Chaintech NForce4 Ultra mobo in-stock at Newegg

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Devistater

Diamond Member
Sep 9, 2001
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Originally posted by: user1234
but if you already have agp card now, you won't be able to use it with this board).
Yep, thats the only real reason I see not to get a PCI-E mobo if you are upgrading. If you have $500 in a x800 XT or a 6800 ultra in the AGP versions, then you would want to keep using that. Its like SATA, no one would buy a mobo today that didn't have SATA if they had any interest in maintaining an upgrade path in future. Similarly no one should buy a AGP mobo if they are upgrading thier graphics card at the same time because that will lock them into AGP only cards from here on out. Whereas the PCI-E is the wave of the future.

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.

Why should I dispute it? You seem to think I disagree with everything you say. I dont, only the stuff you say that makes no sense, or that is BS you've dredged up without doing your homework.
Plus, as a matter of fact, prices will be cheaper, after the initial gouging dissipates (go ahead, try to dispute that).
Sure they will. I made the same point about the SLI motherboards which are very expensive now. However, look at any decent nforce 3 motherboards. Most are in the $80-$100 range if they are any good. I expect this motherboard similarly to drop to that range in 6 months to a year.
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.

Right, thats why I'm not buying an Intel. They were the first thing availible with PCI-E.
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.

Pathetic excuses? Where? Quote me some. What I see is you making up stuff that has no basis in reality (like your assertion about nvidia chips being the same between ultra and sli, and your assertion a sli motherboard has 8 additional lanes), and then calling names.
The first few words about not waiting are a little bit true about me in this case. Now generally I research the crap out of things before I buy them. The nforce4 chipset series looks to be pretty dang good from the reviews I've seen so far. True, there's no reviews on this SPECIFIC motherboard yet no. But chaintech is a decent brand, they have customer service, and if you buy from a place like newegg you can always return the stuff if it turns out its crap. I dont plan on overclocking much, so if it has fewer voltage adjustments or can only adjust FSB in 2 mhz increments instead of 1mhz, I could care less. What I want to do is do a system upgrade overhaul, replace memory, graphics card, power supply, motherboard, and cpu. And at the moment this appears to be the best combination of price and features.

Unfortunately I just checked and Newegg is out of stock on this item. I should have ordered it yesterday :)
Note to wyck first poster, you should edit your title to reflect this :)
 

user1234

Banned
Jul 11, 2004
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Originally posted by: Devistater

...blah blah blah...

The first few words about not waiting are a little bit true about me in this case. Now generally I research the crap out of things before I buy them. But chaintech is a decent brand, they have customer service, ...

... blah blah ...


I knew it !!!! you're just rushing to buy the first available 939/pci-e board, without having enough info. nforce4 is just one of many choices, it could be that K8T890 or radeon xpress would be better. Indeed ,there could be many issues with this board (compatibility, performance, stability, reliability, overclockability), and if you waited a few weeks, then it's unlikely that you would actually buy this board at all. And buying a product two days after it's availalbe for the first time ever (and probably the first time you heard about it too) is indeed called rushing, and it's irrational in most cases.

and btw, I do agree with you on something - chaintech have customer service, so good luck with it
 

Devistater

Diamond Member
Sep 9, 2001
3,180
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Originally posted by: user1234
Originally posted by: Devistater

...blah blah blah...

The first few words about not waiting are a little bit true about me in this case. Now generally I research the crap out of things before I buy them. But chaintech is a decent brand, they have customer service, ...

... blah blah ...


I knew it !!!! you're just rushing to buy the first available 939/pci-e board, without having enough info. nforce4 is just one of many choices, it could be that K8T890 or radeon xpress would be better. Indeed ,there could be many issues with this board (compatibility, performance, stability, reliability, overclockability), and if you waited a few weeks, then it's unlikely that you would actually buy this board at all. And buying a product two days after it's availalbe for the first time ever (and probably the first time you heard about it too) is indeed called rushing, and it's irrational in most cases.

and btw, I do agree with you on something - chaintech have customer service, so good luck with it
No, the 1st availible would be the $300 SLI boards. 1st reasonably priced nforce4 ultra board, yes.
And I've already read reviews on K8T890 boards, they dont have as many features. Radeon express, bah I dont like drivers from ATI. And since newegg already ran out of this as I mentioned, I'll probably be waiting a couple weeks anyway, so we will get to see if your fears are justified :)
 

Showtime

Platinum Member
Jun 16, 2002
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I read somewhere that one of the video card makers was building a single card with 2 6600GT gpu's on it. SLI perfomance, but only using one pci express. If they can do the same for the 6800's and get the same or better performance, than you wont need an SLI board.

I just figured since there were a lot of what ifs befing said.....

:)

Merry Christmas, btw!

