Right. Luckily the PCIe cards are generally less expensive than their AGP equivelants in a number of cases.[/quote]
Alright! Sounds like it's time to take the PCIe plunge. Anyone know any good deals on PCIe cards?
Alright! Sounds like it's time to take the PCIe plunge. Anyone know any good deals on PCIe cards?
Newegg has some refurb 6600GT's in the $160's, or new ones in the $180's.
Man... I got all excited when this thing came available and bought one even though I already had an A8N-SLI in the mail to me. What am I going to do w/ two NForce4's?
I'm probably going to sell the A8N when it arrives since I'm probably not going to use the SLI feature.
Man... I got all excited when this thing came available and bought one even though I already had an A8N-SLI in the mail to me. What am I going to do w/ two NForce4's?
I'm probably going to sell the A8N when it arrives since I'm probably not going to use the SLI feature."oh do you really think we'll hear more on the quality of the boards soon ? really ? [pwned]" - mimicks in stans girly voice.
Stan,
Medication, quick!
This is a hot deal thread not a debate for fanboi's to spew off how they can get 2 more fsb with board A or raise their ram voltage on board B.
Currently this is the cheapest NF4 boards you can buy. It's available and should work fine with any winchester chip you throw at it. You are dealing with more "what if's" than reality. Yes, it will get cheaper and yes there will be better boards, but not for less money right now.
The chipset has been tested and reviewed. Search and you will see.
The company (chaintech) makes decent products. Search and you will see.
If you want a cheap NF4 board right now, this is best deal going. Argue all you want.
The only thing you [pwn] is the title biggest ass on anandtech. Fact.
Why don't you go back and troll one of the fanboi sites. [pwned]
-show
Look, the things that matter to most people is performance and features, and the type of chipset is just a step to get the best combination of performance and features at the right price. While I agree (as I mentioned before), that nf4 is the only chipset that gives you PCI-e on socket 939 right now, as far as peformance, we have no proof that this specific chaintech board has better perofrmance than existing 939 boards. Moreover, there are many issues that could come up with regard to the features of the board (e.g. overclocking adjustments, reliability, support, etc) that need to be considered, before buying it. I like to read in depth technical reviews which compare the various alternatives before deciding which board to get. Although right now the choices are few, and this price is among the lowest currently, I think that within a very short time we'll have a lot more offerings, and at much better prices, in addition to the fact that we'll be able to make informed decisions leading to a better choice based on reviews which will surely be published. But be my guest and say whatever you want to justify buying this important corner stone in a system blindly.
[pwned^2]
Hey, if worst comes to worst and reviews show this is a piece of crap, you can always ship it back for a refund to newegg
I've had chaintech mobos before and they are pretty decent. I'm seriously thinking about ordering one of these. Man the CA tax on my $600 order is enough to make me want to find someone who lives next state over lol.
I've had chaintech mobos before and they are pretty decent. I'm seriously thinking about ordering one of these. Man the CA tax on my $600 order is enough to make me want to find someone who lives next state over lol.
Unfortunately for nforce4 nvidia went for a AC97 solution. I'm not too happy about that, I wanted soundstorm. And if you read reviews of nforce4 ultra and sli boards, it shows that it takes a significant chunk of CPU in some modes (hardware accelerated I think was one of the modes). But its better than nothing, and certainly better than this piece of crap SB live! I have to put up with now.
You spelt moron wrong, moron.
"S P E L T!?!?!"
WTFYDA
why not:
THY SPELT MORON WRONG THOU SHALT SPELL: Mo'Ron
"S P E L T!?!?!"
WTFYDA
why not:
THY SPELT MORON WRONG THOU SHALT SPELL: Mo'Ron
Originally posted by: Wyck
Newegg has some refurb 6600GT's in the $160's, or new ones in the $180's.
Man... I got all excited when this thing came available and bought one even though I already had an A8N-SLI in the mail to me. What am I going to do w/ two NForce4's?
Why dont you try both out and let us know which one you like best and why...
And back OT for a sec, I wouldn't hesitate to be an early adopter on this board. Chaintech's support, build quality and BIOS revisions are some of the best I''ve come across in the past 4 years of system building.
Even if a BIOS feature is broken now, they can and will usually fix it via BIOS update. The only reason to wait would be to see what kind of RAM this board likes. Hell, I'd buy one right now if I had the dough...
Even if a BIOS feature is broken now, they can and will usually fix it via BIOS update. The only reason to wait would be to see what kind of RAM this board likes. Hell, I'd buy one right now if I had the dough...
