Best Athlon 64 Socket 939 Motherboard??

[btacular]

Topic. I read Anandtech's review of the socket 939 motherboards and was planning to buy the MSI K*N Neo 2 board. However, I've read several posts that states MSI has horrible problems with buggy boards and poor customer support. I also read there are some issues with the AGP rentention clip (in regards to the boards layout).

It seems the Nforce 3 boards are the best performing. I'm also inclined to buy one based on the great features they have and based on my experience with the Nforce 2 Ultra 400s. I offer any comments or suggestions you have on the subject.

 

[formulav8]

If you just need basic features like, SATA and IDE controllers, onboard sound, usb and lan. You can get the Chaintech VNF3 250 board for a pretty low price. I have the board and it is ok. I am not 100% happen with Chaintech since they do not produce updated bios's hardly at all. I am still waiting for a bios later than April. There are some issue's that I would like a bios update to fix.


Jason

 

[btacular]

that's not a socket 939 mobo is it??

 

[nick1985]

Originally posted by: btacular
that's not a socket 939 mobo is it??

no, its not.

 

[ChineseGuy]

Personally, I would go with the Neo 2 , because of the working AGP lock :-\ I used to be a via fan... they dissapointed me

 

[btacular]

is MSI a reliable company?? I've only had experince with Gigabyte and ASUS Motherboards

 

[ChineseGuy]

Asus is definately the best motherboard manufacturer out there, IMHO. MSI boards are not bad, had some problems with them on one of their "mini-pc" media center series (MEGA). Do your research, read reviews before you buy. There are prob a bunch of threads about the known problems and what not. I think it's personal prefrence...

 

[Lyfer]

Why not just stick with Socket 754. DC DDR hardly offers much of a performance difference, and Socket 754 boards are much richer in overclocking features.

 

[btacular]

i read that socket 754 isn't going to be a platform that AMD will make a lot of new CPUs for... socket 939 seems to perform well and is much more atrractive to me as a platform

also i thought you had to use registered ram with socket 754?? I already have 512 PC3200 DDR X2 of corsair xms ram

what would the advantages of a socket 754 system be? thx

 

[ChineseGuy]

Correct me if i am wrong, but the main difference between a 939 and a 754 is the dual channel memory controller. the 939 are a little pricey right now, and AMD is aiming toward the enthusist, high end gaming system, or server type platform. The 754 is going to be like the "socket A" where it's cheaper for lower end user to enjoy the speed (out preforming P4) w/o paying a lot... AMD will probably still continue with Socket 754 for a long time, and i am guessing that they will continue to make higher speed processor later. There is certainly a lot more room for 939 to grow and stay longer, but 754 is going to grow as well, maybe not as long. I guess the main "advantage" of a 754 would be the price...

 

[RearAdmiral]

Well I have Asus' 939 board with my athlon fx-53. It is an older one(revision 1.8) and the locks work perfectly. Anything after a certain serial number should have working locks. All the revision 2.0s have working locks I believe though. The Asus board has some good features. I've gotten some use out of their wi-fi hardware it comes with. Peoples only complaint with the Via chipset is the locks, but thats not an issue anymore really. The VIA chipsets will be slightly faster in games, around ~5%. The Nforce boards will be slightly faster in CAD apps. The Nforce boards seem to be much much more expensive as well. I picked up the Asus board for $130. Havent had one problem with it yet. There arent any advantages of socket 754 except the price. The Asus bios has TONS of options in it. It is user friendly but allows you to change many many options down to the last details. I like Asus' bios features as well.(no more corrupted bios'). The board allows you to be very flexible with what you want to do with anything involving it. But otherwise they are all very high performing boards, you won't notice too much of a difference in many applications.

and Socket 754 boards are much richer in overclocking features.

The Asus board has everything you will need when it comes to overclocking. Unless there is something else I can't remember. But it has voltage adjustments for everything, frequency, multipliers,etc.

also i thought you had to use registered ram with socket 754??

That was with socket 940.

All in all, the board manufacturers have worked out pretty much all the bugs from the socket. There aren't very many huge issues anymore like the locks not working. If you go with 939 now you can't really go wrong in my opinion.

 

[LordPhoenix]

ASUS or ABIT.

 

[btacular]

thx... you guys have been very helpful. I have a lot to think about. I'm leaning toward the Asus 939 Board. I'm going to try to read as many reviews as I can of all the 939 boards. I'll let you guys know which direction I'll go in.

 

[ChineseGuy]

Might want to wait on that system. http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/cpu/display/20040821122657.html
I didn't want to wait on mine, because school is starting soon, so i decided to go with a 754.
But it sounds like to me in that article, AMD is going to drop their 939 cpu prices soon...

Ohh and, if i remember correctly, the nforce3 chipset preformed better than the via in gaming, if you have a nvidia card, it will preform better on the nforce chip .. duh

 

[btacular]

man this is a tough decision made tougher by the lack of socket 939 boards

the main candidates are the MSI nforce3 board vs the asus kt800 pro board

i'll make a decision by tomorrow

 

[btacular]

hi guys, quick update

purchased the MSI 939 board and Athlon 64 3500 from zipzoomfly.... i'll let you guys know how it turns out