Help Me Choose an nForce4 Ultra motherboard

[ProviaFan]

Originally posted by: Bona Fide
ASUS is only good for Intel chipsets. It sucks the big one with AMD.

This is not worth arguing. You are just simply wrong.

I have no problems with an A8N-E. No matter what board you get (though ASUS seems to have greater issues in this area), if you don't want a constant high-pitched screaming noise, plan on something like a Zalman NB47J fanless heatsink to replace the northbridge HS/fan.

Plan ahead, also, because sometimes the NB HSF sits in an area that ends up getting covered by the video card. This is not an issue on the A8N-E; a Zalman NB47J can be used without blocking either the PCI-E x16 slot or the "universal" x4 slot with the notch at the back so x16 cards can be used. However, on some boards you may be stuck with whatever NB fan is supplied due to this issue.

 

[jlbenedict]

I've voting Abit AN8 Ultra..
I have the vanilla AN8 (since February), and it is very stable (at stock speeds).

 

[Starbuck1975]

I was hoping this thread would designate a clear winner, but it seems like there are a number of boards that would suit my needs.:shocked:

 

[ChineseDemocracyGNR]

It seems to me the ABIT AN8 Ultra is the natural choice for you, for reasons already discussed in this thread.

 

[R3MF]

Abit AN8 Ultra v2.0

 

[Starbuck1975]

I have done some more reading on the Abit board. It appears at launch there were some issues, which would explain while it has not done as well on several reviews that compared most of the nForce4 boards. I think there has been a bios update since launch, and quite a few people have mentioned that they have been happy with the AN8 Ultra...a few posters have made me somewhat skeptical of the Epox board...will probably keep reading various reviews and check back here for more comments across the various boards already mentioned.

 

[mauri]

I would go with the Abit AN8 Ultra.

 

[devildog48]

Starbuck, i dont mean to hijack your thread, but im am kinda in a similar situation. Since we're already talking about nForce 4 boards, i figured Id use this thread to ask.

I just recently upgraded to the 939 platform from the 754 platform. I have the abit AV8 and (running at stock speeds) my AMD 4000+ Sandy and Corsair RAM are doing fine and the system itself is totally stable.

The reason i didnt go with PCI-E was because in April I had just bought my BFG 6800GT AGP. As it stands, i want to use it till about December. Now it seems like the best time to start saving for an SLi system. I plan to retain my beloved Sandy an Corsair RAM, however I will be ditching AGPin favor of PCI-E. The kicker is, I want to go SLi, as opposed to just the single card Express boards so that when prices fall on the BFG 7800 series cards, I can go SLi. I will say this for a fact: I am a firm believer in Abit. I have used abit for the last 2 incarnations of my system and am happy to say that I have had no problems.

For those in the know, what are differences between the regular and Fatal1ty editions of the A8N SLi boards? It appears that the Fatal1ty baords have a crap load more otions in the BIOS regarding voltages, timings ect.

Also, im leaning towards the fatal1ty board cause of the regualr AN8's nasty heat pipe chipset cooling solution. At least with the active cooling fan on the Fatal1ty board, I know air is at least getting to it. As well as not having to worry about that pipe getting int he way of anything.

Again, dont mean to hijack this thread at all, but I figures it would be better to post here than start another, similar thread.

 

[Starbuck1975]

From what I have been told about the Fatal1ty boards, you are paying a premium for what many consider to be either useless or unneccessary features...I did a side by side comparison of the two boards, but would be interested in hearing what others have to say about the features on Fatal1ty boards as well.

 

[MDE]

Epox or DFI. I have an Epox nForce3 Ultra board and it's been great.

 

[JohnnyPastrami]

Originally posted by: The Pentium Guy
A8N-E's a great board besides the loud chipset fan (which might fail on ya), and the lack of firewall (if this is important to you).

Asus will replace the chipset fan for free if you call their support line. They had mine to me in 3 days. Other than that rock solid...

 

[imported_BikeDude]

Originally posted by: Zebo
Had an 8RDA3+ back in Tbred days, same deal, stuff just started going out on it before I got a real board, NF7-S, and that ABIT's still working to this day wildly overclocked.

