MSI K8N Neo2 939 Alternatives??

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bhall01

Junior Member
Jul 19, 2000
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I have been impatiently waiting for an MSI K8N Neo2 939 pin motherboard for weeks now. I have almost all the components for my new rig except the motherboard and the video card. Given the constant push back of the date (8/27 now), I was hoping some of you might have comparable alternatives to the MSI board. In particular, one that is available now to purchase!

Here's what I am trying to put together:


  • MSI K8N Neo2 939 PIN Motherboard (Need alternative for this!!)
    2 x Western Digital WD740 SATA drives
    AMD Athlon 64 FX-53 939
    Some X800 XT card (not sure of vendor yet - any ideas here welcome too)
    2 x 512 MB OCZ 3700 EB DDR Memory for 1GB total
    Antec Super LanBoy case
    ThermalTake WD0014 Silent PurePower 480W Supply
    BENQ DW1600 DVD RW Dual Layer Drive (still need to purchase as well)

Please provide a reason why the alternative is recommended and a link of you have it! What would I not get by going with the alternative compared with the MSI board?

Sorry for all the questions...I'm frustrated now.
 
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wraith3k

Senior member
Apr 15, 2004
310
0
76
The Gigabyte GA-K8NSNXP-939? Also has nforce3, and most people seem to like it. I don't have it though myself so I can't speak from experience.
 
exdeath

exdeath

Lifer
Jan 29, 2004
13,679
10
81
I have the Gigabyte K8NSNXP-939

It's the only other board using the nForce 3 Ultra chipset, and its the only one out NOW.

It's a tad pricey at ~ $220 but its on par with the MSI.

I'm going to trade in mine on ebay when the MSI comes out, but by then the nForce4 with PCIe will probably be ready.

With a FX-53 and 1 GB of corsair 3200XL I benched 6304 MB/sec in Sandra, which is about as close to 6400 as it gets!

Edit:

I'm not sure the trade in would be worth anything... I'm just going by the AT 939 roundup and it did appear that the K8N Neo2 had somewhat of an edge, albeit minor.
 
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wraith3k

Senior member
Apr 15, 2004
310
0
76
Just out of curiousity does the s939 gigabyte board use nf3-250gb or nf3-ultra? There seems to be some confusion on that.
 
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bhall01

Junior Member
Jul 19, 2000
8
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So the nForce3 Ultra....I am having trouble finding information specifically on a chipset called this. I see this....

NVIDIA nForce3 Chipsets

What are the differences between the "nForce3 Ultra" and the "nForce3 250Gb"?
 
exdeath

exdeath

Lifer
Jan 29, 2004
13,679
10
81
AFAIK nForce3 Ultra is the same as the previous nForce3 250 chips but for socket 939, in the same way that the only difference between the K8T800 and K8T800 Pro is that 'Pro' is for socket 939.
 
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EazyVG

Member
Aug 3, 2004
32
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0
I also got all the components to get my new system up and running. Only the board is missing.

I will definately wait for the MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum. As I do not find the other boards come any closer to the MSI.
I just wish that EPOX also had their version for S939. Would have gone for that one. I guess with the introduction of
nForce4, I will jump to EPOX back again, providing they will have a ready solution.
 
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tretneo

Member
Aug 4, 2004
70
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0
I just got the Gigabyte board on friday along with an Fx53 and 1GB of Corsair 3200XL Running at 2-2-2-10-1T and it is Rock Solid so far. I have a BFG6800GT OC Video card running in it and I will be benching with 3DMark03 sometime today, does anyone with a similar rig have a 3Dmark03 score they can share so I can be sure that my system is performing well?

tret
 
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RadioHead84

Platinum Member
Jan 8, 2004
2,166
0
0
where did people hear that it wasnt comoing out till the 27th? I dont see it anywhere.


Was the GIGABYE worth the money?
 
