Athlon 64 Motherboard....I've narrowed down my choices. UPDATE with question about MSI board and Zalman HS

[shiner]

Ok....I've finally narrowed down my choices some when it comes to choosing a new motherboard for my Athlon 64 3200. They are

Asus K8V
Aopen AK86
MSI K8T NEO

I've read through the various threads on here and have yet to get a good feeling about which board would best fit my needs since everyone seems to be intent on overclocking and that is something I don't care about. I use my system for gaming, general office work, and just everyday use. I know I probably don't need an Athlon 64, but I need to upgrade so that's what I'm going for.

What I would like from everyone is a recommendation on what they think would fit me best, and what experiences they have had with each board.

Any help/input will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!!!

 

[NicColt]

I'm sure they're all fine boards but I could tell you what I have..... I have the Asus board and very happy with it. This is what I have

Antec 3700-QBE lined with Akasa Pax-Mate
and Enermax Adj. Fan in front and Vantec Fan controller.
Antec True-Blue 480 Watt PSU
Asus K8V Deluxe with AMD64 3200.
2 x 512 Kingston HyperX PC3500
ATI AIW 9800 Pro
3 x 160 Gig Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 SATA drives, 2 in RAID
Plextor PX-708A DVDRW/CDRW Drive
LG CD-RW GCE-8320B 24x10x40
Monitor HP P1110 Trinitron FD
Audigy 2 ZS Platinum Pro with Megaworks 550's

This thing has been cracking seti since day one 24/7 without any problems whatsoever, not one system or game crash even while seti is in the background.

I had a problem with my video card but it has nothing to do with the rest of the system. The only quirk I had with the board was that in order to use the floppy I had to upgrade the bios and guess what I had the bios on floppy. I couldn't install XP coz I have SATA drives. So I had to go to another computer to make a bootable cd-rw with the updated bios on it.

Once everything got installed, games, multimedia, burning, or whatever torture I put to it, this thing is rock solid.

 

[Yossarian]

MSI here, very stable. I do like the cool n quiet feature which scales back your CPU on the fly depending on the required workload of the processor. I dont' believe the ASUS has that.

 

[Viper96720]

Pretty much all the boards got bios updates to enable cool and quiet. When they first came out some didn't have it. ASUS does have it also.

 

[LeeC]

msi

 

[zodder]

I put together my Athlon64 using the MSI Neo mobo and I couldn't be happier. I immediately overclocked my 3200+ to 2.15 (215x10) and I've been running seti 24/7 without so much as a hiccup. I'm using 2 - 512 sticks of Corsair PC3200LL for reference. So far I'd highly recommend the MSI K8T NEO FIS2R. It's definitely a screamer!

 

[xterra2000]

For those who have used MSI K8T NEO, what kind of heatsink are you guys using? It seens like MSI board have problem with some of the oversize heatsink due to the board cooling design. Thanks.

 

[shiner]

I saw a couple of reviews that said the MSI board had some problems with certain type of memory. Anyone have experince or comments on that?

 

[Yossarian]

stock HSF here w/Crucial memory. check MSI's support forum, that's probably the best source of people bitching about problems

 

[shiner]

Originally posted by: xterra2000
For those who have used MSI K8T NEO, what kind of heatsink are you guys using? It seens like MSI board have problem with some of the oversize heatsink due to the board cooling design. Thanks.

Good question....I'm 95% sure that I'm going with the MSI board now after reading some additional reviews and I'm thinking of using the Zalman CNPS7000A-AlCu for my cooling solution. Sure their site says it works on "all socket 754 MB's, but I would like to hear from someone that is using one and see what they think.

 

[IceCreamMan2633]

ASUS

 

[newb54]

Originally posted by: shinerburke

Originally posted by: xterra2000
For those who have used MSI K8T NEO, what kind of heatsink are you guys using? It seens like MSI board have problem with some of the oversize heatsink due to the board cooling design. Thanks.

Good question....I'm 95% sure that I'm going with the MSI board now after reading some additional reviews and I'm thinking of using the Zalman CNPS7000A-AlCu for my cooling solution. Sure their site says it works on "all socket 754 MB's, but I would like to hear from someone that is using one and see what they think.

I am using the Zalman CNPS7000A-AlCu on my AK86-L, I run at 33.5 C idle and up to 43.5 C under heavy load. It was a breeze to install on the AK86, I dont think it will be a problem on the MSI. There is nothing wrong with the stock HSF on the A64's if you want to go that route. I just got zalman because it was basically the same price a retail processor (3200 OEM for 253 + 33 for zalman).

 

[Cybordolphin]

How could you rule out the Chaintech ZNF3-150????

From the Anand write up and the Newegg reviews..... seems like the board to get? Does not seem to have the quirks of other Nforce 3 boards.

 

[McArra]

Originally posted by: Cybordolphin
How could you rule out the Chaintech ZNF3-150????

From the Anand write up and the Newegg reviews..... seems like the board to get? Does not seem to have the quirks of other Nforce 3 boards.

I have it, still running stock speeds with DDR333 memory as my twinmos hasn't arrived yet (hope it does tomorrow). All I can say is that I'm really happy I bought it. Performance is great, BIOS options have almost everything and are great for overclocking. sound is far better than soundstorm, CBox3 is great, looks are beatifull.... I'm in love with it. It has every feature you could think of. Only thing I don't like is temps readings, that are a little high, but that's not a problem and a BIOS update can fix it. (CPU 41C idle 49C full load in Zalman 7000A al/cu). It seems to me like a monster for overclocking, but I still haven't tried. I'll post some results tomorrow if memory arrives.

 

[shiner]

Originally posted by: Cybordolphin
How could you rule out the Chaintech ZNF3-150????

From the Anand write up and the Newegg reviews..... seems like the board to get? Does not seem to have the quirks of other Nforce 3 boards.

I'm going with the Via chipset.

 

[LeeC]

If you are not going to overclock, there is no reason not to use the original HS. In my systems it stays pretty close to 32c-34c idle, and does not get over 40c load. It runs very cool as is. The two rams that I have used are the geil 3200 value, and the corsair 3200llpro. I have not had any problems with either, and I do not oc much either. I have played with the core center, and got up to 211 fsb, and everything ran stable. I then put it back to spec, and keep on going..

 

[shiner]

Originally posted by: LeeC
If you are not going to overclock, there is no reason not to use the original HS. In my systems it stays pretty close to 32c-34c idle, and does not get over 40c load. It runs very cool as is. The two rams that I have used are the geil 3200 value, and the corsair 3200llpro. I have not had any problems with either, and I do not oc much either. I have played with the core center, and got up to 211 fsb, and everything ran stable. I then put it back to spec, and keep on going..

I'm more concerned about noise than I am temps really. A friend of mine has an Athlon 64 3200 with a stock HS/Fan and at times it sounds like a 747.

 

[Yossarian]

Originally posted by: Cybordolphin
How could you rule out the Chaintech ZNF3-150????

From the Anand write up and the Newegg reviews..... seems like the board to get? Does not seem to have the quirks of other Nforce 3 boards.

Do not go by Newegg's customer comments. They aren't reviews, and Newegg won't publish negative comments.

 

[McArra]

I can tell you it is great

 

[zodder]

I'm using the retail hs/f on my A64 3200+. I have no problems running it at 215, and my temps while running SETI never get over 43C.