Looking for an Athlon64 Socket939 motherboard

Schadenfroh

Elite Member
Mar 8, 2003
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hey guys, saw the overclocking results of the .09 athlon64 3000+ that anandtech reviewed, then i saw that it is only $180 from new egg, so that is making me itching to upgrade.

1. Are these things multipliers locked (reffering to the CPU)?
2. Does the nforce3 Ultra AGP/PCI lock work on all motherboards?
3. If it is locked, does the nforce3 ultra motherboards unlock it?
4. Looking on new egg, i saw 2 motherboards from gigabyte that used nforce3 ultra, what is the differance? the only thing i see is a fan on one and not the other on the power circuitry and a $50 price premium.
5. What motherboard would you guys reccomend for Socket 939 .09 micron Athlon64 3000?, assuming i want to overclock it.

since nforce4 will not have agp and i just bought a 6800GT, i will not be getting it.


thanks guys.
 

Robor

Elite Member
Oct 9, 1999
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I don't have a whole lot of answers but I'll try and offer what I can...

I think they are multiplier locked but only higher multipliers.

I had the expensive Gigabyte board but I couldn't get it to work with my A64 3200+ .90. I believe it was because the CPU wasn't recognized by the BIOS and I didn't have anything else to flash it.

I've heard the Gigabyte boards have issues with certain memory so do your research before selecting your RAM.

Is it true no NForce4 board will have AGP? I've also got a 6800GT and I was considering waiting for NF4 because it appears (please correct me if I'm wrong) there's no clear winner in the current crop of 939 boards.

BTW - If you do get a Gigabyte board be careful what HS/F combo you use. The Gigabyte boards have a backplate that attaches with push pins and it's not compatible with the Thermalright XP's (they need a backplate that can be screwed into).
 

Robor

Elite Member
Oct 9, 1999
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I'm a little (okay a lot) disappointed in the review. One of the biggest complaints with these boards is memory issues and this review uses memory you can't even purchase. That pretty much makes it useless to someone looking for a 939 board because they don't know which memory to buy.

PLEASE do a follow up with available RAM

FWIW I looked on Mushkin's site and they do have a nice section on RAM compatibility for many different motherboards. According to the review the best available board is the MSI K8N Neo2. Here's a link to Mushkin's recommended RAM for it... LINK