broooooooce Posted February 15, 2005 Posted February 15, 2005 What I've decided: AMD is my processor 939 is my socket AGP8X is my grapics slot What I'm leaning toward: Athlon64 3200+ Winchester Kingston HyperX LL PC3200 2-2-2-5-1 2x512 What I'm looking for and bonus stuff: The best motherboard for overclocking Great sound from onboard audio Prefer nice looks, dark blue board would be optimal, not tacky or bright Prefer passive cooling on the northbridge (why does ASUS love using those ugly brown circuit boards?) IDE Connections that face outward from the edge, not upward Prefer IDE RAID Right now, I might get the Gigabyte K8NS Ultra 939 (Newegg), in spite of the awful colored slots and 2 of the SATA slots being in the center of the board (why?). If not that, then the MSI K8N Neo 2 Platinum (Newegg), but I loathe how the IDE connections are placed left of the 20pin, that's just stupid, not to mention the sata connections closer to the back than the front--but it's almost worth it to not have puke green and lavender slots. It doesn't seem to have IDE RAID though, and it's currently out of stock on NewEgg(I'm sure I could find one elsewhere though). GIGABYTE: MSI: I'm certainly open to other boards as well. Going to http://www.newegg.com/app/manufact.asp?catalog=22&DEPA=1 and searching for 939 AGP8X motherboards gives a good idea of my choices. I'm most concerned with overclocking potential, good onboard sound, and a powerful BIOS. If anyone has some advice, that's what I've come for. Thanks, Bruce Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jkdmaster Posted February 15, 2005 Posted February 15, 2005 (edited) Well the best OCing board for Nf3 is the DFI, but that is S 754, I would go with a MSI Neo2 platinum, definitely go Winchester for OCing and get some different ram, Hyper X is good but there is better, try the Patriot with XBL. Edited February 15, 2005 by jkdmaster Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Inu_Yasha Posted February 16, 2005 Posted February 16, 2005 I have the MSI Neo2 and I will admit that I hate that the IDE connectors are so close to the 20 pin! It is a pain in the butt to get the two ide cables and floppy cable in there. Other then taht, the mobo is great! I have the 3200+ winnine in mine and I'm running cooly at around 40C with my XP-120. I would highly reccommend getting that heatsink if you're thinking about quality cooling at low noise! I personally like gigabyte boards, so I would so go with either one as both look good. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Verran Posted February 16, 2005 Posted February 16, 2005 The neo2 doesn't have passive NB cooling, but otherwise it's pretty close to what you want. The good thing about it is that it's as close to the "standard" as you'll probably get here (with 939s), which means there's TONS of help on it if you need it (trust me, I know). As far as the side facing IDE, I love that idea, and I honestly can't understand why it hasn't caught on. Maybe they're trying to make IDE a pain so we buy SATA stuff Worked on me! But seriously, the only one's I've seen using that kind of IDE connection is Abit. I LOVE Abit boards, and would have bought one again, but I was really not impressed with what I saw at newegg. They don't have much for 939, and they're almost exclusively VIA chipsets now, it seems. They have a few NF4 boards, but I didn't want to go PCI-E myself... Abit is great, and if they had a contender, I probably would have bought it, but they didn't, and it appears they still don't, so get an MSI! As far as ram, I'd definately say PDP XBL. That's another popular one around here, and people seem to be getting great numbers out of them. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
broooooooce Posted February 16, 2005 Posted February 16, 2005 I'm still torn. I read back 25 pages of topics at work last night in this sub-forum and on EVERY single page, there was someone posting because of a problem they were having related to the MSI board, seriously, try it. However, I must admit that most of these were stupid questions that could have been answered with a search (hidden bios keys?!?!?!11) but many mentioned the sh!tty manual, the horrid bios, and the picky memory slots, etc, etc. And what is with the % based voltage... that's kinda strange . . . And as much as I like that it is "the" board right now (the a7n8x deluxe 2.0 for socket A was "the" board on here during my last build), the layout is killing me. I am a freak for wire management and I like to wrap the ide cables behind the motherboard, etc, etc. Impossible with that dammed 20 pin sitting in the way and I'm not running SATA