Ditto, except I got the ABIT AN7 which was a dream compared to the 8RDA3+. The Epox really burned me (frequent crashes, despite changing CPU, RAM, PSU and user) and it was a real relief getting the AN7 instead. A simple drop-in replacement and all my problems disappeared (except I passed the Epox on to my little brother who has been bugging me ever since because of the, ahem, frequent crashes). As a bonus I even got a proper sound controller (Soundstorm w/Dolby encoding -- can't go wrong there). Good times. (of course, my new Tyan K8WE is no slouch either, but I sure miss Soundstorm)

 

[Starbuck1975]

Looks like the Abit, ASUS and MSI boards are all reasonably priced and appropriate for my needs.

 

[Starbuck1975]

Well I have a wish list all setup...just waiting to save up a bit more money before hitting that "move wish list to shopping cart" button...here is the build as of now...and as always, subject to change:

ABIT AN8-ULTRA Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 Ultra ATX AMD Motherboard
eVGA 256-P2-N528-AX Geforce 7800GTX 256MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 Video Card
Antec NeoPower ATX 480W Power Supply
AMD Athlon 64 3500+ Venice 1GHz FSB Socket 939 Processor
CORSAIR ValueSelect 2GB (4 x 512MB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200) Unbuffered Dual Channel Kit System Memory Model
Seagate Barracuda 7200.8 ST3200826AS 200GB 7200 RPM Serial ATA150 Hard Drive

 

[Starbuck1975]

A few more changes, as I am now leaning towards the MSI board

MSI K8N NEO4 Platinum nForce4 Ultra ARX MOBO
Antec NeoPower ATX 480W Power Supply
AMD Athlon 64 3500+ Venice 1GHz FSB Socket 939 Processor
CORSAIR ValueSelect 2GB (2 x 1MB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200)
Seagate Barracuda 7200.8 ST3200826AS 200GB 7200 RPM Serial ATA150 Hard Drive
eVGA 256-P2-N518 Geforce 7800GT 256MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 Video Card

I was originally leaning towards the 6800 Ultra, but then switched to the 7800GTX, which was a bit out of my price range but a reasonable enough performance jump to take the plunge...the introduction of the 7800GT is a better balance for price and performance given my budget.

Decided to go with two sticks of 1GB memory as opposed to 4 sticks of 512MB memory.

As for the MOBO, I am leaning more towards the features on the MSI MOBO, as it has a Soundblaster integrated audio solution and other features that have made it a bit more desireable given its competitive price with the other boards I have looked at.

 

[Fallengod]

Do people really buy 2 gb of ram? What a waste.

 

[wanderer27]

Originally posted by: Starbuck1975
A few more changes, as I am now leaning towards the MSI board

MSI K8N NEO4 Platinum nForce4 Ultra ARX MOBO
Antec NeoPower ATX 480W Power Supply
AMD Athlon 64 3500+ Venice 1GHz FSB Socket 939 Processor
CORSAIR ValueSelect 2GB (2 x 1MB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200)
Seagate Barracuda 7200.8 ST3200826AS 200GB 7200 RPM Serial ATA150 Hard Drive
eVGA 256-P2-N518 Geforce 7800GT 256MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 Video Card

I was originally leaning towards the 6800 Ultra, but then switched to the 7800GTX, which was a bit out of my price range but a reasonable enough performance jump to take the plunge...the introduction of the 7800GT is a better balance for price and performance given my budget.

Decided to go with two sticks of 1GB memory as opposed to 4 sticks of 512MB memory.

As for the MOBO, I am leaning more towards the features on the MSI MOBO, as it has a Soundblaster integrated audio solution and other features that have made it a bit more desireable given its competitive price with the other boards I have looked at.

I'm looking at this MSI board and the ASUS A8N-SLI Premium. I'd get the Premium in heartbeat if it wasn't so expensive, but I'm trying to fit Budget creep

What about the MSI (other than sound) have you found to change your mind from getting the Abit ?

 

[Starbuck1975]

Do people really buy 2 gb of ram? What a waste.

Most of the forums I have read specific to this topic seem to suggest that 2Gb will be absolutely essential to future proof system builds for the next two to three years.

