nForce Mobo choices

[simpilot]

I am due for an upgrade and pretty much have made the decision to go with an nForce board.
My last 2 boards have been Asus however, I am almost leaning towards the MSI board.
I am planning to also purchase either the T14200 or 4400 (kind of confused here a bit as well).
My question to all you gracious folk is which nForce board should I get and also, in terms of memory, if I want 512, should I purchase 2 (128) 1 (256) or 2 (256) since I have read a lot in terms of the slots not utilizing memory properly.
Thanks ahead for the input!

 

[CoDerEd]

if you use n-force board use 2x256 'cause it will double the bandwith

 

[simpilot]

Thanks for the prompt feedback codered.
Any suggestions on which one?

 

[airbus]

I have the Abit NV7-133R nForce 415-D board and am very happy with it.

The Abit easily comes with the most features of any nForce board (USB 2, Highpoint 133 Raid, Optical Audio in and out, etc.).

My system is packed - Athlon 2000+, two 512 sticks of OCZ RAM, one 120G WD HD (with 8meg buffer), two 120 WD HD (with 8mb buffers) striped in a RAID setup, Lite-On DVD, Yamaha 24X CD-RW - Once I get my high-end audio card, my Digital Audio Workstation will be complete. I am running XP Pro and have had basically no hardware related problems. I haven't been taxing the system too much yet (although tried burn-in test, passed easily) but have tried to destabalize it to no avail. The chipset/board is rock solid (Beat that VIA). The price at new egg is $93 - (dropped quite a bit in price because of some bad reviews - idiots did not read manual and had memory settings set up wrong in BIOS). Lan works great (be careful, the Asus board does not come with LAN). BTW, don't worry about the specs saying Realtek Audio Codec and LAN... all of the nForce boards have these chips to get the digital signal from the nForce chipset to the outside world. The other companies don't advertise this fact. Perfectly normal, though - still nForce Lan and Sound.

One complaint that I have is that the rear analog outputs (and center/subwoofer) are not funtional yet. The connectors are there but without sound - I think it is a driver issue that can be easily fixed. Also, Abit hasn't updated the BIOS for a while (although everything works pretty damn well).

Basically, consider this card - not the most popular, but a very nice board.

 

[CoDerEd]

well i never tried n-force board but if i have to choose i'll take Abit board
base of the stability. Ususaly MSI has more feature but Abit Nforce has
tons of feature too like airbus said. right now i'm more interested
on the legacy board from Abit AT7/IT7

 

[96VegasVette]

I've got the A7N266E and I'm happy with it.

 

[simpilot]

Airbus,

Thanks for the recommendation!
I have been reallt contemplating this board because of the options such as RAID and LAN however, I have been reading at the amdmb.com forum about temperature issues with this card. Would you be so kind as to tell me what your temps read (CPU, Mobo) as well as the type of cooling set-up?
I will also be purchasing either XP1800 or 1900 as well as either a ti4200 or 4400.
Again thanks for the info!