need suggestions for a good 939/PCI-E mobo

[studnothin]

i'm upgrading my pc, and i'm thinking about getting the MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum. it seems like a really good mobo for the price ($130 USD @ newegg). and before anyone recomends the DFI Lanparty, most of what i've heard is that its a rather difficult board to fully optimize, at least for relative newcomers, which i consider myself. anyway, this isn't my area of expertise, and i just wanted to get a few ideas from you guys before i make my final decision today. besides the mobo, here's everything else i'm upgrading to:

CorsairXMS 2gb (2 x 512mb) pc3200 w/ 2-3-3-6 timings - $250
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820145575

AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ (when it comes out) - $350

ATI X800XL 256mb (PCI-E) - already bought for $285 brand new.

 

[Cheezeit]

DFI lanparty ultra d for you.

And don't spend that much on ram. check out some benches in cpu/overclocking

 

[studnothin]

oops, sorry, i didn't edit my first message in time. yeah, the DFI, though i'm sure is a great board, might not be the best for me since i'm a relative noob at building a PC. oh and trust me, i hadn't planned on paying that much for RAm, infact i was actually planning on buying the CorsairVS 1gb dual set pc3200 for $80. the only reason i decided not to was the fact that i like the idea of having more than enough ram, especially so i won't have to upgrade it for awhile, and the timings were really tight for such a large amount.

 

[imported_Kensai]

MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum for the average user and for mild overclockers.
DFI Ultra-D for the serious to extreme to crazy overclockers.

 

[studnothin]

well, thats probably the best category i fall into. i might experiment a little with my cpu and ram, but nowhere near to the point of having to rely on a premetia or water-cooled set-up.

 

[Cheezeit]

no, man don't listen to the people that say the dfi is hard to get going.

I just did my first build with a dfi ultra d and corsair VS and it went together perfectly without one single problem. everything is totally stable.

i actaully made a thread asking about the dfi and how hard it is and other people have said their 1st build worked fine too.

not one person said it needed tweaking

 

[studnothin]

well, i won't disagree that from what many reviews have stated about that board, that its certainly one of the most fully featured, and probably one of the best OC'n mobo on the market today, there were just too many people that said they had issues with getting everything perfect. i just wanted to avoid any possible problems, and get the MSI K8N neo4 platinum, which i know isn't as good at OC'n, but its still a really good board none the less.

anyways, thanks for the advice regardless.

 

[Cheezeit]

Originally posted by: studnothin
well, i won't disagree that from what many reviews have stated about that board, that its certainly one of the most fully featured, and probably one of the best OC'n mobo on the market today, there were just too many people that said they had issues with getting everything perfect. i just wanted to avoid any possible problems, and get the MSI K8N neo4 platinum, which i know isn't as good at OC'n, but its still a really good board none the less.

anyways, thanks for the advice regardless.

okay, you would have been happy with either.

its just that MSI has some horrible tech support and RMA's

 

[chynn]

Well, I run an Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe at the moment. I found that getting the board to work "properly" required research, a BIOS upgrade, and changing some of the BIOS default settings that weren't quite right.

Having more BIOS settings does not necessarily make a motherboard more difficult to setup; having incorrect default BIOS settings does ...

From what I have read, DFI boards set up the easiest of all the nF4 boards because most, if not all, their default BIOS settings are bang on.

However, I believe almost any SLI board you buy will require a BIOS upgrade because the BIOSes and their settings are still being "tweaked".

I have built a dozen or so PCs, so far, and my next motherboard (for my FX57 CPU) will definitely be a DFI LanParty. I have not decided on the SLI-DR or the SLI-D yet because I do not use the SIL3114 SATA chip on my Asus board now (it's too slow and does not support NCQ) so I probably won't use the SIL chip on any future boards.

I think your choice might also be biased by cost, which affects all of us, and all the DFI SLI boards are selling at premium prices right now.

Maybe it would be better to wait a bit before upgrading your system, because you will probably have to buy a "not cheap either" power supply if your current PSU does NOT have a 24-pin motherboard connector and the requisite 6-pin PCIe graphics card connector(s).

I run a PC Power & Cooling 510W SLI which is one of the PSUs nVidia recommends for running two 6800 Ultras. Its cost is more than the cost of the MSI board you are thinking of buying.

Another reason for buying a DFI is that its components support the higher voltages some of the very fast VX memory sticks require. For example, running DDR550 memory as a stock, not OC'd, configuration can be done only with a DFI board. With any other SLI board, that kind of memory would be treated as an OC and might need modifications to the board or to the DIMM slots on the board.

If you don't upgrade often, and a motherboard has to last you for a while, then the DFI has more "headroom" to grow into than any of the other motherboards ... at this time. Yet another reason to proceed slowly.

 

[wffsoccergmail]

I have the MSI board your looking for in my thread if you're interested....
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid=45&threadid=1633266