Recommendation for VIA K8T800Pro Motherboards

[The Pentium Guy]

I'm looking at these motherboards:

ASUS "A8V Deluxe" VIA K8T800 Pro Chipset Motherboard For AMD Socket 939 CPU -RETAIL
http://www.newegg.com/app/View...=13-131-510&depa=1

MSI "K8T NEO2-FIR" VIA K8T800 Pro Chipset Motherboard for AMD Socket 939 CPU -RETAIL
http://www.newegg.com/app/View...=13-130-463&depa=1
<This only has one firewire port, so it's probably not smething I'm really worth considering>

SOLTEK "SL-K8TPro-939" VIA K8T800 Pro Chipset Motherboard for AMD Socket 939 CPU -RETAIL
http://www.newegg.com/app/View...=13-180-064&amp;depa=1
<Only comes with 2 cables? - See pic>

The other ones that I looked at don't have firewire, a must. I'm not much of an overclocker either.

I've got my eyes on the ASUS. I have an ASUS on my other macine and it's been running great, no problems.

What do you guys think?

-The Pentium Guy

 

[ChineseDemocracyGNR]

The ABIT AV8 also has Firewire but yes, the ASUS is a very good board.

 

[The Pentium Guy]

Oh you're right. Sorry I skipped over it. I did a control + F for IEEE but that had 1394. Wow I'm dumb.

ABIT "AV8" K8T800 Pro Chipset Motherboard for AMD Socket 939 CPU - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/app/View...=13-127-181&amp;depa=1

 

[The Pentium Guy]

Slight problem:

http://www.newegg.com/app/View...=20-146-950&amp;depa=1
OCZ Performance Series Dual Channel Kit 184 Pin 1GB(512MBx2) DDR PC-3500 - Retail

I was ordering that. The ASUS says it only supports DDR400 and PC3200.... time to downgrade my RAM I guess?

 

[ChineseDemocracyGNR]

PC3500 is compatible, but you can only run it at faster than DDR400 if you're overclocking.

 

[The Pentium Guy]

No overclocks for me. Thanks, I've got everythign decided now (unless someone comes over here and changes my mind)

 

[superkdogg]

I have the AV8 and I like it a lot. However, since you're not going to overclock basically all the boards will perform about the same and you need to decide based on features. Also, you won't need any sort of special or expensive ram unless you want it for a future system. Running stock speeds you just need to have a PC3200 ram that will run with 1T timings. The difference between 2-2-2 and 2.5-3-3 @ stock speeds would be relatively small-it's up to you.

 

[justly]

Just curious, why only the VIA K8T800 Pro Chipset? when there are also SiS755FX and nForce3 socket 939 boards with firewire. Since your not much of an overclocker any chipset should do, thats why I ask.

here are the links in case you want to look at them

FOXCONN "755FXK8AA-8EKRS" SiS 755FX Chipset Motherboard For Socket 939 CPU

<a target=_blank class=ftalternatingbarlinklarge href="http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=13-123-222&amp;depa=1">EPoX "EP-9NDA3+" NVIDIA nForce3 ULTRA Chipset Motherboard For AMD Socket 939 CPU
</a>

 

[rocketman14]

if you won't overclock, then the soltek board will be the fastest.

 

[The Pentium Guy]

Thanks,

Well I read up on stuff saying that the VIA had passive cooling versus the nf3 which has active cooling. I'm building this PC for my dad and he wont tolerate ANY noise so I'm going VIA.

Soltek eh? Never heard of them. See I've just had a good experience with ASUS. Besides the ASUS has built-in WIFI.

I'm going to stay away from foxconna as much as possible. My friends have had HORRIBLE experiences with them .

I'll take a look at soltek before buying.

-TPG

 

[The Pentium Guy]

Not bad.... read a few reviews.
It seems pretty stable and most of the reviews say that it runs faster than most boards at stock speed.

It doesn't come with WiFi, so I think that the ASUS is the bang for the buck card (it's like 15 bucks more and it comes with WiFi).

Excuse the comment I mentinoed above in my first post about the Soltek not coming with enough cables - I looked at the wrong picture.

Asus it is.

-The Pentium Guy