Good point about the RAM. They have a MEMORY COMPATABILITY link on the homepage
http://www.chaintechusa.com/tw...MPSNo=13&PISNo=318
on the right hand side, but it doesn't actually lead to anything.
Well I was going to get some Corsair value select RAM from newegg, it has 2.5-3-3-8 timings 512 megs of PC3200 for under $70.
I would imagine that would work fine with it.
good one, but anyway did any of the ginny pigs , sorry early adopters, get this board and tried it ? please post your comments, especially wrt overclocking options. IT looks like the o'clocking options on the a8n-sli leave a lot to be desired.
What exactly is the difference between the SLI version of nForce4 boards, and the regular nForce4's?
I would imagine you could find out yourself on the downloadable manual
Link provided for the lazy.http://www.chaintechusa.com/tw...?DCSNo=9&PISNo=318
SLI would be the ability to have TWO pci-e video cards at once in your system, ala the old voodoo setup. One card would draw half the screen, the other would draw the other half giving you theoretically twice the graphical power if you had 2 graphics cards. Thats an oversimplified explanation, but it should help you understand.
I mean are you going to buy 2 6800 ultras for $500 each and then pay the SLI motherboard price (averages $250 last time I checked) for like $1250? If you have that kinda cash hanging around for ONLY the motherboard and graphics, you probably are going to consider a $5000 alienware system
Note that there are 3 versions of nforce4. Normal, Ultra, and SLI. SLI is as above. Ultra has some things like I think 3GB sata and maybe one or two other things. In this case the $119 for the chaintech is for an ultra version and so far is the least expensive nforce4 board out which is why a lot of people are excited about it.
Edit: The only other differance I've found so far in the chaintech lineup anyway, between ultra and normal is that the hardware accelerated nvidia firewall (active armor or some such) is in the ultra only.
Edit2: Apparently another differance is higher HyperTransport speeds.
Thanks! Excellent explanation. Looks like the SLI version is completely not worth the cost unless you're doing extremely graphic intensive professional stuff.
Or you are just a insane gamer with money to spend
You could get two 6600GT cards, $200 each for that and $300 for SLI mobo, is "only" $700. As well, it could be left for the future upgrade possibilities. Like use it as a single until the 6600gt cards come down to $100 each then you could almost double your speed for just $100 more.
But currently the very high SLI mobo costs makes that impractical.
I've got an A8N-SLI on backorder with Buy.com for $175 shipped (coupon) and am content waiting for it. I've got that and a BFG 6800GT OC PCI-E and 3000+ 90mn earmarked for my system upgrade. Come on buy.com! Of course if I can find anyone else that has it in stock for $200 or so I'll jump on that. Then, about a year or so from now I can pop another 6800GT in and enjoy 32 pipes of goodness.
Originally posted by: Devistater
I would imagine you could find out yourself on the downloadable manual
http://www.chaintechusa.com/tw...?DCSNo=9&PISNo=318
SLI would be the ability to have TWO pci-e video cards at once in your system, ala the old voodoo setup. One card would draw half the screen, the other would draw the other half giving you theoretically twice the graphical power if you had 2 graphics cards. Thats an oversimplified explanation, but it should help you understand.
I mean are you going to buy 2 6800 ultras for $500 each and then pay the SLI motherboard price (averages $250 last time I checked) for like $1250? If you have that kinda cash hanging around for ONLY the motherboard and graphics, you probably are going to consider a $5000 alienware system
Note that there are 3 versions of nforce4. Normal, Ultra, and SLI. SLI is as above. Ultra has some things like I think 3GB sata and maybe one or two other things. In this case the $119 for the chaintech is for an ultra version and so far is the least expensive nforce4 board out which is why a lot of people are excited about it.
Edit: The only other differance I've found so far in the chaintech lineup anyway, between ultra and normal is that the hardware accelerated nvidia firewall (active armor or some such) is in the ultra only.
hmmm... interesting but misinformed. The attitude reflected in your post towards pricing is typical of people that justify overpaying based on current prices (btw, did you invest in the stock market at its peak as well, just before the crash?). First, there are much cheaper nforce4 mobos already available, for exampe Foxconn board in the UK for 48 pounds, and soon enough it will be available here, and many more like it. Second, the same nfocre4 chipset is used for SLI or non-SLI, so the only difference is handled by the mobo manufacturer, by configuring and putting in an additional x8 pci-e channel (the actual sli operation is handled by the graphics drivers). Third, once retail prices for sli mobos come down to reasonable levels (e.g. close to the wholesale prices), it would in fact be quite possible to build a cost effective system, and have sli as a great upgrade option in the future.