What about the MSI (other than sound) have you found to change your mind from getting the Abit ?

From what I can tell in the reviews I have read, the Abit and ASUS SLI offerings are quite strong, and no brainers if I were to go that route.

As I am interested in a vanilla socket 939 nforce4 Ultra motherboard, the MSI board has scored consistently higher then Abit and ASUS offerings...the epoX board tends to fair well against the MSI board, but others have raised concerns about build quality that has me leaning towards MSI at this point.

My purchase is probably a month or two away, depending on how the 6800 Ultra/7800G/7800GTX pricing settles...so another motherboard decision switch is not out of the question.

 

[wanderer27]

Originally posted by: Starbuck1975
From what I can tell in the reviews I have read, the Abit and ASUS SLI offerings are quite strong, and no brainers if I were to go that route.

As I am interested in a vanilla socket 939 nforce4 Ultra motherboard, the MSI board has scored consistently higher then Abit and ASUS offerings...the epoX board tends to fair well against the MSI board, but others have raised concerns about build quality that has me leaning towards MSI at this point.

Actually I'd prefer a plain nforce4 Ultra myself, that's why I'm looking at the MSI.

The thing I like about the ASUS Premium is that it has a Heatpipe/Heatsink for the Chipset, so there's no fan issues like on alot of the other MBs. Also, it seems like this board has had alot fewer issues than any of the others from what I can tell.

Right now I can get the MSI for $99, the ASUS is about $170+. So it's kind of a matter of convincing myself that the ASUS is worth $75 more - and that's not going over to well right now

 

[Starbuck1975]

The thing I like about the ASUS Premium is that it has a Heatpipe/Heatsink for the Chipset

I was under the impression that if you were to purchase the MSI board, you could purchase the necessary heatpipes and heatsinks for the northbridge, RAM and even your processor if you go OEM...assuming you are handy with thermal paste and don't mind the additional work or possible risk of installing heatsinks.

Are additional heatsinks even a concern, unless of course you intend to overclock? I guess I am asking if I should look into intalling additional cooling and heatsink components on the MSI board, even though I do not intend to overclock.

 

[wanderer27]

Originally posted by: Starbuck1975

The thing I like about the ASUS Premium is that it has a Heatpipe/Heatsink for the Chipset

I was under the impression that if you were to purchase the MSI board, you could purchase the necessary heatpipes and heatsinks for the northbridge, RAM and even your processor if you go OEM...assuming you are handy with thermal paste and don't mind the additional work or possible risk of installing heatsinks.

Are additional heatsinks even a concern, unless of course you intend to overclock? I guess I am asking if I should look into intalling additional cooling and heatsink components on the MSI board, even though I do not intend to overclock.

I'm really sure if I'm going to OC myself. If I do, it's not going to be extreme - probably just bumping a 3700+ up to 4000+ speeds.

I don't believe additional Heatsinks are really needed. The issue I'm refering to it that several MB makers are having the Chipset fans going out, or at least becoming extremely LOUD (I've seen this alot).

I'm thinking I've read that replacing the fan on the MSI is a bit difficult (not 100% on this).
Replacing the fan on the ASUS boards doesn't sound like it's too bad/difficult, in fact it sounds as if ASUS can get you the newer version fan pretty quick with just a call.
I'm not sure about the other MB makers as I haven't found alot to interest me in any of them.

I guess I'm getting lazy in my old age - I just want to set things up and not have to keep messing/fixing them all time (DFI comes to mind).

 

[Starbuck1975]

Bump.

I added the MSI K8N NEO4 Platinum to the poll mix...curious to see how many votes it receives.

As of right now, the Epox, ASUS, Abit and MSI boards are still in the running, although I may be leaning towards the MSI board for previously stated reasons.

 

[Starbuck1975]

shameless bump

 

[Pr0d1gy]

My last two motherboards were an MSi Neo4 Platinum SLi and a MSi Neo4-F. Both have had a number of issues with the USB ports, including the current one having no power to the USB ports at all. I am done with the MSi nForce4 boards & will be spending the extra money for the stability of the ASuS.

*Signed, a concerned MSi owner

 

[Jawo]

The epox board is great! I am highly enjoying it!