OK, need to know fast...Best 939 board

[Kabob]

I just sold my s754 setup and am going to 939. Since I'll be without a computer in about 5 mins, I'm trying to figure out the best motherboard for Socket 939.

I've heard that the MSI boards are just attrocious, and I've heard that the Soltek and Asus boards seem to be pretty solid. So who is top dog in this catagory??

Anyone got any preferences??

 

[CraigRT]

Soltek and Asus are indeed good...

the Solteks are usually fairly basic, which is why the price is usually lower, they are SOLID RELIABLE boards, but are not uber-feature rich.

the Asus will offer more features, but probably will not be any more stable than the Soltek.

it all depends how much you want to spend.

I love my Soltek K8AN2E-GR, it's fantastic, the 939 variant I am sure would be no different.

 

[DCrew1X]

msi is a good board (not everybody had issues w/ overlocking and bios), if you're looking for a socket 939 board w/ pci-express, then abit ax8. other than that, i would suggst sticking w/ 754 and getting dfi lan party mobo.

 

[Kabob]

Already sold the system. Just about to drive to the P.O. (MAN, it was hard to find correctly sized boxes...so I improvised)

I can get the Asus on a "combo deal" at Mwave pretty cheap, and since they don't offer the Soltek there, I'll probably go that direction.

Now to decide between 3000+ and 3200+...CHOICES!!

Thanks guys, and keep em coming

 

[CraigRT]

if the price difference is fairly low, go for the 3200+, if it's more than like $30-40 and up, then I might just stay with the 3000+
if you plan to OC at all, it's not really worth buying the faster CPU.

 

[DCrew1X]

hey Kabob, one side note. if ur gonna purchase from Mwave, hope ur not located in CA, cuz u will get charged about 8.125% sales tax as opposed to normal 7.75%. this only applies if ur in CA.

 

[Kabob]

Luckily I'm located in Alabama I checked that already. Man, I forgot how much shipping costs nowadays.

I do plan on overclocking, but I think I'd get better results with a 3200+ because I don't want to clock my HTT at 290 MHz like AAT did With the higher multiplier, it'd give me more room.

So what's the verdict y'all, Asus, Soltek, nothing??

I hope to buy today if I can (maybe get it before the weekend)

Thanks guys!!

 

[Shadizzy]

i currently am in the same situation, i am comming from 754 and am leaning toward a fx-55 however with all this talk about the ati chipset being the second comming, im not quite sure what to get, however the one thing for sure is indeed the processesor that im getting. Bahh i hate being pressed for time

 

[kogase]

I'm sort of interested as well. I'd like an A64 90nm, but I can't afford to buy a new motherboard, CPU AND VGA card (damn PCI Express). So the Nforce4 et al aren't really an option. The MSI K8N Neo 2 gets consistently good reviews, and consistently poor user feedback. It's frustrating, it's so hard to figure out what to buy.

 

[Workin']

I recently got an Asus A8V Deluxe with an A64 3500+ and 1 GB of Corsair XL Platinum RAM.

It's pretty. Works good, lasts long.

 

[MoosKnuk]

Ive had good luck with the A8V and the K8N NEO2.

Getting the MSI 9800 pro to work on the A8V in winxp was a bit of a pain.

 

[kogase]

9800 Pro, eh? That's what I got. What do you mean by "a pain"? I'm wondering about the A8V, are all the built-in components properly integrated into the Southbridge (if this sounds wrong, maybe it is, I don't really know what I'm talking about). What I mean is, are the SATA controller and GB LAN limited by the PCI bus or no?

 

[MoosKnuk]

To get the graphics card working i had to update the bios, reinstall the gart driver, then use the MSI catalyst dist.

heres a block diagram of the k8-t800 pro chipset >>>>> Here

 

[kogase]

Okay, so, let's see if I've got this straight... everything that's hanging off of that "VIA Connectivity" has a higher limit than the 133MB/s imposed by PCI? And so any extra chips (SATA controllers, NICs, etc.) that are added by the motheboard manufacturer (that aren't included in the chipset) are limited by the PCI bus, and should be hanging off of that "PCI Bus" line that the PCI expansion slots are hooked up to?

 

[MoosKnuk]

I believe they are pushing network phy with VIA Velocity? Gigabit Ethernet (PCI companion controller) which may allow for a faster gateway to the southbridge. Im not positive though.


looks to me like it may be a pci bus solution, but with a seperate controller to lower cpu usage.
heres an informational page about Velocity?">http://www.via.com.tw/en/resou...r030903vnvelocity.jsp;</a>

 

[Slik]

http://forums.anandtech.com/me...9419&amp;enterthread=y