Motherboard ? (939 skt)

[pan4577]

Hi Everyone,
I am building my new computer and this time i ditched Intel and switched to AMD.
I bought following parts:-
3000+ processor (939 pin) - ZipZoomFly - 182$
Corsair DDR 3200 - Newegg - 80$
Chaintech 5900XT Video Card - Newegg - 174$
DVD Writer - NEC 16+/-X Dual Layer

I need some advice in purchasing MB.
Which one of these will be a best bet to buy. Not interested in OC.

MSI "K8N Neo2 Platinum" NVIDIA nForce3 ULTRA Chipset Motherboard For AMD Socket 939 CPU -RETAIL
[http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/...jsp?ProductCode=241143]

Asus A8V-Deluxe Via K8T800Pro Athlon 64(FX) Skt939 DDR ATX Motherboard w/Audio, Gigabit LAN, RAID/Serial ATA Retail (Rev 2.00)
[http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/...jsp?ProductCode=240412]

EPoX "EP-9NDA3+" NVIDIA nForce3 ULTRA Chipset Motherboard

I am reading in this forum that MSI has some problems in setting up initially. But has been also rated the best available MB for socket 939. What is true ? Which one should i go for Asus or MSI ? Please guide me.

bye

 

[yuri4281]

I love my MSI K8N NEO2 i've had no problems so far...

 

[bap4201]

good luck, if you decide on msi. I went through 2 of them. They are very quirky and unstable and I was only using stock speeds! Get the Asus A8V, you won't regret it. I even got better 3d benches with it over msi.

 

[Slik]

MSI has a history of making crappy motherboards, If you even get one that works I wouldn't expect it to last over a year.
Also MSI has bad customer support from what I hear.

I say either go for the Asus or Epox.

IMO, I like the Asus better - but both should perform well.

 

[Rhagz]

Go with the MSI if you can find one in stock.. they have been selling a lot lately. Some people just hate on them because "their friend's friend's brother built a computer and he overclocked his athlon 2500 to 4ghz and it fried". If you do some research you will see that MSI is on top of nearly every benchmark. The board looks great, the black PCB is is slick. It is a great board.. sure you may get bad one.. it happens with any hardware.. but in those very rare cases you can always get a replacement.

 

[stelleg151]

^^^^ Haha, sounds to me like an opinion thang. I would go with MSI if you want to OC, Asus if you dont.

 

[slpaulson]

I plan on getting an Asus soon.
MSI is kind of shady...

It sounds like the Epox also has it's bugs.

 

[Subhuman25]

Click here

 

[Pohemi]

Whatever you do....don't go for the Gigabyte 939 boards. They've been nothing but problems. I've got a GA-K8NSNXP-939 and can barely get it to run stable. My advice is go for the Asus even though it IS a Via chipset (lol). You could always upgrade down the road when the nForce4 boards hit the shelves.


GA-K8NSNXP-939(F5 bios)
AMD Athlon 64 3500
Corsair TwinX1024-3200XL
(2) WD Raptor 74gb sata drives in RAID 0
Maxtor 250gb 16mb cache sata drive
BFG GeForce 6800 Ultra OC
Thermaltake Xaser III
Windows XP Pro SP2

P.S. cRazYdood...you still in school?

 

[Icepick]

My two cents: After hanging around this forum for a few months it seems that a lot of people are having problems with ALL nforce3 socket 939 boards, regardless of manufacturer. It seems that the nforce3 chipset may be a bit rough around the edges.

I just bought an MSI K8N NEO2 and so far it has been running fine for two days. I won't recommend that one since I've not had it long enough to adequately judge it's performance. That said, I haven't had any problems with it so far(aside from a user error encountered when building it but we don't need to go there) and I'm happy with it.

There have been quite a few threads where this question has been posed. The ASUS A8V has been recommended many times and since that's a rev 2 board they should have several bugs worked out. It lacks some of the features of the nforce3 boards but they are popular within this community.

My advice to you is to use the forum's SEARCH function and find out what other members' experiences have been with each board. That's the best way to make your decision.

 

[gobucks]

I've seen tech sites claiming that the K8N NEO2 lies about its multipliers. They say it can only run the Hypertransport at 4X, and "stealth overclock" the FSB to make up for it. As a result, i've heard a lot of people have had stability issues without trying to overclock. I've also, heard great things about ASUS's motherboards, and the A8V is supposed to be pretty good. Of course, I've never used either, since I am still waiting for my nForce4, but that's just what I've heard.

 

[Subhuman25]

I can't complain about my MSI K8N Neo2 (yet) Flawless installation and running flawlessly sofar.
However,I don't overclock and choose stock settings for everything,as everything is intended to run!
I think MSI is gaining a bad rep. because of issues when overclocking mainly and a large portion also attributed to new owners not knowing the few install quirtks i.e. using SATA #1 or 2 for HD native support w/o drivers install disks,bios setttings (disabling FW FastWrites ) etc.
Then theres the DOA crowd,quite a few posts on that issue.I wonder how many of those were declared DOA because of unawareness of the set-up/installation quirks.
Altogether I'd say that MSI does have quality control issues,but on the other hand I've read about numerous problems with the ASUS & Gigabyte socket 939 NF3 offerings.
IMO the MSI is still the best choice overall.
Until 2nd generation NF3 socket 939 boards and initial offerings by other MB manufacturers i.e. DFI become available I'll recommend this MB.

On subject initial offerings of NF3 socket 939 MB's,whatever happened to DFI's LanParty Ultra-D NF3 socket 939 board that was revealed back on 4 June 04 on Tom's Hardware Guide?
I've been eagerly awaiting it's release and if it ever does become available,I think I'll jump on it.

 

[imported_Harbinger]

Originally posted by: flawlssdistortn
Ok, I don't know why some of you have been recommending the Gigabyte K8NSNXP-939 board. Obviously you don't own one. Let me just say that this board was released in a state comparable to a premature baby with a cocaine addiction.

that the best way to describe Gigabyte mobo

If you are interested on working on stock speeds without great overclocking and rich features along with great stability go for Asus A8V. If you want to overclock as much as you can Abit A8V is the best choice (that 3rd eye thingy is cool as well )

It seems that most ppl on these forums prefer nf3 over kt800, dunno why really. Via made a really good job with KT800(pro). Their only flaw is problematic (on some mobos/revisions) pci/agp lock. If you get Asus A8V rev2.0 pci/agp lock should be working perfectly. I run mine at 220htt and no problems whatsoever, which means lock is indeed working good.

 

[imported_gimper48]

Do not buy an Epox board. Support is horrible.

9NDA3+=bad juju