I just bought the Aspire Qpack. I now want a s939 matx mobo. Plz give recs.

[ajtyeh]

Hi fellow anandtechers.
i want to to thank you in advance for your advice.

so i need a socket 939 amd nforce 4 chipset
i need PCI-E
something that FITS well with the ASPIRE x qpack !!!!!
i have a 6600gt pci-e

Give me a recommendation. please

so nforce4, Sata is necessary, umm not the top of the line.
-Albert Yeh
PM if you have any questions

 

[ND40oz]

Biostar 6100 nforce board is the best at overclocking. The Jetway RS480 is no slouch either but it has nic problems when you start to crank the HTT up. You can always use a nic card to get around this.

 

[ajtyeh]

more suggestions? price range of 50-70?

 

[Brainonska511]

I went with an MSI XPress 200 board (RS480M2-IL) and haven't had any problems. The latest iteration of this board is the RS482M4-ILD.

 

[ajtyeh]

More recs, i dont need onboard video unless they can play cs1.6 at 72 frames or above

 

[roguerower]

I'm not certain, but I think most mATX boards have onboard video.

 

[IEC]

Most mATX boards have onboard video, but I'd strongly recommend sticking with your 6600GT PCI-E for video. The Jetway is a pretty decent mobo, I have the s754 version. I'm using the Zalman 7000 HSF, I think you can use the 7700 depending on the mobo layout. (I'm using the same XQ-Pack case).

 

[Diasper]

Ok, this isn't nforce 4 but I'd say like others already have to a look at the Jetway A210GDMS Pro. The ATI chipset is actually decent and actually seems more reliable with overclocking than nforce chipsets.

Meant to be decent overclocker ~300mhz seems quite common - but it has no special memory dividers like the DFI RS482. Also, as others have said the NIC seems to go as the HTT approches 300HTT

I would have said look at the RS482 but as ever with DFI boards it seems to have compatitbility problems - this time rebooting with the Enermax Liberty PSU. That and the DFI is using the ATI 450 Southbridge so no SATA2, fast USB while it has poorer sound - all compared to the Jetway.

In all the Jetway, I'd say is a good option.

- ATI chipset runs cool
- Overclocks decently
- HD Sound (bonus over nforce 4 and DFI RS482)
- SATA 2
- Fast USB
- Meant to be solid all-round decent

People have generally reported very good experiences but obviously check just in case I'm missing something.


ps: On the on-board video some people have been reporting overclocking it very well ~600mhz using the Zalman 7000 on the CPU though I doubt that'll be enough. Just disable the onb-aord video and use your current card.

 

[ajtyeh]

OH and buy the way, overclocking doesnt mean a thign to me for my aspire qpack, i already have that figuered out with my DFI Ultra with my 3700 sandy, and Gskill pc4000 memory. (which was the biggest pain in the ass) but
i dont intend to overclock this one bit, so if you can see the link to my wtb thread

http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid=45&threadid=1851779

im looking for just regular value ram, a 6600gt, and after doing a bit of research all of the matx motherboards come with onboard video, so the newest ones like nvidia 6150 or if its the xPress200, doenst make a difference.

So i am looking for..
1. RELIABILITYYYYYYY......... recommend the most solid motherboard thats out there.. 60-80 bucks seems to be my range
2. FITS IN THE DANG ASPIRE X-QPACk without any problems
3. PCI-E for a 6600gt or something.

otherthen that. Thanks though.

 

[Pciber]

If you really want nforce4, pretty much the only matx nforce4 board is a Foxconn winfast NF4K8MC. I have one, and it is sitting inside of an Aspire X-Qpack. It fits fine and works good for me, even with my two-slot x850xtpe, however i have discovered one big issue - the board is extremely picky about ram in the second slot, or the second slot just doesn't work. I have tried three sticks of ram - one 512mb mushkin stick, and two matching 1gb OCZ sticks, none worked in the second slot but all worked flawlessly in the first slot. Most would narrow this down to a single board, but I went so far as to swap the board with a new one of the same model, and had the exact same issue. Foxconn support was pretty nice, responded to my e-mails with questions back and forth pretty quickly.. however when they couldn't figure out why it wouldn't work, they just kind of considered the issue closed, and gave me a crappy answer.

In fact, digging through my e-mail.. their ending response, after about 10 e-mails back and forth about updating the bios and such was... "R&D team said for this model you cannot install a single memory onto the second DIMM slot."... I responded, asking "what do you mean by 'a single memory'?".. and have not heard back from them, 2 months later.

 

[ajtyeh]

hahaha wow, pawned Pciber....

 

[Diasper]

If not overclocking models I'd look at as they have HD Sound and SATA 2 etc

I can't remember the models numbers but you can do a quick google search for: brand + mATX + S939

Using the 6150 got the:
Asus
MSI

Using ATI:
Jetway

I'd go find reviews or rather head over to the SFF section of hardforum.com as they've got quite an active section with long discussion about most boards. They've got a sticky at the top for good mATX boards also.

However, my instinct would be to go with the Jetway - from everything I've heard they seem to be pretty universally reliable and problem free while having all the important features. I'm not sure the same is true with the nForce boards that they as problem free. You'd have to spend some time researching that. Nforce boards have a history of being finicky and problematic but hopefully they've fixed it with the 6150. One thing to note is I think the NB on the nforce run significantly hotter whereas on the ATI board it runs pretty cool.

 

[ajtyeh]

so its down to ASUS 6150 or MSI 6150

 

[IEC]

Originally posted by: ajtyeh
so its down to ASUS 6150 or MSI 6150

Why? The Jetway is just fine.

 

[Steeeeve]

MSI 6150

 

[Triax]

how come no one recommended DFIs mATX mobo?

 

[Diasper]

Unknown quantity - and knowing DFI they'll be compatability issues.

There already seems to be one with the DFI RS482 and the Enermax Liberty (modular PSUs in general perhaps) with random rebooting - no BSODs - just rebooting. While not everyone is suffering from this a good amount are - check hardforum SFF for more details.

Maybe they'll fix it with s new bios but given DFI's history where they never even fixed the RAM incompatability in the flagship DFI Ultra series it seems unlikely.

If you want to get the DFI it'll have to be with a non-modular PSU.