AMD w/PCI-E

[Thurgo0dy]

Are the new socket 939 motherboards w/PCI-E really worth it? I'm building my first system and was wondering if I should get one with PCI-E to future-proof my self.

 

[gobucks]

yes. I just got my Asus A8N-SLI today. If you want a long term platform, socket 939 and nforce4 will serve you for a long time, much like a socket A platform did for several years before. PCIe x1 slots will be nice for next gen sound cards, TV capture cards, SATA-II & III controllers, etc. SATA-II is nice, and with the external extenders like the ones included in the Asus A8N-SLI board, you can have hot-swappable SATA-II external hard drives (sweet!!!!). As far as graphics, look at every product launch newer than the X800/6800 launches. The X700 series is PCIe only; the 6200 series is PCIe only; the 6600 series was PCIe only for like 3 months before it hit AGP; the new X850/X800 cards are all PCIe only; NV41 will be PCIe only. Face it, AGP cards are gonna be hard to come by in a year or 2. Plus, the best $200 card ever, the 6600GT, is almost $50 cheaper on PCIe.

 

[Thurgo0dy]

What non-SLI nForce 4 mobo would you suggest (I'm looking for a price between 120-150)?

 

[GuitarDaddy]

I agree with gobucks. Plus nforce4 adds some nice features that get overlook because of PCIe and SLI.

Like Active Armor (onboard firewall) that takes the I/O packet scanning off the CPU to its own dedicated chip

Much better overclocking features:
nTune software
greater voltage control
ability to clock the GPU on a seperate bus

Dual Gb Lan

Raid morphing
Raid drive mixing (sata and eide)

 

[Thurgo0dy]

I don't really want SLI... what would be a good nForce 4 mobo that just has one x16 pci-e slot for $125-150?

 

[tjaisv]

i'd like to know too

 

[gobucks]

if the Gigabyte K8NXP-9 falls into that range, it'll be a great board. I've seen reviews, and it's fast and stable as hell. It's based on the ultra chipset, so hopefully it'll be sub-$150. The only problem i have with it is 1) it's currently not available and 2) the max DIMM voltage is 2.8V, which is not horrible but not exactly great for an overclocker.

 

[Thurgo0dy]

How about the Abit AX8?

 

[stelleg151]

I thought you got the ASUS gobucks, the Gigabyte is supposed to have 3.1 vdimm.

 

[ChineseDemocracyGNR]

Originally posted by: Thurgo0dy
How about the Abit AX8?

That one is $115... it should be very similar to the AV8, but with PCI-E (K8T890) instead of AGP (K8T800 Pro).

 

[imported_OrSin]

I thought the K8T890 was for 754 CPUs.
Personally I think I want the 754 over the 939.
Lower price piont, and I don't think 939 will be around any longer the 754 with the dual core chips comng out next year. IMO

 

[Peter]

On AMD64 architecture, the chipset is nothing to do with the exact flavor of CPU, since no system core functions are in there anymore. Combine any chipset with any CPU - from socket-754 to 8-node Opteron.