suggestions for a new motherboard

[FreakaBoo9]

I'm a computer graphics student...and have been slowly upgrading my computer and I need a new motherboard/processor.  

Right now My computer has:

Asus p4t motherboard
pentium4 1.4ghz processor
1gig of ram
an ati All in wonder 9700 pro card


Also...Right now I dont have enough slots on my motherboard for all the drives I have.  
I just bought a new harddrive and a dvd burner...
I also have a zip drive and my original cd burner, and my old harddrive.  I can only have 4 or 5 drives connected.  

Also, I think i still want a pentium processor...but I'm open to suggestions

[dl65]

FreakaBoo9.....How many IDE devices do you currently have installed ? Sounds like one hard drive and one cd-rw and you wish to add one new hard drive and one new cd/dvd burner......is that correct?  so far so good.....now your zip drive ..is it a USB connection ?
This configuration should work with your original mobo.
How many pci slots do you require? You should decide what you want to use for a processor and then the rest of your questions will be answered. Most of the new mobo have at least 5 0r 6 pci slots as well as 1 agp and I believe a wireless slot .

hope this is some help

dl65  

[FreakaBoo9]

I added the new harddrive and burner....the zip drive is internal....everthing is internal...basically i have 5 devices...and two slots to put them in...two devices to a cable...leaves me one space short of connecting all my drives.  

Im assuming i was just going to stay with a pentium processor unless someone can convince me otherwise.  

also I need a motherboard that I can start with a gig of ram if not two and be able to upgrade...

I am a computer graphics major and do a lot of 3-d stuff...using lightwave and soon maya...once i can transition myself...

[Raptor]

Is the 9700 8X AGP?

I would make certain that the motherboard supports 8X AGP if you work with 3D graphics.

Extra RAM is nice but necessary unless you enjoy processing power demaning games. 1024MB DDR RAM should be more than enough for other tasks. No reason to go above that unless you've won the lottery.

I'd stick with Pentium - their processors donot get as hot as AMD ones but may cost a tad more. If you had no problem with your Pentium processor, there's no reason not to stick with Pentium. Unless you like a far too hot processor. (AMD..)

Perhaps you should look into external devices if you're not into upgrading your system.

[FreakaBoo9]

Actually if I render on my computer it could use more than a gig of ram...or if I do any long scenes with higher polygon models....

yea i knew I needed an agp 8x slot on my card...

Also as far as the externals go....I dont see the point in spending more money...i just thought it would be nice to not have to swap out dvds and cds that I burn...and if there's a way to internally hook up 2 hd, 2 disk drives, and a zip drive I'd like to know....

[FreakaBoo9]

Also....I've installed pretty much all the components aside from the motherboard.....do u think I'd be ok to swap that out on my own or should I have someone else do it?

[Computer_Commando]

Actually if I render on my computer it could use more than a gig of ram...or if I do any long scenes with higher polygon models....

yea i knew I needed an agp 8x slot on my card...

Also as far as the externals go....I dont see the point in spending more money...i just thought it would be nice to not have to swap out dvds and cds that I burn...and if there's a way to internally hook up 2 hd, 2 disk drives, and a zip drive I'd like to know....

3-D parametric modeling, rendering, graphics processing require all the power you can afford.  P4--3+GHz, 1GB RAM are not too much.  Don't forget the hard drive, look for 10,000rpm.  Get rid of the Zip drive, you don't need it.  Burn a CD or DVD.  You can install the motherboard, it's not hard.

[FreakaBoo9]

eh I need the zip drive as an extra file backup system...and its easy to take my *censored* to class.....so....aside from talking about other components does anyone have suggestions for a motherboard that i should get???

[Raptor]

Something really expensive and good.

There are dedicated webpages that write reviews regarding new computer hardware.