Mobo suggestion for Barton XP-M?

Hyperlite

Diamond Member
May 25, 2004
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i don't know of any with 4 ram banks, but the NF7-S is a great board with 3 ram banks and "native" SATA.
 

Fern

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Sep 30, 2003
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Originally posted by: Slickone
What's a good overclocker that has 4 RAM slots, and native SATA?

Except for the condition it have 4 dimm slots, the Abit NF7-S v2 (not the NF7-S2, similar name, crappy OCing) is the answer.

HERE's one that appears to have 4 dimm slots. Never tried one myself though. I prefer the NF2 chipset over VIA and SIS.

Fern
 

Slickone

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Dec 31, 1999
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From the reviews and specs I've read, the ASUS A7N8X-E only has 3 RAM slots, and the NF7-S V2 does not have native SATA.
 

Fern

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Sep 30, 2003
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Originally posted by: Slickone
From the reviews and specs I've read, the ASUS A7N8X-E only has 3 RAM slots, and the NF7-S V2 does not have native SATA.

ALL NF2 chipset boards have only 3 dimm slots.

YES, the NF7-S v2 has SATA (it's the similarly named NF7-S2 which does not )

If you must have 4 dimm slots, you'll have to look at VIA or SIS chipset boards.

Fern
 

coomar

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Apr 4, 2005
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i'm looking at two sata ports on my nf7-s v2 right now and I'm using an xp-m, you can also look at the dfi nf2 lanparty as well, same designer as the nf7
 

Slickone

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Dec 31, 1999
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I didn't say it didn't have SATA period. I assume you don't know what native SATA means. Native SATA means it's integrated in the south bridge and uses the main bus, vs. a separate 3rd party on board controller chip that must use the PCI bus, ie. Silicon Image, Promise.

So no NF3 or 4 boards have 4 DIMM slots either?
 

Fern

Elite Member
Sep 30, 2003
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So no NF3 or 4 boards have 4 DIMM slots either?

Yeah, I'm pretty they do have 4 dimm slots. I was just lookin at one of Zebo's threads about ram slots too close together. Pic's he linked showed 4 dimm's
 

gplracer

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Jun 4, 2000
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It depends on what you want. If you just want a full featured motherboard then the Abit NF7-S is a great board. I have built around 20+ computers with it an none have had a problem. If you want speed (high fsb) then you need to look for a DFI Infinity or a DFI Lan Party.
 

Slickone

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Dec 31, 1999
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Originally posted by: gplracer
It depends on what you want. If you just want a full featured motherboard then the Abit NF7-S is a great board. I have built around 20+ computers with it an none have had a problem. If you want speed (high fsb) then you need to look for a DFI Infinity or a DFI Lan Party.
It looks like the only DFI boards thta I could find with the features I asked about in the OP are for the A64.
 

eLux

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Apr 17, 2005
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Gigabyte 7N400PRO (4DIMM) board is good enough, but if i had to choose, probably it would be Abit NF7-S or AN7. EPoX 83DA Series boards are great too.
 

sangyup81

Golden Member
Feb 22, 2005
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Originally posted by: Slickone
What's a good overclocker that has 4 RAM slots, and native SATA?

I hope you are asking for 4 RAM slots because you have 4 single sided DIMMs
 

Gamingphreek

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Mar 31, 2003
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I think i read somewhere that although it had 4 ram slots you can only use 3 of them because the Nforce controller does not support 4 banks, only three.

However look at the NF7-S, and the DFI Ultra Infinity.

-Kevin
 

aka1nas

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Aug 30, 2001
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I have heard that the gigabyte board can only handle 4 sticks if they are single sided as the chipset can only address 6 banks(i.e. 3 sticks x 2 sides)
 

Hyperlite

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May 25, 2004
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Originally posted by: Slickone
I didn't say it didn't have SATA period. I assume you don't know what native SATA means. Native SATA means it's integrated in the south bridge and uses the main bus, vs. a separate 3rd party on board controller chip that must use the PCI bus, ie. Silicon Image, Promise.

So no NF3 or 4 boards have 4 DIMM slots either?



hmm i didn't know there was a difference. i'm willing to bet all nf2 boards are on a controller...but i still don't get it...don't they have to be on some kind of controller anyway? if they are piped right into the southbridge there wouldn't be a way to implement RAID, right?
 

aka1nas

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No the southbridge contains the controller functionality for SATA, just not every mobo necessarily uses it.
 

sangyup81

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Feb 22, 2005
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Originally posted by: Slickone
Originally posted by: sangyup81
Originally posted by: Slickone
What's a good overclocker that has 4 RAM slots, and native SATA?

I hope you are asking for 4 RAM slots because you have 4 single sided DIMMs
No i dont. Why?

Then I hope you aren't trying to run them at DDR-400

http://www.giga-byte.com/Motherboard/Support/FAQ/FAQ_463.htm

Also look at Page 19 (23rd page for the PDF) in this manual: http://america.giga-byte.com/MotherBoard/FileList/Manual/manual_7n400p2_e.pdf

Oh btw, I own a Gigabyte GA-7N400-L. The manual from above is for the more expensive one in the nForce2 Ultra line. The only real difference is included features though since that one will have your SATA while mine will not.
 

Slickone

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Dec 31, 1999
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So basically with an NF2 board, if you want 2GB, your stuck having to use two slower 1GB DIMMs (or very expensive ones) vs. 4 x 512MB lower latency DIMMs?

Does NF3 have that limitation?
 

aka1nas

Diamond Member
Aug 30, 2001
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If it is a socket 939 NF3 then it will have 4 slots. Socket 754 is single channel and will only have 3 slots at best.