cables all the way to the back center of the board. That's messed up. It may be a deal breaker, I may just take the gigabyte. I don't want to go PCI-E because I've got video cards that I am fairly happy with already and would rather not spend any more than I have to. I believe in AGP and thnk PCI-E would be a lot better if it were AGP16, know what I mean? SLI is a marketing scheme. If you are gonna drop 800 dollars on video cards for bragging rights, go for it, I'd take the same money and put an x-box AND a ps2 in every room in my house. The entire fact that the specific software has to be have support for it . . . geez. But he11, I guess I may consider a PCI-E board. I wanna build a box in my project box (see my signature) that I started on last year around this time but abondoned because of money issues. Maybe I'll just wait for dual core AMD chips and a new socket. Any other particular non-sli based PCI-E boards you can think of offhand that might suite me? . . . god I don't want to buy a new video card cause I have a stupid 9800 AIW (DONT EVER BUY ONE). ... Sometimes this stuff frustrates the crap out of me. Why can't someone just make it like I want. Bruce PS: Will gladly trade a 9800 PRO AIW for the 9600 series AIW if anyone is interested. I need the dual monitors and I have to disable the 2nd screen to watch tv using it with a PCI 9200 driving the 2nd monitor. There is NO combination of drivers on the planet that will make it right, either. BELIEVE that. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
sandman1485 Posted February 16, 2005 Posted February 16, 2005 Haven't had a single problem with my Neo2. The only drawback is that my Ballistix won't go passed about 280fsb, while my chip can hit about 210. Not at my max OC as a result <_< Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
mantonr Posted February 16, 2005 Posted February 16, 2005 i'm not sure that you can get IDE raid built in on a board. I'm not sure whehter you can even get it if you buy a seperate controller. (somebody please correct me if i'm wrong) I do believe that you will need to use SCSI or SATA drives if you want to use a RAID configuration. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
broooooooce Posted February 16, 2005 Posted February 16, 2005 i'm not sure that you can get IDE raid built in on a board. I'm not sure whehter you can even get it if you buy a seperate controller. (somebody please correct me if i'm wrong) I do believe that you will need to use SCSI or SATA drives if you want to use a RAID configuration. I appreciate your response, but your information is not accurate. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
confuzzedintelguy Posted February 16, 2005 Posted February 16, 2005 Dont get the Giga board i have it and i am disapointed gana give a neo2 a try befor i got NF4 as for the ram stated above Hyper X and A64 DONT go together ever setup i seen with it had horid timings and overclock get some GSKILL DDR550 or 600 or if your straped on cash grab some PDP XBL Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
broooooooce Posted February 16, 2005 Posted February 16, 2005 Dont get the Giga board i have it and i am disapointed Could you elaborate? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
r_target Posted February 16, 2005 Posted February 16, 2005 I went with the Epox 9NDA3 series. There's the "+" and the "J." The J has two less SATA than the + and no onboard firewire. The + has the four SATA (only 1&2 can be locked, like some other NF3 boards), the firewire, and the better onboard sound. I was really disheartened when I was looking for a s939 motherboard, because I'd heard so many contradictory opinions about the MSI (even after filtering for PEBKAC errors), so I was happy to find the Epox. The initial bugs with the board (LAN not working, RAM slots 1&2 not working right) have been fixed in the current 2.x revision. It certainly doesn't meet one of your criteria though: it's fugly. It is fast and stable though. It can outrun my CPU and my RAM. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Verran Posted February 16, 2005 Posted February 16, 2005 I'm fairly new to the SATA world, so bare with me here, but I know that it's a pretty widespread fact that the far two SATA ports on the MSI (by the video card) don't lock, and therefore shouldn't be used if overclocking. I don't know if this is a problem with all boards, or some, or just this one, but given your emphasis on raid and what-not, I thought you'd like to know so you can do some checking around. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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