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Abit AN8 Ultra or DFI Ultra-D?

D

DARQ MX

Senior member
These are the 2 mobo's I am comparing with eachother. I almost was gonna but the ultra D, until the the an8 ultra came out a few days ago. Now this is a tough discision because people seem to think the DFI is the god of motherboards. Well at least for Oc-ing. But I am not a "harcore oc-er".

I really like the AN8 ultra though. The only thing I saw on the DFI is that it can OC more and the ram has more voltage. The Ultra AN8 is also a real good oc-er but now I am seeing what is up with the 2 mobos. I am buying one this week. The OTES cooling system is neat but I wish it was the active one like the fatali1ty but it is only passive. which also make me think about as well.

I am pretty confident in getting the An8 ultra. I am not a huge OC-er anyway. My new rig is going to have a 3700+san diego core. So all I really want to do is just OC the cpu and the card. Do you think There is much of a differance between them, other than Oc-ing ability?

Also just to make sure, all ultras support NCQ right? I just want to make sure the An8 ultra has NCQ for my Hardrive...

New rig coming in a couple weeks...

AMD 3700+ san diego
1gb corsair
250Gb seagate SATA/w NCQ
X850XT or X800XL
 
Originally posted by: DARQ MX
These are the 2 mobo's I am comparing with eachother. I almost was gonna but the ultra D, until the the an8 ultra came out a few days ago. Now this is a tough discision because people seem to think the DFI is the god of motherboards. Well at least for Oc-ing. But I am not a "harcore oc-er".

I really like the AN8 ultra though. The only thing I saw on the DFI is that it can OC more and the ram has more voltage. The Ultra AN8 is also a real good oc-er but now I am seeing what is up with the 2 mobos. I am buying one this week. The OTES cooling system is neat but I wish it was the active one like the fatali1ty but it is only passive. which also make me think about as well.

I am pretty confident in getting the An8 ultra. I am not a huge OC-er anyway. My new rig is going to have a 3700+san diego core. So all I really want to do is just OC the cpu and the card. Do you think There is much of a differance between them, other than Oc-ing ability?

Also just to make sure, all ultras support NCQ right? I just want to make sure the An8 ultra has NCQ for my Hardrive...

New rig coming in a couple weeks...

AMD 3700+ san diego
1gb corsair
250Gb seagate SATA/w NCQ
X850XT or X800XL
Click to expand...



Why not save a few dollars and get one of the best Ultra boards that money can buy--and one that has been extensively reviewed: the EPoX 9NPA+ Ultra.

I have heard of many issues with the DFI boards (premature death, DOA, etc.). I have ALWAYS had trouble with ABIT boards in the past and refuse to use them anymore. I don't care if they have improved or not--I simply have never had a good ABIT board.

Any of the nF4 Ultra boards support NCQ, but I recommend disabling NCQ. I would enable SATA II 3.0Gig speed if your HDD supports it, but after loading the nVidia 6.53 drivers, my experience tells me two things: disable NCQ in Control Panel, under the nForce4 ADMA controller, and then to NOT load the NAM--use XP Firewall or ZoneAlarm or something. NAM is still buggy. The reason I recommend disabling NCQ is not because it is problematic like NAM, but because NCQ will slow you down about 5% in most desktop usage scenarios. NCQ is designed for multiple random outstanding read requests (ie, a server environment) and does not make a good showing in desktop usage.
 
Originally posted by: DARQ MX
whoa, really? Man, everyone acts like DFI is GOD... lol
Click to expand...


DFI=GOD? I think not. It is true that it has every tweaking option under the sun, but that does not make it a great board. HardOCP, in fact, uncovered that it is basically an unstable platform even in nonoverclocking situations. Hardly a surprise--I have never had a DFI board pass my level of stress tests that I run. Ever.

I once left my OVERCLOCKED 9NPA+Ultra (3700 San Diego OC'd to 2.64Ghz, 240Mhz FSB) running with Prime95 in the background running with 3DMark2001 running the foreground for an entire week (left on vacation) and came back to a completely rock stable system. No errors. The DFI board would have crashed out after about 6 hours.
 
hmm. yea, I was thinking of the MSI K8n neo4 plat as well but alot of ppl thought I was insane to compare that board to the An8 and ultra D...
 
Originally posted by: DARQ MX
hmm. yea, I was thinking of the MSI K8n neo4 plat as well but alot of ppl thought I was insane to compare that board to the An8 and ultra D...
Click to expand...


The MSI board would be my second choice.
 
hmm, I never heard of Epox, any history on them? No offense, but I may not get that board. Just to let you know.
 
Originally posted by: DARQ MX
I looked for that EPoX 9NPA+ Ultra and it is made cheap. I saw it for $103 on newegg...
Click to expand...


Made cheap or or is inexpensive from your perspective?

