MSI K8N Neo4 nForce4 Ultra Socket 939

[imported_maildude]

Originally posted by: GeezerMan

Originally posted by: maildude
Cool n Quiet should be listed under Cell Menu. There are two columns of options when you go into the bios it is in the second column. Hope this helps.

Thanks Maildude. I found it. I think it was under power management or something else in the original bios.

You are most welcome. Always glad to help out a fellow Geezer!

 

[GeezerMan]

Neighbor called late last night to say how much he liked his new PC built on this board. Of course, coming from a 6 year old Intel, I guess so. His son saw the Fry's deal in the paper of the same processor his dad used, the 4600+ X2 and the ECS KN1 Lite for 220.00. I told him to buy the combo at Fry's, sell the ECS board and get this MSI board instead. Now, this ECS board does have good reviews at Newegg, but I think the MSI is a better board. Do you guys agree? Neighbor's wife cooks dinner for me quite a bit, so I don't want to be poisoned due to bad advice.

 

[nyker96]

Originally posted by: GeezerMan
Neighbor called late last night to say how much he liked his new PC built on this board. Of course, coming from a 6 year old Intel, I guess so. His son saw the Fry's deal in the paper of the same processor his dad used, the 4600+ X2 and the ECS KN1 Lite for 220.00. I told him to buy the combo at Fry's, sell the ECS board and get this MSI board instead. Now, this ECS board does have good reviews at Newegg, but I think the MSI is a better board. Do you guys agree? Neighbor's wife cooks dinner for me quite a bit, so I don't want to be poisoned due to bad advice.

lol, I have to say I agree. If your neighbor needs to OC then MSI is better, some people here is running it at 300HTT. But if your neighbor is a stock runner then well, maybe that combo deal will be enough.

 

[GeezerMan]

Originally posted by: nyker96

Originally posted by: GeezerMan
Neighbor called late last night to say how much he liked his new PC built on this board. Of course, coming from a 6 year old Intel, I guess so. His son saw the Fry's deal in the paper of the same processor his dad used, the 4600+ X2 and the ECS KN1 Lite for 220.00. I told him to buy the combo at Fry's, sell the ECS board and get this MSI board instead. Now, this ECS board does have good reviews at Newegg, but I think the MSI is a better board. Do you guys agree? Neighbor's wife cooks dinner for me quite a bit, so I don't want to be poisoned due to bad advice.

lol, I have to say I agree. If your neighbor needs to OC then MSI is better, some people here is running it at 300HTT. But if your neighbor is a stock runner then well, maybe that combo deal will be enough.

Neighbor Bob and I don't overclock, at least I don't yet. As for the boy, sorry, young man, I don't think so. I suspect the quality is better on the MSI and the audio is the better chip on the MSI. Warranty is less though. Thanks for your response.

 

[Zap]

Originally posted by: GeezerMan
His son saw the Fry's deal in the paper of the same processor his dad used, the 4600+ X2 and the ECS KN1 Lite for 220.00. I told him to buy the combo at Fry's, sell the ECS board and get this MSI board instead. Now, this ECS board does have good reviews at Newegg, but I think the MSI is a better board. Do you guys agree?

Zap's ECS KN1 Lite motherboard mini review

It isn't a bad board and should be able to take the 4600+ to the limit because of the higher multiplier. The MSI board would be better if your CPU had a lower multiplier. Of course at default speeds this doesn't matter.

The ECS board doesn't have Firewire, if that matters. Anyways, you can always try it out and get the MSI board if the ECS board doesn't make the cut.

 

[GeezerMan]

Thanks Zap. Informative review by a respected member.

Well, neighbor Bob's son popped over to test drive my personal PC, AM2 3800+ X2 on a Biostar Tforce6100 board. He l really likes my PC, prefers DDR2 memory probably due to internet talk of DDR2 being much better, and offered to buy it for just about as much money as I have in it. I don't think he finds it as much fun as his dad and I in building them.

So, would you guys take a AM2 socket 3800+ X2 with DDR2 memory, or the socket 939 MSI K8N board here on discussion with a 4600+ X2 CPU and DDR memory? I guess it depends on if one wants to overclock or not. Also, from what I'm reading on the web, DDR2 does not add that much to performance. Interesting decision.

