which board?

grunt · Post by **grunt** » Tue May 24, 2005 6:18 am

Need to upgrade mine, after building for others.. Wanting to get the Venice cpu (currently using a 2500m 2.4ghz/460fsb with dfi lanparty 2) and wanted more cpu power. Being as I have a 2 month old 6800gt (asus) which is AGP and am wanting to wait for buying a new VGA card till I build a complete new monster when I get back from this deployment. So I looked at 939 boards and Im not sure which is better since I cant find a nf4 board with agp its either the abit av8 (not sure which version of its better, there is 3 @ newegg) and the MSI K8N NEO2 PLATINUM. Would probably go with the xp-90 HS and not sure of which fan to use. Water cooling is an option being as I have the new Armor tower from thermaltake va8000swa. Im still using the 1024xmspro which I won from here but have been interested in the ocz and mushkin. Wanting to o/c so what should I do about ram? Help!

Bio-Hazard · Post by **Bio-Hazard** » Tue May 24, 2005 8:58 am

I'd wait till you get back, DFI is coming out with a NF3 Ultra LanParty board that has AGP. You'll be much happier with the DFI board over the AV8 I think.

Here's a link to the thread where I read about it.

http://www.hardwareasylum.com/forums/sh ... d.php?t=64

Post by **FZ1** » Tue May 24, 2005 9:37 am

I have the ABIT AV8 and I'm not that overly impressed. I was thinking of upgrading to a new board with AGP & NVIDIA chipsets. This looks perfect, thanks Bio-Hazard. Unfortunately, there is no news of this on their site (at least that I could find) so no specific release date yet.

Bio-Hazard · Post by **Bio-Hazard** » Tue May 24, 2005 9:45 am

I also have a Abit AV8 in my now back-up rig, it was pretty good when I got it, but so much more new and better has come out from back them. One main reaso I have a NF4 board is because I walked into a trade for my X800XL that I couldn't pass up and it was cheaper to get a new MoBo than a better AGP video card......................

grunt · Post by **grunt** » Wed May 25, 2005 1:40 pm

Alrighty then, guess I will *try* to wait till I get back. Of course that wont be till '06 sometime. It will probably be some nf5 boards by then

Post by **Apoptosis** » Tue May 31, 2005 12:09 pm

AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Venice = $196
EPoX EP-9NDA3J Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce3 Ultra = $87

Total $283

To keep costs down i'd just grab a 3200+ and a cheap 939 board till the new ones come out. You're looking at $283 shipped in the states for a Venice platform keeping all your other old parts and HSF.

Post by **FZ1** » Mon Jun 06, 2005 12:06 pm

I see they have a 754 version of this out...no 939 that I could find yet

gvblake22 · Post by **gvblake22** » Wed Jun 22, 2005 4:34 pm

The DFI NF4 Ultra-D is probably the best s939 motherboard available right now. Next in line would probably be the NF4 Ultra offerings from Asus, Abit, Epox, Chaintech, and Gigabyte.

LVCapo · Post by **LVCapo** » Wed Jun 22, 2005 4:40 pm

While I'll agree that the DFI NF4 Ultra/SLI boards are far and away the best socket 939 boards available, I won't include ASUS or ABIT on that list as my experience with their socket 939 boards are crap. A close second is the MSI Neo 4 Platinum, vewry good performance with built in Soundblaster Audigy sound.

gvblake22 · Post by **gvblake22** » Wed Jun 22, 2005 4:47 pm

capper5016 wrote:While I'll agree that the DFI NF4 Ultra/SLI boards are far and away the best socket 939 boards available, I won't include ASUS or ABIT on that list as my experience with their socket 939 boards are crap. A close second is the MSI Neo 4 Platinum, vewry good performance with built in Soundblaster Audigy sound.

I only included them in the list because I have owned both Asus and Abit's Socket A nForce2 solutions and have decent experiences. I didn't include MSI only because I've heard most people complainging about problems with their MSI boards, but on the other hand, it is a very popular board and have also seem some very satisfied MSI owners with some very nice results.

LVCapo · Post by **LVCapo** » Wed Jun 22, 2005 4:50 pm

I have never liked MSI boards, but I my friend bought one of their socket A boards and loves it, and the reviews have raved about their NEO 4 board.
In my opinion, and this is only my opnion, ABIT has slipped terribly since their IC7 series.......the ABIT Fatal1ty 925XE board was a dud, and I've heard the same of their 939 boards.
As to ASUS, their 939 boards got mixed reviews, and my personal experiences were not positive as I had to RMA three of their A8Vs.
I do however, love ASUSs 955X board, super stable, super performance.

gvblake22 · Post by **gvblake22** » Wed Jun 22, 2005 5:42 pm

capper5016 wrote:I have never liked MSI boards, but I my friend bought one of their socket A boards and loves it, and the reviews have raved about their NEO 4 board.
In my opinion, and this is only my opnion, ABIT has slipped terribly since their IC7 series.......the ABIT Fatal1ty 925XE board was a dud, and I've heard the same of their 939 boards.
As to ASUS, their 939 boards got mixed reviews, and my personal experiences were not positive as I had to RMA three of their A8Vs.
I do however, love ASUSs 955X board, super stable, super performance.