-show
 

Avalon

Diamond Member
Jul 16, 2001
7,571
178
106
Originally posted by: faZZter
Originally posted by: Avalon
Originally posted by: user1234
Originally posted by: Showtime
Why is this so much cheaper. I know it doesn't have all the features....
I cant find a single review.

**This item may only be returned for a replacement of the same make/model.

Lowest price I can find for a 3200+(OEM) is $179 from Monarch. That would make a nice combo.
$330 shipped for the set.

-show

haha, what a little..... Buy stuff without having a clue about it's performance, reliability, etc. Not a single review or shred of information. Go ahead more on, be the ginny pig for the rest of us.

You spelt moron wrong, moron.

"S P E L T!?!?!"

WTFYDA

spelt - ( P ) Pronunciation Key (splt)
v.
A past tense and a past participle of spell1.

www.dictionary.com

More than one way to skin a cat, jerkoff.

 

user1234

Banned
Jul 11, 2004
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Originally posted by: "Devistater"

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.

... blah blah ....

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.

I agree that the chipset needs to suppport the additional x8 pci-e channel (plus it has to be able to operate either a single x16 or dual x8 channels), but is that really a big deal ? Obviously it's not, but if nVidia is hoping to charge for it, then people will just use a dual GPU in SLI on a single card. Face it, SLI is mostly a software solution implemented at the graphics driver level. The chipset "support", which constitues only providing the additonal x8 channel (and not really having to do anything with the actual SLI operation), is quite trivial. Therefore, it shouldn't really cost much more to get the sli chipset, as there are alternatives like I said.
 

BigHurt

Senior member
Dec 23, 2004
316
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0
For those of you who mentioned you were holding out for the sli mobo's,
Asus A8N SLI-Deluxe is $201 with free shipping from chumbo.com
They are backordered until 1/7/04 and for 5 bucks, you can get standard overnight delivery.
Pretty sweet deal since this mobo typically sells for $230-280

 

Devistater

Diamond Member
Sep 9, 2001
3,180
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Originally posted by: user1234
Originally posted by: "Devistater"

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.

... blah blah ....

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.

I agree that the chipset needs to suppport the additional x8 pci-e channel (plus it has to be able to operate either a single x16 or dual x8 channels), but is that really a big deal ? Obviously it's not, but if nVidia is hoping to charge for it, then people will just use a dual GPU in SLI on a single card. Face it, SLI is mostly a software solution implemented at the graphics driver level. The chipset "support", which constitues only providing the additonal x8 channel (and not really having to do anything with the actual SLI operation), is quite trivial. Therefore, it shouldn't really cost much more to get the sli chipset, as there are alternatives like I said.

I dunno, have you even been reading the messages I post, or visiting the sites I've been linking including motherboard makers and nvidia? THERE IS NO ADDITIONAL EIGHT CHANNELS OF PCI E IN SLI CONFIGURATION!
The normal 16 thats devoted to 1 graphics slot in non-sli is split into 2, and is 8 per slot in sli. NO ADDITIONAL. Still 20 lanes. In SLI and non SLI. No additional lanes. Lane number remains the same. Nothing changed in number of lanes. 8 times 2 equals 16. 16 divided by 2 equals 8. No additional. The only differance (as borne out by my previous links and quotes) is that its flexible 20 lanes in SLI, not fixed 20 lanes.
Once again, its 20 lanes total in all configurations of nforce 4. No additional lanes to anything ever appear anywhere in any nforce 4 motherboards.

Yes, its mostly software. But there ARE differant hardware versions. You cannot plop a ultra nforce4 chipset into a SLI motherboard and have SLI work. Nvidia sells 3 versions of the chip. Normal, ultra, and SLI. They are each priced appropriatly (or what nvidia thinks is appropriate). And you say nividia is "hoping to charge for it" ? They already have lol. Its differant hardware. Its like versions of 6800. They charge differant for differant versions. Some have more pipes enabled than others, etc.
Why is it so expensive? Well nvidia is pricing it to what the market will bear. As I said earlier, currently this is a bad choice for ppl looking for good price/performance ratio or planning to go with the relativly inexpensive dual 6600. So currently the main market for this is the people who think nothing of plopping down $500 each for two dual 6800 ultras. As a result, they are also willing to plop down money for the currently expensive SLI motherboard solutions. So nvidia is pricing for the niche they are trying to reach right now.
BTW, you mentioned one alternative, not alternative(s). And that one that you mentioned was the dual GPU on one card, which isn't even on the market yet. Lots of groups have tried that since 3dfx and no one has really come through. There were some companies (bit boys I think it was or some such company that never made a product) that people swore would pull it off and its still vaporware. Now granted, gigabyte is a pretty solid company, and hopefully they will pull it off. But I'm not counting that as an alternative until I see a) it actually being sold and b) the pricing. Odds are that it will be nearly as expensive as two separate graphics cards. Especially if they end up giving each chip its own memory banks like 3dfx solutions did.

