Mobo gurus: what do you think is the most stable 939 mobo out there?

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bovinda

Senior member
Nov 26, 2004
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Hey all,

What do you think is the most stable motherboard for the 939 platform? In particular, without overclocking? It's for a HTPC I'm going to build for my family.

Also, if you have a moment, why do you think your nomination is the most stable? Personal experience, a review you read somewhere (links are great!), word-of-many-mouths, etc.

Thanks folks...I am grateful for any and all responses. :beer:
 
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ChineseDemocracyGNR

Senior member
Sep 11, 2004
920
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If you're going to be running at stock speeds any board from a reputable manufacturer will do fine. If you don't want to go with the "big boys" (ASUS, Gigabyte, MSI) the Soltek SL-K8TPro-939/SL-K890Pro-939 both have very happy users.
 
UsandThem

UsandThem

Elite Member
May 4, 2000
16,068
7,383
146
I would say the most stable and mature socket 939 chipset out there is any based on the Nforce3 motherboards.

As mentioned before, just stay with Asus, Gigabyte, DFI, and others and you will be fine.

 
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bovinda

Senior member
Nov 26, 2004
692
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Thanks guys. Didn't realize it made so little difference at stock speeds. I guess I'm just so used to hearing everyone talk about it in the context of overclocking.
 
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SPQQKY

Senior member
Jul 6, 2004
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I'd stay away from the MSI. There are too many issues with RAM compatibility and blown caps and just upping and dying on people. I would stick to Gigabyte, Asus or DFI. Abit just doesn't have a good 939 solution unless your going to use PCI-E video card, then I would look towards their new AN8 series.
 
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ribbon13

Diamond Member
Feb 1, 2005
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Insomniak

Banned
Sep 11, 2003
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Gigabyte's boards are excellent for reliability - features like the power adjustment and dual BIOS chips really help in that area. They charge top dollar though, so be ready to pay.

Any of the big players should be fine though.
 
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ChicagoPCGuy

Senior member
Dec 11, 2004
361
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I have spent MANY MANY hours researching this very thing, and have come up with the following conclusions:

For the best bang for the buck, and to end up with a rock solid motherboard that does not necessarily overclock well, but is fast and stable at stock:

Chaintech nF4 Ultra (for PCI-E)
Foxconn nF4 Ultra (for PCI-E)
Soltek K890Pro-939 (for PCI-E)
Epox 9NDA3J (for AGP)
Soltek K8T-Pro 939 (for AGP)
Foxconn SiS755FX (for AGP)

I personally went with the Foxconn nF4 Ultra board, for $119 at NewEgg. I waited for a few reviews, plus to see what star rating it got on NewEgg, and feel pretty comfortable that I am making the right choice based upon available evidence and price point. I do not care about overclocking, which seems to be the only real beef anyone has with this board. Otherwise, it is SOLID AND FAST AND CHEAP--like the Chaintech. Interesting that it turns out my research showed the "value" brands to have the more reliable and stable boards. The "first tier" manufacturers seem to have overpriced boards, that do not confer much bang for the buck (giviing you way more crap than you will use, and more stuff that can go wrong) and worst yet a lot of the "first tier" manufacturers have been having stability and quality issues lately. The most startling example being the ASUS A8V-E Deluxe.

EDIT to add the SiS755FX board, which is also a very stable and fast board. Foxconn seems to have hit two home-runs with their last two boards. I know that they did not have the best reputation before, but it appears their more recent boards (both listed) are built for stock speed and stability. Isn't that what really counts anyway? Who wants a crappy great overclocking motherboard if you cannot have it run 24x7 and be wondering if it is randomly rebooting while you are not looking?
 
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arswihart

Senior member
Jul 16, 2001
541
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I agree with above, and stay away from MSI, their boards have a tendecy to blow up on their users randomly (barring the occasional success story and subsequent fanboy)

given this is for your family, you probably don't even need pci-e
 
tennesota

tennesota

Lifer
Aug 9, 2000
11,911
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Originally posted by: arswihart
...stay away from MSI, their boards have a tendecy to blow up on their users randomly
Click to expand...

I've seen you post similar at least twice about MSI boards.

Are you referring to nForce4 boards in particular? Can you back up your claim with links to some facts?

 
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petben

Member
Jan 26, 2005
50
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Digging through those links, it seems to me this problem is not exclusive to MSI. still digging...
 
