- Jan 21, 2002
- 3,701
- 0
- 86
Hi guys,
I'm pretty proud of myself because I've had the urge to upgrade from my P4 2.53 rig to an A64 for several months, but I haven't rushed into buying something I might regret.
After debating back and forth between S754 and S939, I've pretty much decided on S754 because it will cost less and I plan to upgrade again when DDR2 and/or PCI-E become widely available. A lot of people talk about the "upgrade potential" of S939 but none of those boards come with either of the aforementioned features that I know of, and I'm sure I'll want to take advantage of them so I don't see much point in spending the extra cash for a S939 board (especially since I can't seem to find one without numerous issues...plus as we all know, dual channel provides only a very modest performance boost...not worth the extra money IMO).
ANYWAY, back to the point. I want a good, solid A64 board and from what I can tell the K8S8X and K8V SE Deluxe look like two of the boards with the least amount of issues and hassles. The K8S8X is light on features but everyone claims it's a very solid board that works right out of the box. The K8V SE is a little more feature-rich but I've also seen few problems out of this board (plus, I doubt AMD would pick that board for their promotional bundle if it was plagued with problems).
Initially I wanted a NForce3 250 GB board, but I can't seem to find any that don't have issues. The MSI Neo Platinum and the EPoX board both looked like a solid bet, but I've found that the reviews are mixed on both of those...some users are trouble free and others have various problems. However, if you guys can suggest a good solid NF3 250GB-based board, I'll certainly consider anything that's mentioned. The Asus NF3 250GB board (is it K8N-e?) looked very nice at first and it seems the overclocking issues have been fixed, but I've read it's pretty picky about memory. Of course, there is the argument that ANY Athlon 64 machine will be picky about memory.
Basically though, the ASRock K8S8X and Asus K8V SE Deluxe look attractive because I can get both for under $100 and both seem to be very solid. The Asus board isn't exactly at the top of the benchmarks, but I'll gladly take stability over speed. The MSI, EPoX, Chaintech, etc. seem to be marginally faster but it seem the Asus is among the most problem-free boards out of the K8T800 offerings.
Comments? Whatever I buy will be paired with a 3400+ Newcastle and most likely will not be overclocked. I don't think the 3400+'s have much room to overclock anyway, since they're already near the ~2.45/2.5 GHz ceiling that most users seem to hit on air cooling.
Thoughts?
I'm pretty proud of myself because I've had the urge to upgrade from my P4 2.53 rig to an A64 for several months, but I haven't rushed into buying something I might regret.
After debating back and forth between S754 and S939, I've pretty much decided on S754 because it will cost less and I plan to upgrade again when DDR2 and/or PCI-E become widely available. A lot of people talk about the "upgrade potential" of S939 but none of those boards come with either of the aforementioned features that I know of, and I'm sure I'll want to take advantage of them so I don't see much point in spending the extra cash for a S939 board (especially since I can't seem to find one without numerous issues...plus as we all know, dual channel provides only a very modest performance boost...not worth the extra money IMO).
ANYWAY, back to the point. I want a good, solid A64 board and from what I can tell the K8S8X and K8V SE Deluxe look like two of the boards with the least amount of issues and hassles. The K8S8X is light on features but everyone claims it's a very solid board that works right out of the box. The K8V SE is a little more feature-rich but I've also seen few problems out of this board (plus, I doubt AMD would pick that board for their promotional bundle if it was plagued with problems).
Initially I wanted a NForce3 250 GB board, but I can't seem to find any that don't have issues. The MSI Neo Platinum and the EPoX board both looked like a solid bet, but I've found that the reviews are mixed on both of those...some users are trouble free and others have various problems. However, if you guys can suggest a good solid NF3 250GB-based board, I'll certainly consider anything that's mentioned. The Asus NF3 250GB board (is it K8N-e?) looked very nice at first and it seems the overclocking issues have been fixed, but I've read it's pretty picky about memory. Of course, there is the argument that ANY Athlon 64 machine will be picky about memory.
Basically though, the ASRock K8S8X and Asus K8V SE Deluxe look attractive because I can get both for under $100 and both seem to be very solid. The Asus board isn't exactly at the top of the benchmarks, but I'll gladly take stability over speed. The MSI, EPoX, Chaintech, etc. seem to be marginally faster but it seem the Asus is among the most problem-free boards out of the K8T800 offerings.
Comments? Whatever I buy will be paired with a 3400+ Newcastle and most likely will not be overclocked. I don't think the 3400+'s have much room to overclock anyway, since they're already near the ~2.45/2.5 GHz ceiling that most users seem to hit on air cooling.
Thoughts?
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