

Accessories - One FDD port
- Two serial ports and one parallel port
- PS/2 mouse and keyboard ports
- Infrared port (built-in IrDa TX/RX connector)

Monitoring - CPU and chipset temperature monitoring
- Voltage monitoring
- Cooler ratio monitoring + Magic Health technology

Power management - ACPI/APM
- Wake on -modem, -mouse, -keyboard, -LAN

Power supply - Standard 20-pin ATX power connector (ATX PW)

Dimensions - ATX Form Factor, 305mm x 245mm (12" x 9.63")

[Fantasma]

Well, It was my second option after my Abit nf7-s

[Electroe]

What's your purpose?
With the Epox 8K3A, I think you're not in the low end user, at least not at the edge.
I'd suggest you save for later and upgrade to see bigger performance leaps.

[Verios]

Found another one possibly, how's the Abit NF7 MB? (I can grab this one for $130, or I can get the ASUS A7N8X (not A7N8X-X) for $123) Which of the 2 do you suggest?

Features


Processor
- Supports AMD-K7 Duron™/Athlon™/Athlon™ XP Socket A with 200/266/333/400MHz FSB Processors


Chipset
- NVIDIA nForce2 SPP chipset with MCP
- Supports Advanced Configuration and Power Management Interface (ACPI)
- Accelerated Graphics Port connector supports AGP 8X/4X (0.8V/1.5V)


Dual DDR
- Dual DDR architecture combines two independent 64-bit memory controller
- Dual DDR400 provides up to 6.4GB/s bandwidth for system memory


Memory
- Three 184-pin DIMM sockets
- Supports 3 DIMM DDR 200/266/333 (Max. 3GB)
- Supports 2 DIMM DDR 400 (Max. 2GB)


Audio
- 6-Channel AC 97 CODEC on board
- Professional digital audio interface supports S/PDIF Out


System BIOS
- SoftMenu™ Technology
- Award Plug-and-Play BIOS


LAN
- On board 10/100Mb LAN Physical layer interface
- On board 10/100Mb Operation supports ACPI & Wake on LAN


Internal I/O Connectors
- 1 x AGP8X/4X slot, 5 x PCI slots
- 1 x Floppy Port supports up to 2.88MB
- 2 x Ultra DMA 33/66/100/133 Connectors
- 2 x USB 2.0 headers
- 1 x CD-IN, 1 x IrDA


Back Panel I/O
- 1 x PS/2 Keyboard, 1 x PS/2 mouse
- 2 x Serial, 1 x Parallel
- 1 x S/PDIF Output
- Audio connectors (Front Speaker, Line-in, Mic-in, Center/Sub, Surround Speaker)
- 2 x USB 2.0, 1 x RJ-45 LAN Connector



Miscellaneous
- ATX form factor
- Hardware monitoring - Including Fan speeds, Voltages, System environment temperature

[Vampyromaniac]

both those boards are great, but I think the Abit is the more popular board around here.

[Fantasma]

As I told you before, I like my NF7-s