Which motherboard technology for a new DAW?

H

HHart

New member
I am about to spec, buy and build a new DAW to take the place of my ageing P166MMX which is collapsing under the strain of modern software

But the current motherboard situation seems very tricky. BX has reached the end of its life, and though there seem to be very good BX boards about the place they are yesterdays news. I am still suspicious about anything from VIA, and my audio/MIDI software manufacturers specify Intel CPUs. The Intel ixxx chipsets are widely regarded as less than desirable for a range of reasons ...................

What to buy? Shall I stick with a top BX board like perhaps an Asus CUBX, Abit BE6-II-100, or Soyo SY-6BA+100; take a leap in the dark with an Intel ixxx; or buy VIA and keep my fingers firmly crossed?

Can anyone suggest what I should buy to ensure both good performance now and a sensible upgrade path in the future? I don't overclock, all I need is speed and 100% stability and reliability.

Regards

HHart
UK
 
It looks like the CUBX is the best choice in single CPU mobos. It would be my choice if I went the single path. As far as I can see from reviews etc., BX is still the way to go but I popped the same chipset question in my mobo-thread.
 
While I agree that VIA has had a poor past reputation, I have found the new VIA Apollo Pro 133A chipset to be excellant. I purchased a ASUS P3V4X motherboard for my DAW and its working great. Also has a very nice BIOS that lets you tweak all types of settings with no jumpers. And its about the only chipset around to give you FSB 133 performance without overclocking. If fact I liked the motherboard so much that I am purchasing it in quantity for my (dayjob) company. About 30 units so far with no problems.
 
Does the Intel 815E work well? I would be very reluctant to buying an 8xx based mobo. Maybe they got it right this time but I won't be the first one to find out.

The Abit BX133-RAID looks interesting as well. I've seen a few good reviews and the built in RAID controller seems to hold up well. It supports RAID0+1 right off the shelf. Nice. However, one of the largest computer part stores stopped selling Abit boards a few weeks ago due to shoddy (varying) quality.
 
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