Finally: My last point. I should not have listened to any of you doubters here, newegg raised the price on that motherboard $10 to $129 and its still not in stock. Had I ordered it I would probalby have it by now and be enjoying it and for less money :) I almost did order it too. Then I figured well I'll wait a day or 3, maybe some reviews will appear. Bah.

Oh and finally, I'd appreciate it if instead of editing my quote and claiming I said "blah blah" in my quote, you would properly either separate the quotes, or put [...] or just leave out the blah blah entirely and just snip out the portions of my quote you dont wish to address as I've been doing for your quotes and not inserting anything I didn't say. If you really think you must have blah blah blah in there, the proper way is to put [blah blah blah] with the brackets indicating it was not present in the original text. Thanks.
 

dripgoss

Senior member
Mar 13, 2003
496
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Aside from the dramatics...

Does anyone know a non-ebay store that has one of these boards in stock for a not-so-fleeced price?
 

user1234

Banned
Jul 11, 2004
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OK, Mr Devistater, I totally understand the deal with the allocation of the pci express lanes. The point is it's not really like you said "Because of all of this and the additional complexity of most SLI motherboards...", there is not really any significantly "extra complexity" it's just that they are charging more for it because of the additional functionality (e.g. being able to use 2 video cards) which sli provides. Now, who are "they" ? if you think the current price is around $250 because of nVidia, you are mistaken. Sure, nVidia might be charging a little more from the motherboard manufacturers, and they are charging more when they sell it to retailers, but all this is still much less than the MSRP - usually the wholesale price is 20-25% below msrp. And we know the msrp for a8n-sli is $180, so who exactly is making the huge profit by "charging" $250 ? yes, it's the slimeball e-tailers. Same goes for all the nforce4 mobos right now, as they represent the only pci-e solution for amd socket 939. So the $10 that newegg just increased their price goes solely into their pocket, and they are probably making over 30% above their cost. And this is possible because of the current shortage, but soon enough price will come down to BELOW msrp. But if you really so impatient that you want to order a mobo that you know NOTHING about, then go ahead and justify it to yourself by the fact that you've been gouged less then some other people which may pay more.
 

Devistater

Diamond Member
Sep 9, 2001
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Originally posted by: user1234So the $10 that newegg just increased their price goes solely into their pocket, and they are probably making over 30% above their cost. And this is possible because of the current shortage, but soon enough price will come down to BELOW msrp. But if you really so impatient that you want to order a mobo that you know NOTHING about, then go ahead and justify it to yourself by the fact that you've been gouged less then some other people which may pay more.

Yes the $10 that newegg raised I'm sure does go into thier pocket. But I really doubt they make 30% above cost on this particular motherboard, that would be like $40 on the current sale price. Next time you see a pricecut news release for intel or AMD check the per 1000 price they mention. Usually newegg is within a few dollars, certainly not the 30% you mention. Of course perhaps the margin is lower on the cpu than the motherboard, but I'm sure someone could check with some of the big distributers to see the cost. of this motherboard.
Heck up until recently, amazon was only breaking even, not even making any money. The price competition is so fierce on the internet that the lowest priced guys (newegg is usually within a few bucks of the lowest) make almost nothing. Thats one reason why a lot of sales at newegg say quantity limited to 5 per person or whatever.
 

Twofootputt

Senior member
Jan 2, 2004
676
0
76
Originally posted by: Avalon
Originally posted by: user1234
Originally posted by: Showtime
Why is this so much cheaper. I know it doesn't have all the features....
I cant find a single review.

**This item may only be returned for a replacement of the same make/model.

Lowest price I can find for a 3200+(OEM) is $179 from Monarch. That would make a nice combo.
$330 shipped for the set.

-show

haha, what a little..... Buy stuff without having a clue about it's performance, reliability, etc. Not a single review or shred of information. Go ahead more on, be the ginny pig for the rest of us.

You spelt moron wrong, moron.
Not to mention Guinea pig

 

user1234

Banned
Jul 11, 2004
2,428
0
0
Originally posted by: Devistater
Originally posted by: user1234So the $10 that newegg just increased their price goes solely into their pocket, and they are probably making over 30% above their cost. And this is possible because of the current shortage, but soon enough price will come down to BELOW msrp. But if you really so impatient that you want to order a mobo that you know NOTHING about, then go ahead and justify it to yourself by the fact that you've been gouged less then some other people which may pay more.