^^Good to know, thanks for the info.

One4yu2c · Post by **One4yu2c** » Wed Jun 22, 2005 8:38 pm

gvblake22 wrote:The DFI NF4 Ultra-D is probably the best s939 motherboard available right now. Next in line would probably be the NF4 Ultra offerings from Asus, Abit, Epox, Chaintech, and Gigabyte.

capper5016 wrote:While I'll agree that the DFI NF4 Ultra/SLI boards are far and away the best socket 939 boards available, I won't include ASUS or ABIT on that list as my experience with their socket 939 boards are crap. A close second is the MSI Neo 4 Platinum, vewry good performance with built in Soundblaster Audigy sound.

Keep in mind fellas that the original poster is looking for an AGP solution, which is nForce3 territory. The MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum is, my opinion, the hands down solution. I've generally favored Asus over the years for striking a balance between addressing the enthusiast and having reasonable pricing, but MSI just plain got it right starting with nF3. I've owned the Neo2 and was pleasantly surprised. Furthermore, I haven't been impressed with the customer service at Asus, and that should always play somewhat of a factor.

To jump into the side discussion with regards to nF4, the top two choices gotta be the DFI and MSI. Which one is preferable depends largely on who you ask. I know Rich is in love with the DFI and he's certainly not alone. I would favor the DFI if one was going to compliment it with voltage hungry RAM (ala OCZ VX or Mushkin Redline). It's a tweaker's dream and the only nF4 mobo capable of suppling the necessary voltage to make those sticks shine without a volt mod or DDR Booster. It's tough to argue against the plethora of options and low timings at high speeds.

If using non-voltage hungry RAM (TCCD/TCC5s), I swing slightly towards the MSI. Performance and overclocking ability are pretty much neck and neck between the two, but I give a slight feature edge to the Neo4. I don't *think* Rich went through this, but the DFI can take some veteran tweaking to get running in stable form. I've been helping a user over the last few days on MaxPC address this very issue with his recent DFI purchase and if you're not an experienced user, there is a lot of potential for headache here (though this could be argued for ANY mobo/inexperienced user combination).

The bottom line though is in nF4 territory, you really can't make a wrong decision between the two. As for the rest (Asus, Abit, Gigabyte, Chaintech, Epox, etc) they simply aren't on my radar this round. For anyone interested, Anandtech has a nice roundup between the big four nF4 offerings - LINK

LVCapo · Post by **LVCapo** » Wed Jun 22, 2005 11:39 pm

Like I said, my friend bought the MSI board and loved it, for the price itis a very good alternative.

Bio-Hazard · Post by **Bio-Hazard** » Thu Jun 23, 2005 9:34 am

The DFI NF3 AGP board is out....so the choice is clearly DFI LanParty.

gvblake22 · Post by **gvblake22** » Thu Jun 23, 2005 11:17 am

Bio-Hazard wrote:The DFI NF3 AGP board is out....so the choice is clearly DFI LanParty.

Wow, indeed they have, I totally missed that release!

http://www.dfi.com.tw/Product/xx_produc ... LP&SITE=NA

Looks liek a goody

grunt · Post by **grunt** » Sat Jun 25, 2005 4:42 am

Awesome, glad its fnally out. For 126$ its kinda steap but I feel better about it since I dont have to replace my 6800gt for little to no performance gain. Besides I want that venice core.. Watching all you guys talk about it and me sitting over here with my nf2 board I feel like the fat kid on the bench... Not anymore!!!

grunt · Post by **grunt** » Sat Jun 25, 2005 5:15 am

..... So which ram would be better?? Noticed that redline stuff and I have been wanting to try some other ram being as I have only used corsair. So anyway I was looking at newegg and these are my two options for the board... Item#'s are below.
n82e16820146392
n82e16820146355

gvblake22 · Post by **gvblake22** » Sat Jun 25, 2005 8:05 am

grunt wrote:..... So which ram would be better?? Noticed that redline stuff and I have been wanting to try some other ram being as I have only used corsair. So anyway I was looking at newegg and these are my two options for the board... Item#'s are below.
n82e16820146392
n82e16820146355

If you are between those two products, I have to ask what motherboard you are running? Basically if you have a way to supply that RedLine stuff with 3.4v, then that would be your best choice. If you don't have a capable motherboard or do not have a DDR booster then I would go with the L2 V2 Mushkin in the black heatspreaders. It is based on TCCD chips and won't require any extra voltage (nothing over 2.9v) to hit high fsb's but it cannot much past 220-230 with 2-2-2 timings if you are lucky. The TCCD based modules like 2.5-3-3 or 3-4-4 timings to shine.
Hope that helps!

grunt · Post by **grunt** » Sat Jun 25, 2005 8:23 am

Well I am going with that dfi nf3 board...