Asus A8N SLI vs DFI LanParty nF4 SLI-DR

[joejccva]

After reading a bunch of posts on here and on Xtremesystems site, I'm now debating on not opening the Asus motherboard box when it gets here Thursday and sending it back to get a DFI Lanparty mobo. It's only $30 more and I've read that the OC'ing capabilities on the Lanparty are superior to the Asus A8N SLI boards. To me thats worth an extra $30. I should have realized this yesterday before I had them ship my stuff to me. Ugh.

Also to save a little money in the process, I wonder if I should return my 3200+ Venice and get a 3000+ Venice. Ive read that people have been able to OC their 3000+ to 2.7ghz with the proper cooling and using DFI mobo's. Can I get higher gains than 2.7 with the DFI and the 3200+ Venice cpu?

Which brings me to another point....is this memory that I purchased good for OC'ing? Or do you guys recommend some other memory that is around $100-130. I paid $106 for mine but not sure if it's good for OC'ing. It's value ram. 🙁

Here's link ->http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16820227213

Thanks for input guys.

Joe

 

[imported_wyrmrider]

the value ram will work fine read the stickies at the top of the page
with the proper motherboard (not necessairly DFI) either 3000 or 3200 can oc to the same level
you can save a few bucks with the 3000-
it's the luck of the draw- they come from the same wafers

get a faster chip if you already have a good power supply, video card, cooler, ups, hard drive etc etc
and have some unneeded cash

you can avoid all of the following 🙂

some quotes from the ocz thread and some links

http://edgetechhq.50webs.com/valueram.htm by Zebo READ THIS

DFI STUFF if you love this get the DFI
The VX memory wouldn't be suited for you if you're going to aim for 300 HTT. I would suggest the PC4200 EL Platinum for you. They use the Samsung TCCD chips and are rated for higher speeds than our PC3200 EL Platinum Revision 2. The main difference between the PC4200 and the PC3200 Plat Rev2 is that the 4200 are guaranteed to do at least 267 HTT at 2.5-3-3 timings while the PC3200 is guaranteed to do 200 HTT at 2-2-2 timings. Not all chips used in the PC3200 EL Plat Rev 2 are able to do the higher speeds that the PC4200 EL Plat can.

The DFI NF4 boards seem to like the VX memory very well, however the VX does not scale like the Platinum series memory does. It will do 250 - 260 at 2-2-2-x.
The Platinums will push the 300FSB envelope at about 2.5-3-3-x or 2.5-4-3-x timings.

Here is a thread with A64 tweaker settings for the VX with the DFI NF4, first post is a NewCastle, second is a Winnie.
http://www.bleedinedge.com/forum/showthread.php?t=7596

Here is a long thread where Tony (BigToe) tested all kinds of OCZ memory on his DFI
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=50421&page=1

http://www.bleedinedge.com/forum/showthread.php?t=9833
If BIOS 310 does not fix your problems the following paragraph still applies:
We can't say enough good things about this board, but plug and play does not apply here. Every memory/chipset timing in the BIOS pretty much needs to be tweaked to keep from having testing errors. If you don't want to bother with all this you bought the wrong board.

This motherboard IS NOT a build and forget it project. It requires quite a bit of tinkering as you must know if you are reading this. It can aslo be extremely frustrating. In all likelyhood it's not the RAM, it's the BIOS and BIOS settings. The DFI is EXTREMELY powerful and can do what no other can, but the word "easy" does not apply.

http://i4memory.com/showthread.php?t=327 READ THIS

 

[joejccva]

Originally posted by: wyrmrider
the value ram will work fine read the stickies at the top of the page
with the proper motherboard (not necessairly DFI) either 3000 or 3200 can oc to the same level
you can save a few bucks with the 3000-
it's the luck of the draw- they come from the same wafers

get a faster chip if you already have a good power supply, video card, cooler, ups, hard drive etc etc
and have some unneeded cash

you can avoid all of the following 🙂

some quotes from the ocz thread and some links

http://edgetechhq.50webs.com/valueram.htm by Zebo READ THIS

DFI STUFF if you love this get the DFI
The VX memory wouldn't be suited for you if you're going to aim for 300 HTT. I would suggest the PC4200 EL Platinum for you. They use the Samsung TCCD chips and are rated for higher speeds than our PC3200 EL Platinum Revision 2. The main difference between the PC4200 and the PC3200 Plat Rev2 is that the 4200 are guaranteed to do at least 267 HTT at 2.5-3-3 timings while the PC3200 is guaranteed to do 200 HTT at 2-2-2 timings. Not all chips used in the PC3200 EL Plat Rev 2 are able to do the higher speeds that the PC4200 EL Plat can.

The DFI NF4 boards seem to like the VX memory very well, however the VX does not scale like the Platinum series memory does. It will do 250 - 260 at 2-2-2-x.
The Platinums will push the 300FSB envelope at about 2.5-3-3-x or 2.5-4-3-x timings.

Here is a thread with A64 tweaker settings for the VX with the DFI NF4, first post is a NewCastle, second is a Winnie.
http://www.bleedinedge.com/forum/showthread.php?t=7596

Here is a long thread where Tony (BigToe) tested all kinds of OCZ memory on his DFI
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=50421&page=1

http://www.bleedinedge.com/forum/showthread.php?t=9833
If BIOS 310 does not fix your problems the following paragraph still applies:
We can't say enough good things about this board, but plug and play does not apply here. Every memory/chipset timing in the BIOS pretty much needs to be tweaked to keep from having testing errors. If you don't want to bother with all this you bought the wrong board.

This motherboard IS NOT a build and forget it project. It requires quite a bit of tinkering as you must know if you are reading this. It can aslo be extremely frustrating. In all likelyhood it's not the RAM, it's the BIOS and BIOS settings. The DFI is EXTREMELY powerful and can do what no other can, but the word "easy" does not apply.

http://i4memory.com/showthread.php?t=327 READ THIS

Whoa. $244.39 for the PC4200 OCZ Platinum 1gb (2x512mb) chips. Too pricey for me.

 

[imported_g33k]

Keep that 3200+ for the x10 multiplier. And then get some twinmos utt or some ocz value vx and if you go past 260htt, just use a divider. A64 likes low latency over higher bandwidth anyway.

 

[joejccva]

Originally posted by: g33k
Keep that 3200+ for the x10 multiplier. And then get some twinmos utt or some ocz value vx and if you go past 260htt, just use a divider. A64 likes low latency over higher bandwidth anyway.

Yea I thought the same thing too. You know I think I'm just going to keep my Asus A8N SLI board and see how it OC's. If I can manage to get to 2500mhz I am happy. Of course I could probably get to 2700-2800mhz using the DFI Lanparty board but I'd rather not go through the hassle of sending the board back to NewEgg and having to wait for them to send me a DFI Lanparty, unless of course that there is something wrong with the Asus like that chipset fan issue these boards have sometimes. 🙁

So if I can get a stable overclock to 250HTT with 3x or 4x HTT multi, vcore at 1.55 I should be able to get nice gains. My OCZ value ram is "rated" at 2.5-3-3-6 ..whether that is 1T or 2T i have no idea. I'm hoping it's 1T. 🙂

So my question is ...if I can get 250HTT, what should I probably set my OCZ value ram divider to? Shouldn't I technically be able to leave it at 200mhz with the default timings? I guess thats where I'm confused at.