Yes the $10 that newegg raised I'm sure does go into thier pocket. But I really doubt they make 30% above cost on this particular motherboard, that would be like $40 on the current sale price. Next time you see a pricecut news release for intel or AMD check the per 1000 price they mention. Usually newegg is within a few dollars, certainly not the 30% you mention. Of course perhaps the margin is lower on the cpu than the motherboard, but I'm sure someone could check with some of the big distributers to see the cost. of this motherboard.
Heck up until recently, amazon was only breaking even, not even making any money. The price competition is so fierce on the internet that the lowest priced guys (newegg is usually within a few bucks of the lowest) make almost nothing. Thats one reason why a lot of sales at newegg say quantity limited to 5 per person or whatever.


I agree that usually the price competition makes prices just a little above cost, but here they are taking advantage of the shortage and charging as much as possible. Even the initial price must have been at least MSRP or above and now they increased by $10, so I'm sure it's a huge profit margin. And what's the profit margin for companies charging $329 for A8N-SLI - do you claim it's less than 30% ? because if so, then newegg which charges like $270 must be losing money on it....

And btw, it makes more sense for nVidia not to charge a lot for sli , as it promotes selling of video cards based on their gpus. The same goes for many of the mobo manufacturers, which also sell video cards. Why would they want to charge a few dollars more for sli, when it might prevent people from getting more video cards ?
 

Devistater

Diamond Member
Sep 9, 2001
3,180
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Originally posted by: user1234
And what's the profit margin for companies charging $329 for A8N-SLI - do you claim it's less than 30% ? because if so, then newegg which charges like $270 must be losing money on it....

And btw, it makes more sense for nVidia not to charge a lot for sli , as it promotes selling of video cards based on their gpus. The same goes for many of the mobo manufacturers, which also sell video cards. Why would they want to charge a few dollars more for sli, when it might prevent people from getting more video cards ?

No, I was only talking about the motherboard that this thread is about, thats why I kept saying "this motherboard." I'm sure the SLI motherboards are very over priced right now by everyone. Its called supply and demand. There's a lot of demand for them and not enough stock/supply. In fact, I dare say that they make more on the SLI motherboards than the cards like 6800. So thats probably why they haven't lowered it yet :) As the supply increases and the initial demand drops, and more stores get it in stock and more lower the prices for price competition you'll see the SLI drop to a more natural price level.
 

Devistater

Diamond Member
Sep 9, 2001
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Here's a 1st look at the Gigabyte 2 vid chips on 1 card SLI solution (i.e. instead of 2 vidcards, just 1 card with 2 6600 chips on it)

http://www.ocworkbench.com/2004/gigabyte/GV-3D1/g1.htm

It appears that:
a) from looking at the pics it looks like 128 megs for each chip, total of 256 megs
b) only works with GA-K8NXP-SLI motherboard
c) in real life games offers up to 30% increase in performance

Sure this is just a first look and not at retail card but its interesting nonetheless.

 

user1234

Banned
Jul 11, 2004
2,428
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Originally posted by: Devistater
Here's a 1st look at the Gigabyte 2 vid chips on 1 card SLI solution (i.e. instead of 2 vidcards, just 1 card with 2 6600 chips on it)

http://www.ocworkbench.com/2004/gigabyte/GV-3D1/g1.htm

It appears that:
a) from looking at the pics it looks like 128 megs for each chip, total of 256 megs
b) only works with GA-K8NXP-SLI motherboard
c) in real life games offers up to 30% increase in performance

Sure this is just a first look and not at retail card but its interesting nonetheless.


Repost!!!! (look at the link in my post in this thread dated 12/27/2004 05:34 PM)
Now who's not been paying attention....
 

Devistater

Diamond Member
Sep 9, 2001
3,180
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Originally posted by: user1234
Repost!!!! (look at the link in my post in this thread dated 12/27/2004 05:34 PM)
Now who's not been paying attention....

So it is. Must be because your link was a text description, instead of the link text. I probably assumed it was gigabytes home page instead of a preview with a few benches. Assuming is usually bad heh.
Well my bad then. I "reposted" that link. Sorry.

 

Samus

Golden Member
Jan 12, 2001
1,405
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i bought one, works great. kinda surprised actually, good capacitors, quality ac97 codec (but is NOT soundstorm nor does the control panel for old nforce boards work) and the gigabit ethernet works with my switch just fine. very very good bios too, has all the goodies.
 

Devistater

Diamond Member
Sep 9, 2001
3,180
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Originally posted by: Samus
i bought one, works great. kinda surprised actually, good capacitors, quality ac97 codec (but is NOT soundstorm nor does the control panel for old nforce boards work) and the gigabit ethernet works with my switch just fine. very very good bios too, has all the goodies.

A lot of us are very anxious for details. Could you please say what kinda bios options for overclocking? Like does it allow you adjust multiplier, mhz, voltages? Anything you could say about it would be great! thanks!