Hi Pete,
"Pete" wrote in message
s.com...
[snip]
Having decided to stick with AMD processors as they provide the best bang
for the buck, my challenges really started. Hence this post.

What I am looking for is a first class, very reliable mobo to take a
2600+ (decided that this was the best value around at the moment - please
let me know if I am wrong).
Asus Nforce2 mobo might suit:-)
I anticipate paying around the same price for the mobo as the proc but am
happy to be convinced to pay more of less.

Asus A7N8X dlx mobo about 90 quid or so in the UK

I suspect that I will upgrade the board before I have a proc using FSB400.

NForce 2 chipsets support FSB400

Must have support for more than 4 eide drives.

Above mobo has 4xEide133 support as well as SATA Raid
and Firewire, USB1 & 2 with 2 lan nics built in and sound
onboard equiv to 5.1 or better.

SATA might be a worthwhile addition.
LAN on-board might be useful.

see above:-)

Audio and video onboard, not too useful, as far as I am aware(?)
There are a few NF2 chipset mobos with onboard video
I am not a gamer with high 3D needs.
A slew of ports for all of the options like firewire etc is needed.
Soft tweaking of mobo parameters is preferred to links and switches.

Above mobo has all that you want incl the ability to o/c if you ever need
too. You will need a decent AGP4x or 8x Gfx card tho.. Be warned it will
NOT take an AGP 1 or 2x card..

In addition it has dual chan ddr support as well as single. 3 mem slots for
up to 1.5 gig:-)

Have a look at the Asus web site and also www.anandtech.com and/or
www.tomshardware.com for reviews on current mobo's etc..
Please also be aware that sometime at the end of this year or into
next year Amd64 cpu's should be out and there will no doubt be
a plethora of mobo's to suit... Nforce3 pro chipsets are already
shipping etc.. Add M$ Windows support and its probably
gonna be the way to go in the near future.. so if you can hang
on until Q1 or 2 cof next year for a new rig it would make
sense to do so:-)

Cheers,
RD