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hafa

Member
Jan 7, 2005
40
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I agree with above, and stay away from MSI, their boards have a tendecy to blow up on their users randomly (barring the occasional success story and subsequent fanboy)
Click to expand...

This is merely apocryphal, but over the past 2 years, I've built over a dozen systems with the MSI K7N series and haven't had one complaint. Most of these systems run in office environments, 40 hours per week.

I'm not a fanboy by any stretch, as I choose my builds based on research of market share versus number of customer complaints, compiling data from forums such as this one. In general, (not exclusive to S939) the most stable (read complaint-free)AMD boards are from most to least:

Tyan
Gigabyte
Epox
Abit
MSI
DFI
Asus

Now for some disclaimers:

1.This list contemplates neither overclocking ability nor overall performance. The Tyan boards do not even support overclocking at all.

2. Specific models/versions of boards may be better than others (note that although MSI is towards the bottom of the list, I still built over a dozen machines on the K7N boards, which were very reliable). I recall quite clearly the fiasco that was the Asus A7v when it first came out (which, by the way, pushed Asus' rating waaay down), and the subsequent revisions that were great boards. I see something similar happening today with the ASUS AN8 SLI boards.

3. I do try to take into account complaints that are based on user error, and understand that boards which are highly configurable (read: the best for overclocking) are also more suseptable to human error causing stability problems.

In closing, I would estimate that currently, the most stable 939 boards (note that Tyan does not make a 939 board; you'd have to go Opteron to use a Tyan) would be the Gigabyte GA-K8N series, the Epox9NDA series and an honorable mention to the Chaintech VNF4 series. Above disclaimers apply.


 
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McArra

Diamond Member
May 21, 2003
3,295
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My K8N neo 2 has had no issues, running good since the first day... oh look!! what am I saying?? I must be a fanboy :eek: .

My recommendation if you are not OCing is for ASUS A8V.
 
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arswihart

Senior member
Jul 16, 2001
541
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zebo is right, all, and I mean all, are stable stock and with capable memory

Can someone tell me why people like to recommend the A8V constantly? Is it because its old?

It really comes down to the little things, like if you like the color of the pcb in a lot of cases, if your only requirement is a "stable" motherboard, it seems every company is able to make stable mobo's these days
 
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bovinda

Senior member
Nov 26, 2004
692
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Wow, thanks for the suggestions all, I really appreciate it. It sounds like I have a number of choices. If they're all pretty stable at stock speeds, I guess it will be other factors that have to determine which board I go with...I'll just have to figure out what those factors are.

ribbon13, I think they will be hooking it up to a receiver, or I may try to find them a nice 5.1 speaker set to hook up to the PC. Definitely no cheap PC speakers. I'm thinking that onboard sound on any mobo won't be good enough for that type of situation. Not sure which audio card I'm going to get for 'em though. I know Audigies are good for gaming but I've heard mixed anecdotal comments about them for other uses. I have to look more into that too...

Thanks for the great responses everyone! :beer:
 
D

dashiki

Senior member
Jan 24, 2005
247
0
0
go with the soltek awesome at stock speeds chekc out tomshardware.com 939 mobo round-up. As you can see in my sig it is a nice oc'er too
 
Zebo

Zebo

Elite Member
Jul 29, 2001
39,398
19
81
Originally posted by: dashiki
go with the soltek awesome at stock speeds chekc out tomshardware.com 939 mobo round-up. As you can see in my sig it is a nice oc'er too
Click to expand...

I'm very impressed by price/performance.. Unfortunatly it uses cheap china capacitors (OST) therefore if you wish a long term solution I must vote against.

Only three brands I would buy for this "long term" group ABIT/Gigabyte/DFI
 
O

orangat

Golden Member
Jun 7, 2004
1,579
0
0
Originally posted by: Zebo
.......
I'm very impressed by price/performance.. Unfortunatly it uses cheap china capacitors (OST) therefore if you wish a long term solution I must vote against.

Only three brands I would buy for this "long term" group ABIT/Gigabyte/DFI
Click to expand...

Feck!!! I had a peek and found that the black/white caps are indeed OST. The brown/white simply had the 'O' label. I woulda thought a mid-tier manufacturers must've learnt their lesson.

Does Gigabyte/DFI have a Japanese capacitor manifesto like Abit?
 
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MTSteel

Member
Jan 26, 2005
126
0
0
On a positive note for Soltek, they will mail you caps free of charge if they go, even with an out of warranty motherboard if you are willing to replace them yourself :)
 
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