Thanks

 

[Zap]

I'd actually take the former because both would probably overclock to similar levels, plus I like the Tforce board better and have a liking for the mATX form factor. Otherwise, functionally they'd be really similar. The MSI board has Firewire if that's important. The Biostar board has IGP if that's important. For not overclocking the 4600+ of course has 400MHz over the 3800+, and yes DDR2 adds pretty much nothing for performance. Toss up.

I don't think he finds it as much fun as his dad and I in building them.

Heh, I like building 'em too.

 

[GeezerMan]

Thanks Zap. I know you come from it as a overclocker, as do most here. I originally got the Biostar board with the intention of overclocking, but I have yet to read up on all of the ins and outs, so have not attempted. I'm not much of a gamer either. I'm pretty satsified of its stock performance. I do like the extra PCI slots on the MSI and the better audio on it. I might do it. Thanks again...

 

[GeezerMan]

Say, can someone confirm the proper sequence of ram for dual channel? We have it in the first 2 slots, the 2 green ones. The manual online says don't use the other color slots until the green are filled up. But I read other similar MSI boards say put a stick into one color and a stick in the other color slot. CPU-Z says it is dual channel under memory with 2 sticks in only the green slots, none in purple. I assume CPU-Z is correct. Thanks.

 

[imported_maildude]

 

[imported_maildude]

Originally posted by: GeezerMan
Say, can someone confirm the proper sequence of ram for dual channel? We have it in the first 2 slots, the 2 green ones. The manual online says don't use the other color slots until the green are filled up. But I read other similar MSI boards say put a stick into one color and a stick in the other color slot. CPU-Z says it is dual channel under memory with 2 sticks in only the green slots, none in purple. I assume CPU-Z is correct. Thanks.

Sorry about that first post! You are correct with your placement of the ram. I was confused also at first because a lot of sites said slots 1 and 3 but you were correct using the two green slots.

 

[kenton]

The BIOS should say Dual Channel as well, disable the MSI AMD Motherboard logo in the BIOS and it'll show you channel mode along with RAM timings during POST.

I also own a KN1 Lite, and I do like it but I cannot confirm that it's not a high HTT clocker as I've never tried. I've got one KN1 in my father's machine and another KN1 sitting in a box in my floor brand new never opened ;P

 

[GeezerMan]

Thanks everyone. This place is better than asking the librararian. I was going to say better than public schools, but these days, what isn't?

 

[AMCRambler]

Well I just got in for one. I've been looking at the board for a week or so now and 41 bucks is just too cheap to pass up. It's probably about time I upgraded from my AGP socket A board anyway. My old Athlon XP 2700 can just about run BF2 at decent settings with the 6600GT vid card. I'll probably use my old parts to build the girlfriend a new computer.
Now on to the more important question at hand. Now that I've waited too long and the FX-55 chip isn't available anymore, what's a good chip at a decent price to pick up for the new board. I'm not looking to go crazy with overclocking although I might do a mild overclock. I'm looking to go cheaper on the ram too, so I'll probably try and pick up some value ram for it. That will leave the majority of the money for a new vid card. So any suggestions for a cpu?

 

[Zap]

Originally posted by: GeezerMan
Say, can someone confirm the proper sequence of ram for dual channel? We have it in the first 2 slots, the 2 green ones. The manual online says don't use the other color slots until the green are filled up.

You already got the answer, but I just wanted to add something. I had one chip (acquired used) which I could not use the first two RAM slots. Tested in a few different boards and using the first two RAM slots would result in massive instability, sometimes even not POSTing. However, with RAM in the second pair of slots, the setup worked fine.

Originally posted by: AMCRambler
Now that I've waited too long and the FX-55 chip isn't available anymore, what's a good chip at a decent price to pick up for the new board. I'm not looking to go crazy with overclocking although I might do a mild overclock.

What's your budget? If you aren't gonna go crazy with overclocking, then you'd probably want a higher multiplier. Newegg has the 2500+ for $85, and the OEM 3400+ (if you planned to use an aftermarket cooler anyways) for $75. The 3200+ goes for around $66. There's also the Opteron 144, but you'd have to run really high HTT to make it clock as high, though the 1MB cache makes up for some of it.

Alternately you can post a WTB thread in For Sale. Many people were getting rid of their old chips because of the recent sales of the FX chip, upgrading to dual core and various Opteron deals.

