*** Official ABIT NF7/S (nForce2) Thread ***

[3LEMENT0]

Great, setteled then...NF7-S v2 it is.....Thanks....Here's the rest of the specs I'm planning to get:

ABIT "NF7-S" V2
AMD 45 Watt Mobile Athlon XP 2600+ or the XP 35W 2400 (if available when I checkout)
Thermaltake EXTREME VOLCANO 12 --> Still being considered if will fit mid-tower and not hit PS
NEC 8X DVD+RW/-RW Drive
SAMSUNG 80GB 7200RPM SATA
OCZ Perf. Series Rev 3 PC3200x 2 instead of Geil
SilverStone Tech. 400W w/ APF or Fortron Source 400W (might be fortron coz have fan speed control)
POWERCOLOR ATI RADEON 9800PRO

Others:
Mid Tower, floppy, zip drive, fans, couple in couple out with fan controller, 21" monitor...etc

What would be better? A midtower + Fortron PS or an expensive tower like antec/thermaltake with built in PS?

Yes, I'll be getting ABIT again. I always try to get ABIT or ASUS for MB's.....

 

[pelikan]

Looks good.
I'd definately get a Thermalright heatsink instead.
The Fortron psu is better. If you get an Antec with a "True" psu that would be good too.

 

[magratton]

Like Pelikan said, go for a good PSU and a good heatsink. Your question about cases, you will want a case that is > 16" height. 17" and higher would be preferred unless you don't mind your Heatsink butting up against the PSU or possibly not even fitting. I had a kingwin SW11 case that was 16" and the heatsink was right up against the PSU fan grill (the heatsink fan clips were actually inside the psu fan grill).

As for the built in case/psu... the only Antec model I would consider is the Sonata if you want to keep the PSU. That has an Antec True380 in it. Very nice PSU. If you are going for a PSU-less model, then there are a tonne of systems to look at, but I would stick with a VERY GOOD PSU, like the Enermax, Antec TRUE, or others, as long as they are good! You sound like you will be overclocking, and the last thing you need is for your oc to be brought down by a crappy psu, esp. where you are cherry picking the rest of your items. And cooling flow... Don't forget to look at what the case is going to offer you in terms of cooling.

 

[BZeto]

For the time being I am only going to run one 512mb stick of RAM in my NF7-S, which DIMM slot should I use? #3 (thats the far right one)?

 

[pelikan]

Originally posted by: BZeto
For the time being I am only going to run one 512mb stick of RAM in my NF7-S, which DIMM slot should I use? #3 (thats the far right one)?

Yes.

 

[PUNKtotalled]

Originally posted by: pelikan
I've heard some people say that the new boards don't overclock as well. Still they get to 220+ MHz.
Other people rave about the new ones.

+1 I used to play with one of the first nf7s and now with a one month old one. The second is even better than the first.

 

[Shortass]

If you use 2 sticks of 512 ram, what DIMMS should I place them in?

 

[OpTiX]

Originally posted by: Shortass
If you use 2 sticks of 512 ram, what DIMMS should I place them in?

RTFM

 

[Megatomic]

Originally posted by: Shortass
If you use 2 sticks of 512 ram, what DIMMS should I place them in?

I get my best results with them placed in slots 1 and 3. That enabled DCDDR, too.

 

[3LEMENT0]

Is there any guide to the best combination in the bios menu? Something that lists down the best memory timings... disabling com ports are better...etc. etc.???

 

[msi1337]

can anyone tell me if there is any performance differance between the NF7-S and the Nf7-M (onboard Geforce4 Mx Nforce IGP)?

I need to build a basic pc, but was thinking about getting the nf7-m instead of buying a seperate vid card. Will I notice any performance differance? Will it still overclock good?

Thanks!

 

[Megatomic]

The IGP boards don't tend to overclock as well as the SPP boards when the integrated video is being used. I'd opt for a non IGP board personally and I did.

Seriously, if you are going to game you don't want the IGP.

3LEMENT0, I'll put up a list of my recommended settings later tonight. It may be really late if we take our kids to see the new Harry Potter movie. I'm at work now and I can't remember all the settings I tweak.