Another big difference between the non-ultra and the Ultra version of the NF4 is that the Ultra supports 5X HyperTransport (2000mhz) where the non-ultra only supports 4X (1600mhz). This probably doesn't translate to much of a performance difference but it's still one more consideration. There's more info in this thread.
Originally posted by: user1234
Originally posted by: Devistater
I would imagine you could find out yourself on the downloadable manual
http://www.chaintechusa.com/tw...?DCSNo=9&PISNo=318
SLI would be the ability to have TWO pci-e video cards at once in your system, ala the old voodoo setup. One card would draw half the screen, the other would draw the other half giving you theoretically twice the graphical power if you had 2 graphics cards. Thats an oversimplified explanation, but it should help you understand.
I mean are you going to buy 2 6800 ultras for $500 each and then pay the SLI motherboard price (averages $250 last time I checked) for like $1250? If you have that kinda cash hanging around for ONLY the motherboard and graphics, you probably are going to consider a $5000 alienware system
Note that there are 3 versions of nforce4. Normal, Ultra, and SLI. SLI is as above. Ultra has some things like I think 3GB sata and maybe one or two other things. In this case the $119 for the chaintech is for an ultra version and so far is the least expensive nforce4 board out which is why a lot of people are excited about it.
Edit: The only other differance I've found so far in the chaintech lineup anyway, between ultra and normal is that the hardware accelerated nvidia firewall (active armor or some such) is in the ultra only.
hmmm... interesting but misinformed. The attitude reflected in your post towards pricing is typical of people that justify overpaying based on current prices (btw, did you invest in the stock market at its peak as well, just before the crash?). First, there are much cheaper nforce4 mobos already available, for exampe Foxconn board in the UK for 48 pounds, and soon enough it will be available here, and many more like it. Second, the same nfocre4 chipset is used for SLI or non-SLI, so the only difference is handled by the mobo manufacturer, by configuring and putting in an additional x8 pci-e channel (the actual sli operation is handled by the graphics drivers). Third, once retail prices for sli mobos come down to reasonable levels (e.g. close to the wholesale prices), it would in fact be quite possible to build a cost effective system, and have sli as a great upgrade option in the future.
thanks for the info, but how long do you think is the wait going to be? i love cheap but reliable motherboards because the performance people pay premium for are so neglible in the greater scope of things.
but if the wait is long, it might just be worth it to pay extra to get it earlier.
Hahahahaha. Overpaying? Since when is $119 for an ultra nforce4 board overpaying? As for stock market, nice way to stereotype a person. For your info, I don't play the market like that. I invest in a couple blue chips and then let my money sit for 10 years or more. Less profit, but also much less risk. You have to decide your own risk you are willing to take and invest appropriatly. But isn't this off topic?
I wasn't aware of the Foxconn motherboard, but you sure do lose a lot of features for that $92.24 (per the xe currancy converter) as compared to the $119 which is less than $30 additional. And I'm not sure I'd call them 1st or 2nd tier either.
It only has 2 dimm slots, only 5.1 sound, only 8 usb ports, only 2 pci slots, only 1 pci-Express x1 slot. And of course the ultra features as ppl have helped me figure out above, which are missing active armor, slower hyper transport, and no 3GB sata.
As for your claim of the Nvidia SLI chip version being the same as the ultra chip. Well not according to what I see on nvidia's pages:
http://nvidia.com/page/nforce4_sli.html
" the unique single-chip, low-latency architecture of the NVIDIA nForce4 SLI MCP"
"NVIDIA nForce4 SLI MCPs include dedicated SLI hardware"
Then on
http://nvidia.com/page/nforce4_ultra.html
"NVIDIA nForce4 Ultra MCPs (media and communication processors)"
"With NVIDIA nForce4 Ultra MCP"
and on this page: http://nvidia.com/page/nforce4
"NVIDIA nForce4 MCPs"
etc. Oh one more quote "NVIDIA SLI certified motherboards include NVIDIA nForce4 SLI MCP"
You get the idea. There are 3 seperate versions of the nforce chip, they have 3 differant spec sheet pages.
BTW, you do NOT get "an additional x8 pci-e channel" on the sli as that quote from you states. And if you did it would have to be supported by the nforce chip, you can't just throw something like that on without chip support. If you bothered to do a modicum of research you'd notice this.
Lets get some linkage to backup my claims since you probably won't belive me.