 

[AMCRambler]

Looking for something in the ball park of what the FX-55 was going for on sale. Like $150. Newegg is still showing it for $200 on their site, just the AMDROCKS code is no longer valid. I do mostly gaming, so video or audio encoding/decoding specs aren't of too much concern. A single core chip will work fine. Looks like the dual core socket 939's are hard to come by new anyway. I'll check the FS/FT forum. I'm not averse to buying a used chip. I'd just rather have one I know hasn't been through the ringer with the overclocking.

 

[imported_maildude]

Originally posted by: AMCRambler
Looking for something in the ball park of what the FX-55 was going for on sale. Like $150. Newegg is still showing it for $200 on their site, just the AMDROCKS code is no longer valid. I do mostly gaming, so video or audio encoding/decoding specs aren't of too much concern. A single core chip will work fine. Looks like the dual core socket 939's are hard to come by new anyway. I'll check the FS/FT forum. I'm not averse to buying a used chip. I'd just rather have one I know hasn't been through the ringer with the overclocking.

New Egg has the oem FX-55 for $169.99 and free shipping.

 

[Zap]

How about the Athlon 64 4000+? It is $120 OEM or $130 retail and is 2.4GHz with 1MB cache. It'll probably overclock to the exact same levels as the FX-55.

 

[AMCRambler]

Originally posted by: maildude

Originally posted by: AMCRambler
Looking for something in the ball park of what the FX-55 was going for on sale. Like $150. Newegg is still showing it for $200 on their site, just the AMDROCKS code is no longer valid. I do mostly gaming, so video or audio encoding/decoding specs aren't of too much concern. A single core chip will work fine. Looks like the dual core socket 939's are hard to come by new anyway. I'll check the FS/FT forum. I'm not averse to buying a used chip. I'd just rather have one I know hasn't been through the ringer with the overclocking.

New Egg has the oem FX-55 for $169.99 and free shipping.

That's not the San Diego core. That one is the Clawhammer 130nm core. Still a nice chip though. The San Diego FX-55 is 199.99. Did some looking around the FSFT and I found a San Diego FX-55 for $150. If the fellow still has it for sale, I think I'm gonna snag it. After that I'll just need ram and a vid card. Time to start looking at vid card specs again.

 

[LeonarD26]

Just an update... Got my Opteron 165 running on this board. No problems with installation at all. It's overclocked at 250HTT and is prime stable. I bumped the memory down a bit though. I'll probably leave it as is until I have some more time for some serious overclocking. I paired this with a 7900gs and it screams through games.

 

[Zap]

You can play a scary game like FEAR, and you too can scream through games along with your PC.

 

[blckgrffn]

I'll be upgrading my dad when I go this weekend from a 3000+ and MSI Nforce3 board to this with a 165. He had 2 gigs of DDR and this seemed to be the best way to protect that investment (even though I got him that 2 gigs for less than $120! Where have those days gone!?!). I'll report back on the OC'ing. Hopefully 2.4-2.6 is within reach. 2.7 would just be gravy

Nat

 

[nyker96]

Fear baby fear, it is awesome!

lol, just noticed blck said "I'll be upgrading my dad ..." ya, is your dad the upgraded v2.0 now? Just in time for Xmas ! An upgraded dad is the best gift for the holidays!

 

[GeezerMan]

Originally posted by: nyker96
Fear baby fear, it is awesome!

lol, just noticed blck said "I'll be upgrading my dad ..." ya, is your dad the upgraded v2.0 now? Just in time for Xmas ! An upgraded dad is the best gift for the holidays!

I would like to upgrade a certain blonde I know to do some cooking around here.

 

[AMCRambler]

Well I'm looking at picking up the FX-55 over on Newegg that comes as a package deal with the 250gb Seagate SATA drive. I couldn't justify $200 bucks for just the chip, but the chip and a drive I can justify. I could always sell the drive if I find I'm not going to use it. The one over FSFT got snatched up before I could get to it.
So now I'm looking at heatsinks and memory. What are you guys using for an hsf? As far as memory goes, I'm not going to get the super duper overclocker memory. I don't do much overclocking, I've found the value ram to work just as well for my purposes and I'm trying to keep the costs of the upgrade down. So as far as memory goes, what's a good cheap 2gb dual channel kit that you guys would recommend? Looking on Newegg I've been looking at the G.Skill and A-Data(both of which I've never used before) and the more expensive Kingston value ram. Any recommendations welcome.