From my first hand experience, it is certainly not lacking in quality. In fact, it is using United Chemicon capacitors (made in the USA). No Chinese caps. I built four system around this board in the last month. No drama. My own system has been using this board for three months. I had a ASUS A8N-E at first, but I chucked it almost immediately. I DO NOT like that board--very bizarre behavior.

Notice the distinct lack of reviews for ASUS boards lately? They have not been hitting any home runs. One of the worst boards in recent history is their K8T890 board with WiFi. That thing is a POS from hell.
 
Originally posted by: DARQ MX
hmm, I never heard of Epox, any history on them? No offense, but I may not get that board. Just to let you know.
Click to expand...


Never heard of EPoX???????

Ok, you are new to this scene. EPoX has been making mobos for a couple of decades.

Your choice on what you buy. You can overspend and get something that is not as good. Have you read some web reviews? There is at least 10 extremely good reviews of the 9NPA+ Ultra.....
 
im not new to the scene, I have heard of the name, but not really anything about the boards themselfs. That is what i ment...
 
Originally posted by: DARQ MX
im not new to the scene, I have heard of the name, but not really anything about the boards themselfs. That is what i ment...
Click to expand...


I mistook your statement. I highly recommend reading some reviews and some of roundups like just done on AnandTech. The 9NPA+ Ultra continues to impress reviewers. HardOCP loved the board.

The MSI board has no serious bad habits, so you would not be making a mistake by going with it. It just costs more. Why spend more? The EPoX also comes with a bag of heatsinks you can place strategically on MOSFETs in order to ensure stability under overclocked conditions (assuming the overclock is a stable one to begin with and you have good components and a little luck).

If you do go with the EPoX board, just be sure and update to the latest BIOS (the x2 supporting BIOS) before loading the OS. You can put it on floppy by itself and do ALT-F2 during boot and it will grab it right from the floppy and flash. No need for a bootable floppy disk. The other thing is not to use NAM (on any configuration) as it is still buggy. I do recommend the 6.53 drivers, just don't load NAM when it asks. No matter what board you buy!
 
Originally posted by: DARQ MX
my bad, I meant to say "mad" cheap.. lol I don't know how the E got in there... I meant inexpensive...
Click to expand...


Yeah, it is interesting that they can make such a good board for so much less. Either they are not out to gouge people, or they have a better cost structure than ASUS or DFI or MSI for that matter.

Incidentally, ABIT boards are made by ECS, just in case you did not know.
 
After you flash via floppy before loading the OS, basically you can yank the floppy drive, disable the floppy controller in the BIOS, and save yourself an IRQ. After loading the OS and MagicBIOS (EPoX web-based flash utility), you can update that way from that point forward.
 
man, thanks for the tips and help though. ive new to this site and I don't get alot of ppl in my topics to much.. lol your the first to keep coming in.
 
Also what were the probelms you had with the Abit in the past?

do you not like the OTEs system? also yea Abit used jap caps but hey are rubycon and sanyo. so they are quaility
 
If you are willing I would'nt mind chatting with you if you got AIM... MY AIM is DARQ MX, well I got to hit the sack, so I will chat with you later. AIM me sometime and we can talk more about mobo's THX again..
 
Originally posted by: DARQ MX
Also what were the probelms you had with the Abit in the past?

do you not like the OTEs system? also yea Abit used jap caps but hey are rubycon and sanyo. so they are quaility
Click to expand...


ABIT boards have always had, for me, instability issues even at stock speed. They do use Jap caps, true, but so does DFI and they have instability issues that more than a few people have pointed out.

Mobo design is more than just the caps used. It is also the trace routing, frequency interference isolation method the manufacturer implements (BTW, AOpen has probably the best isolation method, but they don't have any good boards to choose from right now) and the size/quality of the on-board VRM.

OTES is a great idea, especially the heat-pipe based one on the ABIT Ultra board. I think it is very innovative. I replaced the chipset H/S fan on my 9NPA+Ultra with a Zalman passive heatsink using Arctic Silver Alumina thermal epoxy and it has been totally stable. Not that the stock EPoX one is bad...it is quiet. I just don't like the idea of active chipset cooling. The Zalman gets a bit toasty, but I am also using a Thermalright XP-90C with a Panaflo M1A that puts the Zalman in direct line with the ejected airflow. The ejected airflow from the XP-90C is also blowing directly on my DIMMS. That is one awesome H/S fan. You can buy it for much less on frozencpu. It costs about $10 too much on NewEgg.
 
Originally posted by: DARQ MX
If you are willing I would'nt mind chatting with you if you got AIM... MY AIM is DARQ MX, well I got to hit the sack, so I will chat with you later. AIM me sometime and we can talk more about mobo's THX again..
Click to expand...


You got it. Will AIM you tomorrow. I am going to bed as well.
 
DARQ: I'm building a rig with almost the exact same components you are on an AN8 Ultra. It should be done on Monday when the mobo gets here, and I'll likely be posting the results somewhere on the forum.
 
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