Looking for 939 socket MB with 4 SATA connectors???

[Guy Gadbois]

I have been eyeing the ASUS A8V Deluxe motherboard because it has 4 SATA connectors on the MB. Does anyone know if there are other boards out there that are also:

Socket 939
AGP 8x
Firewire onboard

I see the ASUS online all over the place for $115, but the only local place that I have found it at is FRY'S and they want $149 for it. I don't think they match outpost.com even though it is branded with the same name??? I was hoping to pick it up this weekend locally here in Dallas.

 

[Peter]

Pretty much anything with the NForce4 chipset offers four SATA, straight from the chipset.

 

[imported_Kensai]

Lots of them out there.

 

[Guy Gadbois]

But NForce4 chipset is PCI Express right??. I don't need that. I need AGP support.

 

[n7]

MSI K8N Neo2.

Four SATA (though two are unlocked, so no OCing with them), IEEE1394, & AGP 8x.

 

[Guy Gadbois]

Wow, the MSI board is like $90 compared to $149... what's the big difference in price for?

I did not understand what you mean by SATA connections being "Unlocked" and not able to OC with them? I did not know you could overclock a SATA bus?? or did I read that wrong?

The MSI board has one raid controller from what I can understand. Does that mean I can only have one raid setup versus having two seperate setups? By that I mean (Drives 1 & 2 raided together) and (Drives 3 & 4 raided together)??

Also, I thought I read somewhere that the NForce3 chipset was really buggy (and that is why NForce4 came out so quickly)... or was that just trash talking?? Is the NForce3 a better chipset than the ASUS's KT800 chipset?

 

[AMDCrazy]

Gigabyte K8NSC-939 Motherboard is AGP with 4 SATA connectors

 

[n7]

nForce 3 > VIA.

I don't think many will disagree with me on that one, but i could be wrong.

 

[international]

I would go for Abit AN8 SLI or Asus A8N SLI Premium

DFI nForce 4 Motherboards got too much BIOS and RAM problems

 

[Shenkoa]

Originally posted by: n7
MSI K8N Neo2.

Four SATA (though two are unlocked, so no OCing with them), IEEE1394, & AGP 8x.

Yep! superb motherboard, if you dont play on overclocking then you can use all 4. 2 of the slots scale as you raise FSB so unless the 2 HDD's on them slots have a lot of cooling then you wont be able to OC very high, I use the 2 locked ports. Just look at reviews and you will see what I mean.

 

[Guy Gadbois]

Well I went to Fry's and bought the X2 3800+ and the ASUS A8V Deluxe board. I plan on doing the upgrade tomorrow afternoon.

Some of you were saying that on the MSI board, 2 of the SATA connectors were "unlocked" and should not be used if overclocking. I did not even think about the SATA "bus" being sped up as you overclock!! Does it also apply to my ASUS board?

The ASUS board has 2 SATA controlled by the South Bridge and 2 controlled by a Promise 20378 RAID controller. Are they unlocked? is there a way to tell?


I will update ya'll tomorrow on the outcome!

 

[Guy Gadbois]

Can anyone confirm which of the SATA connectors are the LOCKED ones (that I would want to use my SATA drive on if I"m overclocking). The black ones are controlled via the VIA southbridge chip and the red ones are controlled by the Promise controller.