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tretneo

Member
Aug 4, 2004
70
0
0
So far so good, I got it for 214 from excaliberpc.com, I was going to get the MSI board until I saw that it was going to be delayed another 2 or 3 weeks.

tret
 
exdeath

exdeath

Lifer
Jan 29, 2004
13,679
10
81
tretneo,

Hmm that setup sounds familiar ;)

It's identical to mine except I have a GF3 right now while I wait for my eVGA 6800 Ultra on Tues :-(

Doom 3 runs pretty good at 640 x 480 high quality, time demo is above 30 fps :)

So it's pointless to run 3dMark, but I do have these.

http://members.west.cox.net/~exdeath/raid.jpg
http://members.west.cox.net/~exdeath/mem.jpg

I'm thinking this is about as close to 6400 MB/sec as possible...

The RAID is 2 x WD740GD on the Silicon Image controller and I've since topped that one at 118 MB/sec


Updated the mem bench :)
 
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tretneo

Member
Aug 4, 2004
70
0
0
exdeath,

Nice Memory Bench, have you done any FSB Overclocking? I have a Gainward Ultra/2600 6800 Ultra Golden Sample Card on the way, should have it this week. Doom3 is too realistic on this system, makes ya jump now and then hehe.

tret
 
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tretneo

Member
Aug 4, 2004
70
0
0
Couple of other questions. Do you have the problem with the temps reading wrong also? And why did you use the SI Raid Controller rather than the Nvidia raid controller? I hate the AMD Retail CPU Heat sink and Fan, it is really poorly made.

tret
 
exdeath

exdeath

Lifer
Jan 29, 2004
13,679
10
81
No FSB overclock.

For some reason the nvidia controller kept hanging on "detecting array" before I even had an array set up. Then when I did get it set up, it still kept hanging and every now and thing it would come up with an error and only 1 drive would show up.

Disabled the nvidia RAID and used the SI RAID and it runs great now.
 
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tretneo

Member
Aug 4, 2004
70
0
0
Wow, I am suprised at your mem score for a stock FSB, what ram timings are you using? I just barely get over 6000 with mine :-( and I have the 3200XL 2-2-2-10-1T
 
exdeath

exdeath

Lifer
Jan 29, 2004
13,679
10
81
-Corsair Twinx1024-3200 XLPT in the slots closest to CPU
-2 slots filled instead of 4
-Timing left in the BIOS to auto/SPD, probably the same 2-2-2-10-1T
-Shutdown all but essential services (includes killing explorer.exe for the bench)
-set the priority of the benchmark to real time

This gets the OS out of the way a little bit more than usual and allows the bench to reach the maximum physical limit of the RAM.

I tried manually tweaking the RAM (press ctrl+F1 in the main BIOS screen to get to advanced chipset options) but it seemed to make things worse :p
 
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tretneo

Member
Aug 4, 2004
70
0
0
i see, can you do me a favor and tell me what score you get if you just do a normal test in windows. No tweaking ;-)

tret
 
exdeath

exdeath

Lifer
Jan 29, 2004
13,679
10
81
It's in the ~6200s with just running the mem bench right after boot.

But then I tend to have a fairly optimized system to begin with, all unused devices disabled in the BIOS, services pruned, etc. The extra tweaking was just to push me over 6300 and try to get as close as possible to the theoretical max.

Make sure you have installed the nVidia nForce AGP to CPU bridge driver as well.
 
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Kovie

Member
Sep 18, 2002
138
0
0
Gah, MSI finally gets ready to ship their NF3 939 boards and Epox makes an announcement they are making a NF3 939 board. Now I have to wait and see what it can do now.
 
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bhall01

Junior Member
Jul 19, 2000
8
0
0
Epox in mid Sept.....i'm too impatient to wait that long now... I'll upgrade when PCI-E comes full out into the market and I need to upgrade something to it.
 
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tretneo

Member
Aug 4, 2004
70
0
0
Originally posted by: exdeath
Make sure you have installed the nVidia nForce AGP to CPU bridge driver as well.
Click to expand...

Is that part of the Nvidia Driver installation package? If so then I should have it installed.

tret
 
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