Help Needed, RAM for NF4 Ultra Infinity

[hawkeye27]

Hey, I am building my first system and have decided on the DFI NF4 Ultra Infinity as my motherboard. I have a fairly tight budget, and need to figure out what kind of RAM would be best to buy for this board for $100 max. I figure I will probably be getting two sticks of 512MB for 1GB total. I know I will need at least DDR400, and although I do not plan to overclock initially, if possible in my price range, I would like to get something that might give me a little room to overclock somewhere down the road after the processor has become a bit outdated. BTW, I will be buying an AMD Athlon 3500+, 3700+, or 3800+, depending on what prices end up being in about a month or so.

 

Is there a certain brand I should go for? Or are there certain models within each brand that are good/bad? I don't need anything terribly fancy, but I'd like to get the best I can for what money I have to spend on it.

 

Thanks in advance for your help!

[Angry_Games]

if you plan to overclock, the Infinity board is not for you

 

it will overclock, but it is not going to be anything like the Lanparty NF4

 

 

here's a suggestion

 

get yourself the Lanparty NF4-D or Ultra-D

 

memory:

 

http://www.dfi-street.com/forum/showthread...t=ocz+gold+3200

 

do NOT use VALUE memory in the DFI NF4 boards. Period. No matter what you read on the net, no matter which person comes in here claiming VALUE memory is just fine...do yourself a favor and listen to me who has more experience with these DFI NF4 boards than anyone in this forum...

[hawkeye27]

Thanks for your reply. I looked up that RAM and it looks very good. However, buying that RAM and the LanParty NF4 Ultra-D board will break my budget, leaving me only $150 for processor and a copy of XP (I am working on getting a copy for dirt cheap from a hookup at MS). I'm already going to be using some old IDE hard drives and an old PCI vid card to start out with so I can stick to my budget. My wife is giving me a $500 budget for a PC for christmas as a gift, so I have to stick to it. Currently I have $400 left and need processor, motherboard, ram, operating system.

 

What would you suggest for a more budget-bound person like me? The need to overclock really isn't needed, it was more a curiosity. I probably will never end up overclocking it...I just want a rock solid stable motherboard most of all.

 

Also, my new case came with a power supply in it, an Antec SL350S, which has a 20-pin power connector on it. Would this be okay to run a non-SLI, non-overclocked system with the NF4 Ultra Infinity? Is there another board I should look at? The other one I had been considering was the Asus A8N-E, but it didn't seem as nice as the DFI NF4 Ultra Infinity.

 

Thanks again. I really appreciate your help!

[Angry_Games]

Thanks for your reply. I looked up that RAM and it looks very good. However, buying that RAM and the LanParty NF4 Ultra-D board will break my budget, leaving me only $150 for processor and a copy of XP (I am working on getting a copy for dirt cheap from a hookup at MS). I'm already going to be using some old IDE hard drives and an old PCI vid card to start out with so I can stick to my budget. My wife is giving me a $500 budget for a PC for christmas as a gift, so I have to stick to it. Currently I have $400 left and need processor, motherboard, ram, operating system.

 

What would you suggest for a more budget-bound person like me? The need to overclock really isn't needed, it was more a curiosity. I probably will never end up overclocking it...I just want a rock solid stable motherboard most of all.

 

Also, my new case came with a power supply in it, an Antec SL350S, which has a 20-pin power connector on it. Would this be okay to run a non-SLI, non-overclocked system with the NF4 Ultra Infinity? Is there another board I should look at? The other one I had been considering was the Asus A8N-E, but it didn't seem as nice as the DFI NF4 Ultra Infinity.

 

Thanks again. I really appreciate your help!

 

 

as i said, dont get the Ultra-D, just get the NF4-D Lanparty

 

same options and overclocking as the rest of the Lanparty NF4's, except only a single gigabit lan port, no SLI, and no SATA II (but these can be modded rather easily if you check the Modifications section)

 

as for power supply...do not even think about buying a DFI NF4 board of any flavor if you do not have a 480w, 24-pin quality power supply.

 

PERIOD.

 

you won't get any official support and most members here will tell you to come back when you have a psu that meets minimum requirements (see psu link in my sig)

 

the DFI boards are not designed nor tested for 'cheap' compatibility. The Infinitys are ok with standard hardware, but are still very picky about power and memory...and the Lanparty series...is very unforgiving if you go 'cheap'

 

 

a serious thing to think about is maybe going with an MSI or Abit or Gigabyte or Asus board as they run just fine as far as I know with lower-end components and psu's that are lower than what DFI requires. They all make great NF4 boards and though it might be strange hearing the DFI Support Manager (me) telling you to go shopping for competitors boards...I would rather you be in a board that is good for you and will work right out of the box for the budget you are spending instead of you being caught in a loop of "well dude you bought the wrong, cheap parts and until you get something we recommend...you are going to have problems" because you only end up pissed off and would never consider DFI ever again.

 

if, however, you go with Abit, Asus, Msi, etc, and get a board that runs just fine with your budgeted hardware, one day when you have a little extra to spend, you will reconsider DFI now that you have the extra cash to 'get it right' (which is not the 'most expensive'...its just buying the RIGHT parts that we know work well), and you'll remember that I steered you away from DFI for a good reason and hopefully you would respect that

[hawkeye27]

Thank you for your honest reply. I appreciate you sending me in the right direction even if it means pointing me away from DFI.

 

After reading your post, I went to look at the Asus A8N-E, which was my second choice. However, this one claims that it needs a 24-pin power supply as well. Am I just out of luck and going to need to buy a new power supply?