Exhibit a) Nvidia's Nforce4 Ultra Specs
"PCI Express Configuration 20 lanes Fixed (16,1,1,1)"
Exhibit b) Nvidia's Nforce4 SLI Specs
"PCI Express Configuration 20 lanes Flexible"
Well well well. Exact same number of lanes! But but, does this mean that SLI has to share the 16 lanes and do like 8 each to a SLI card? Yes.
Source: http://usa.asus.com/prog/spec....%20Deluxe&langs=09
"Expansion Slots - 2 x PCI Express x16 slot
*SLI mode : x8 , x8
*Default(Single VGA) mode : x16, x1"
You can also check reviews on various SLI motherboards, most of them state something about this.
Another quote from nvidia SLI FAQ
"SLI technology requires a PCI Express motherboard. Current configurations support motherboards with two x16 physical connectors. The graphics cards plug into these connectors. The cards can work with whatever routing because x16 PCI Express connectors can auto-negotiate down to x8, or x4 electrical." It might have a physical 16x but in SLI mode it runs at 8x each. Now does this really matter currently? Probably not, I doubt the current PCI E cards take full advandage of all 8 lanes, let alone 16 lanes. I mean look at IDE hard drives, they are barely moving into ATA 66 sustained territory right now. They might need more for some bursts, but sustained they aren't even close to using ATA 133.
http://www.storagereview.com/a...0021018WD2000xB_2.html
You can see in PATA that the sustained transfer rates start at around 33 on inner tracks and go up to 56 or so. On SATA it isn't much better. 38 to 65. http://www.storagereview.com/a...0410087B300S0-2_2.html
Because of all of this and the additional complexity of most SLI motherboards, the extra cost of the nvidia SLI chip, and the added card thingy that most motherboard makers seem to be using right now for SLI, I dont think you'll see a SLI motherboard lower than $200 for a while. So back to my starting point. I think that overpaying would be paying $300 for an SLI, not paying $119 for a ultra.
" Third, once retail prices for sli mobos come down to reasonable levels (e.g. close to the wholesale prices), it would in fact be quite possible to build a cost effective system"
Sure, and thats why I said "But currently the very high SLI mobo costs makes that impractical. "
Notice the use of the word CURRENTLY?
If it was say only about $50 more for SLI, I would be seriously looking into it for a possible upgrade path. But its currently much more. So currently, you are probably better off buying a ultra nforce4 and spending the extra you would have paid for SLI on a better graphics card. Unless of course you have tons of extra money and want to SLI the 6800 ultra, in which case the cost isn't a big deal.
the bottom line is that you're still buying something without having a sinlge idea about it's performance. It may as well be no better than the vnf3 board, which sells for $70. Only difference is the pci-e vs agp, which has both advantages or disadvantages (like if you use a pci-e vidcard now, you'll be able to keep using it even after future upgrades, but if you already have agp card now, you won't be able to use it with this board). Also the other bottom line is that in a month or two we'll have a lot more 939+pci-e boards to choose from (can't dispute that can you) , and we'll have much more information about which are the better and faster ones. Plus, as a matter of fact, prices will be cheaper, after the initial gouging dissipates (go ahead, try to dispute that). And as a rule of thumb, it's almost never a good idea to blindly buy the first thing that's available, it's almost never the best choice. Unless you cannot wait, but if you're just doing it because of lacking patience than go ahead and make a fool out of yourself, but don't try to rationalize it using pathetic excuses why this is a good choice.
You seems to be stating the obvious. Let me summarize your whole post...
1. If you buy a brand new board, that has not been reviewed yet, it could turn out to be a failure.
Uh...No duh?
2. In a month or two there will be more NF4 boards availible.
Uh...No duh?
3. Prices will drop...
I thought that was how economics worked. When something is new and competition is low, prices are high. Do I need to mention supply and demand too?
4. "Unless you cannot wait, but if you're just doing it because of lacking patience than go ahead and make a fool out of yourself, but don't try to rationalize it using pathetic excuses why this is a good choice."
With a comment like that, I really hope you're not a moderator here like your signature says.
1. If you buy a brand new board, that has not been reviewed yet, it could turn out to be a failure.
Uh...No duh?
2. In a month or two there will be more NF4 boards availible.
Uh...No duh?
3. Prices will drop...
I thought that was how economics worked. When something is new and competition is low, prices are high. Do I need to mention supply and demand too?
4. "Unless you cannot wait, but if you're just doing it because of lacking patience than go ahead and make a fool out of yourself, but don't try to rationalize it using pathetic excuses why this is a good choice."
With a comment like that, I really hope you're not a moderator here like your signature says.
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