 

[djm68]

Two quick questions:

1) I assume all shipping nf7 and nf7-S are not 2.0 boards?

2) NF7 vs. NF7-S in regards to Soundstorm

I know the NF7-S has better sound as it uses Soundstorm, but will you actually notice the difference if you are only using headphones? I am building a system that will never be attached to an external speaker system -- only used with headphones. But then, the Soundstorm uses less CPU power, regardless of speaker setup, correct?

Thanks,
DJM

 

[pelikan]

They must all be rev. 2 boards by now.

To my ears, when listening with headphones its even more important to have a good source so I would choose soundstorm for sure. And yes it uses the cpu less.

 

[3LEMENT0]

What's the performance hit of using the SERILLEL (IDE to SATA) converter? Will it perform slower or is it better to use it? I'll be using an IDE hdd so don't know if I should use the SERILLEL or just the ide cable....I know the diff between SATA and PATA are minimal at best (8MB 7200RPM) but was wondering if using the SERILLEL would be good (thinner cables and same transfer rate).

 

[Megatomic]

Here are those BIOS settings I promised to post, these are the settings that work best for me.

Softmenu III:
CPU Operating Speed: 3200+
AGP Freq: 66MHz
CPU FSB/DRAM ratio: 6/6 (400MHz)
CPU Interface: Enabled

Advanced Chipset Features:
Memory Timings
-Row-active delay: 11
-RAS to CAS delay: 2
-Row-precharge delay: 2
-CAS Latency time: 2.0
System BIOS Cacheable: disabled
Video RAM Cacheable: disabled
AGP Aperture Size: 128M
FSB Spread Spectrum: disabled
AGP Spread Spectrum: disabled
CPU Thermal-Throttling: disabled
Enhanced PCI Performance: enabled
CPU Disconnect Function: enabled
AGP Data Transfer Rate: 8x
AGP Fast Write Capability: enabled

PnP/PCI Configurations:
PCI Latency Timer: 64 clocks

I do disabled both serial ports, the firewire port, and SATA boot ROM as I don't use any of those functions. This improves boot up time and conserves system resources.

 

[Megatomic]

3LEMENT0, I'd just use the IDE controller unless you have 4 other IDE devices you want to use also. There is no performance increase associated with using an IDE drive with the Serillel adapter on the SATA controller. You may even lose some performance.

 

[JameyF]

I'm assuming the board only comes with one adapter and 2 will be needed for setting up a RAID with conventional ATA 133 drives. Is this correct? Is RAID possible with only ATA 133 drives connected to the board through the converters? Any got a spare they won't be using?

 

[Megatomic]

Yes, you'll need 2 of them to do a RAID array with standard IDE drives. And you are correct, the board only comes with 1 adapter. I don't use mine but I'd like to keep it in case I sell the board when I upgrade to an NF3 system.

I see them for sale regularly in the FS/FT forum though.

 

[3LEMENT0]

thanks megatomic...just finished assembling the core parts and running memtest right now. I don't know what to set the FSB and multiplier for the AXP-M 2600+ right now so I just set it at 133/12 (1600MHZ) just for running memtest. Does the athlon mobile not register as athlon XP in NF7-S? I'll update the bios tomorrow and run a higher clock and run memtest again too...will probably install the OS on wed or thursday

 

[Megatomic]

Mobile AXPs are not recognized properly. IMO you should set the FSB to 200MHz with a multiplier of 11, this equals a Barton 3200+. You may even be able to select 3200+ in Softmenu III.

If you do that, you can use all my other BIOS settings, too. They have proven to be optimal for me.

 

[3LEMENT0]

Thanks megatomic, I have it in 200 X 11 and running memtest right now..are there other stress test that I can run in dos mode? Would like to check stability of OC with some stress test first before installing OS. All I have is memtest.

 

[Megatomic]

Prime95 is good, and you can use Super Pi and select one of the larger tests. Super Pi is sensitive to bad overclocks, too.

 

[3LEMENT0]

Thanks...I'll try it out.

 

[oldman420]

is there any way to stop bios from using the system speakers when posting? i keep my speakers all the way up and when that happens i get a 100 watt beep. very disturbing and hard to get used to.
thanks all