best mainboard for a64?

[Strawa]

Im buying a new comp and I'd like to go with best mainboard for a64 (maybe 3200+, not certain yet).
The best I mean, performance, stability and overclocking (not extra feature i will never use )
I would apriciate any hints, maybe about cpu too (clockability, multiplier etc) socket 939 ofcourse
Thank you!

 

[FlirtyToad]

I just did the same analysis, although our requirements probably differ in some areas.

Anyway, I narrowed it down to 2 mainboards for AMD socket 939:
1) Asus A8V Deluxe (remember to get revision 2.0, since some problems with earler rev. 1.0)
2) MSI Neo2 something based on Nforce3 chipset

In the end I went with the Asus, since I read about too many dead MSI boards (due to lack of quality control?). Having said this, the Asus has also problems, you will read about the infamous random freeze-ups. I ran into this initially but (fingers crossed) but solved this problem with new VIA 4-in-1 drivers and also switching to the Microsoft Unified AGP driver instead of the VIA.

Also advice you to get AMD 64 based on Winchester 90nm core since this runs substantially cooler than 130nm cores.

Depends also what your local shops have.

Finally the new PCI-Express mainboards are just coming out, if you want to be an early adopter.

In the end your decision of course.

Good luck.

 

[Arclite]

I've had nothing but problems with VIA chipsets in the past so personally I'll never buy another one. Maybe they've improved but it's going to take more then one decent chipset from them to ever go back.

That said, the MSI Neo2 is a great board but it has not been trouble free. The problems I've had with it have mainly been software related. Drivers not working right, RAID setup causing problems and games freezing completely then working again a few seconds later. After about a week of having the board I now have it the way I want it, overclocked nicely and stable.

If you're not going to upgrade your video card to pci-e in the near future I recommend the Neo2 paired with a 3000-3500+ Winchester.

 

[ts3433]

MSI's NF3 offering is pretty good; you can also consider Epox's two boards that are priced a bit lower. They seem to overclock just as well (300 FSB isn't out of reach).

 

[lockmac]

Asus A8V is probably the best. I picked one up a few days ago, and not only is it feature packed, it is fairly cheap and the performance is outstanding

 

[Azndude51]

i'm going with the k8n neo2 platinum. I'm getting it with a amd64 3200 in a monarch computer combo so they will pretest it and load the latest bios in it for me.

 

[CraigRT]

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[Strawa]

Thx for help! I am stucked with AGP card (fx5700p turbo from Albatron) so I guess I'll consider MSI board for now. Personally, I have good experiance with VIA boards so I wouldnt hesitate to buy VIA again. I'm going to do some research about these boards You have recomended, also 3200+ Winchester is the choice, ofcourse Soltek K8TPro-939 seems to be a good one, I hope they are updating bios regulary! (bad experiance with FIC bios). Sorry for editing, I'm keep pushing this enter button all the time

 

[razorweb]

I would highly reccommend NOT buying the A8V board, unless you prefer video posting problems, a finicky board, and minimal/nonexistent tech support.

 

[slpaulson]

Originally posted by: razorweb
I would highly reccommend NOT buying the A8V board, unless you prefer video posting problems, a finicky board, and minimal/nonexistent tech support.

I haven't been able to get mine to boot either.
I just sent it back to zipzoomfly and hopefully the replacement will work fine.

 

[theangel24]

get teh dfi lanparty ut 250gb for socket 754. best board there is