 

I read through the Power Supply thread in your signature and picked out the Antec Smartpower 2.0 SP-500 and Truepower 2.0 TPII-480 as possible choices. Even though these are in the "best bang for your buck" listing, I assume these would be fine to use with an NF4 Ultra Infinity or LanParty NF4-D? Both of them look like they run about $70, and maybe even I will find a sale on one of them.

 

Assuming that you tell me that I'm pretty much going to have to buy a 24-pin power supply for any NF4 socket 939 motherboard, I will probably end up buying one. At that point, once I have one of the above listed power supplies, would you suggest either the NF4 Ultra Infinity or the LanParty NF4-D? Or would you still point me to an Asus board? I would probably have to get cheaper RAM than what you suggested to fit in my budget, but that should be okay as long as I do not plan to overclock, correct? Am I better off going with an Asus board just for a stable non-overclocking system, or is DFI still a good board candidate even though I probably will not overclock now?

 

Thanks again. You have been a great help!

[JacKz]

if ur going to get the LanParty NF4-D motherboard then you should just buy an AMD 3000+ and oc it, ocing processor is pretty simple. also its only around $135 on newegg.com.

[Angry_Games]

if ur going to get the LanParty NF4-D motherboard then you should just buy an AMD 3000+ and oc it, ocing processor is pretty simple. also its only around $135 on newegg.com.

first of all, read the rules of this forum and make a sig/location

 

second, after reading a post, please have enough sense to understand what the customer is after. Giving out random advice of such dubious nature as 'get some cpu and overclock the heck out of it' is worthless to the user as its such a vague statement and really has no bearing on anything the poster is asking.

 

I hate coming into these threads and seeing some statement such as you made that has no value to the user that is asking nor to anyone else.

[Angry_Games]

Thank you for your honest reply. I appreciate you sending me in the right direction even if it means pointing me away from DFI.

 

After reading your post, I went to look at the Asus A8N-E, which was my second choice. However, this one claims that it needs a 24-pin power supply as well. Am I just out of luck and going to need to buy a new power supply?

 

I read through the Power Supply thread in your signature and picked out the Antec Smartpower 2.0 SP-500 and Truepower 2.0 TPII-480 as possible choices. Even though these are in the "best bang for your buck" listing, I assume these would be fine to use with an NF4 Ultra Infinity or LanParty NF4-D? Both of them look like they run about $70, and maybe even I will find a sale on one of them.

 

Assuming that you tell me that I'm pretty much going to have to buy a 24-pin power supply for any NF4 socket 939 motherboard, I will probably end up buying one. At that point, once I have one of the above listed power supplies, would you suggest either the NF4 Ultra Infinity or the LanParty NF4-D? Or would you still point me to an Asus board? I would probably have to get cheaper RAM than what you suggested to fit in my budget, but that should be okay as long as I do not plan to overclock, correct? Am I better off going with an Asus board just for a stable non-overclocking system, or is DFI still a good board candidate even though I probably will not overclock now?

 

Thanks again. You have been a great help!

 

 

i can't speak for other mobo's but most NF4's (and all DFI's) require 24-pin, 480w psu's.

 

The best bang for the buck is the Skyhawk 520w 24-pin psu. I have 3 of these myself and they are fantastic and strong and relatively quiet and for $59 they cannot be beat (they were $39.99 for about 3 weeks)

 

I cannot recommend Antec psu's from my personal experience as well as my experience as DFI support from all the support emails and forum posts and telephone calls. I'm sure Antec is a good company making good psu's, but I simply cannot recommend them at all.

 

If you cannot afford a good OCZ, Enermax, PCP&C, then go for the Skyhawk.

[Angry_Games]

if you get a decent psu like I have listed, then going with the OCZ Gold 3200's I linked would be your best choice still. Getting any 'cheap' memory...I would still steer you into some other company's board as they are more or less tested with all kinds of memory, while the DFI boards are aimed at enthusiasts and are rarely (and never in the case of the Lanparty) tested with anything but performance memory.

[hawkeye27]

Hey, I was looking at that Sky Hawk power supply and I found a review that said that it did not meet the current standards because it did not have separate 12v rails.

http://www.madshrimps.be/?action=getarticl...317&articID=320

It looks in the article like Sky Hawk fixed this, but I know no way of telling whether I would be buying an old one or a new one. What would you suggest I do?

[Angry_Games]

Hey, I was looking at that Sky Hawk power supply and I found a review that said that it did not meet the current standards because it did not have separate 12v rails.

http://www.madshrimps.be/?action=getarticl...317&articID=320

It looks in the article like Sky Hawk fixed this, but I know no way of telling whether I would be buying an old one or a new one. What would you suggest I do?

as i said, i have 3 of them and they are very very good power supplies for the money

 

they are not on the "A" list yet, but they are on Angry's Recommended List Since He Has Three Of Them And Has Tested Thoroughly

[blacktoe]

hawkeye: If you're not going to OC why not save yourself the $20 and get the Infinity? If that's it's only limitation there is no reason for you not to. Even if you were to OC the Infinity will still OC but you're not going to be able to get extreme.

 

Here are a couple of reviews that show the Ultra Infinity to be a darn good overclocker, even if it's not up to the same level as the Lanpartys.

 

http://www.insanetek.com/review.php?id=143&page=7

http://www.legitreviews.com/article.php?aid=243&pid=8

 

Angry: I saw in another post that you were of the opinion that the DAGF/Infinity was a good overclocker. Have you changed your stance on this?