Some lazy person decided to lock my post @ Hot Deals forum instead of moving it to the MB forum. Here's a repost for other users:
I've been a big fan of the $80 ECS NF3/Sempron 3100 Combo at Fry's because of it's superior performance to price ratio. So when Fry's had the NF4/Sempron 3100 for the same price, I took the bait.
The 130nm 754 socket Sempron Paris supports 64 bits computing and Cool n Quiet. The C n Q software downshifts the CPU multiplier from 9x to 5x at low to moderate CPU load. The CPU multiplier is locked at 9x for a default core speed of 1.8GHz (cannot increase multiplier). The average overclock speed for this processor is between 2.3 and 2.4GHz. I can do 2.5GHz with 1.6Vcore. The default Vcore is 1.4. The maximum CPU temperature at 25C ambient, 2.4GHz core speed is 46C using a Zalman 7700Cu cooler and Antec SLK3000B case with two medium 120 x 38mm Panaflos tuned for silent operation. It idles around 30C.
ECS is a top-tier motherboard vendor by volume. Naturally, its products tend to focus on the value-oriented buyers. This ECS NF4 comes with seven Matsushita FL series and three OST capacitors for the main power circuit. I also see other OSTs and G-Luxons throughout the board. All are rated at 105C. Fortunately, all the capacitors are warm to the touch after four hours of Prime95 in MAX HEAT mode. The NF3 board has a few "hot" capacitors.
I give the board's layout a "B+" grade. IDE channels, floppy, main power , and SATA connectors are located on the right-most side of the board. The supplied floppy cable should have sufficient length to reach almost any ATX case in circulation. ECS did a good job of positioning the big power connector at the top-right corner of the motherboard. It is possible to run this board with 20 pin ATX PSU. The single row SATA arrangement facilitates airflow within the case and permits quick identification of the four SATA ports.
The board supports SATA I. There is no need to hit the F6 key during Windows installation to load special drivers unless there is an esoteric RAID configuration. Noobs will probably pass on this deal due to the lack of onboard SATA II. I use the audio and chipset drivers found at the ECS website.
The reset jumper and main headers are positioned just below the floppy connector, at the bottom-right of the board. USB 3, 4, and 5 are to the left of the main header. There's a BIOS protection jumper, front panel audio header, analog audio input, auxiliary input, SPDIF out, and IR header at the bottom-left. Make sure the protection jumper is properly jumpered when flashing BIOS. My unit would not flash via floppy. Therefore, I had to use the included Winflash software to update the BIOS in Windows.
The 9/2005 BIOS permits FSB adjustment up to 400MHz, CPU voltage in +25mV increment up to +375mV, and memory voltage in 0.1V step up to 3.1V. Other important parameters include DRAM at 200/166/133/100, Tras, Trcd, Trp, 1T/2T. There's a parameter for CPU THERMAL THROTTLING which is NOT explained in the manual. Perhaps another user can shed more light into this function. The HAMMER FID CONTROL parameter allows the user to manually set the CPU multiplier from 4x to 21x. I can change the CPU multiplier with the Sempron 3100 in 0.5x increment down to 4x. This option is NOT available with the Sempron 2800.
The PCI-E 16x connector is positioned just above the number three PCI slot. A large video card may block the use of this 3rd PCI slot. There are two PCI-E 1x connectors above the video card. A long PCI-E 1x card will definitely interfere with the NF4 chipset cooler. I've seen worse layout, where the chipset cooler is too close to the video card, making it very difficult to install/remove a long video card.
The chipset cooler spins at +6K rpm. I will build a passive heat-sink to interface with the two retainer hooks used by ECS to secure the cooler to the NF4 chip.
There are three RAM slots on this board. Only 939 boards are capable of dual-channel memory mode. Therefore, the omission of a 4th RAM slot is of little concern to most users. With the Sempron 3100, I can boot and run Super Pi with 2 x 512MB Corsair Value Select at 244MHz FSB speed (DDR400, 2.5-3-3-8-1T). Dropping the RAM speed to 166 permits 274MHz FSB. The board defaults to 166 speed with two sticks of RAM. However, one can manually set the speed to 200 without affecting system stability.
When I swapped the 3100 with a 2800 Sempron (90nm Winchester core), the board delivered 289MHz at 133/2.5-3-3-8-1T. The ECS NF3 754 board will only take the 2800 Sempron up to 262MHz. Quite impressive for an $80 combo.
This board will NOT load windows with the FSB set at 290MHz or HIGHER. A work-around solution is to set the FSB to 289MHz in BIOS, then use Clockgen to further bump the FSB in Windows (same technique used with the ECS NF3 754 board). The system is Prime95 and Super Pi stable at 300MHz FSB using the Sempron 2800 CPU.
I also compared the speed of this board with its NF3 brother. No difference in Super Pi time at the same CPU core speed. However, I noticed that the drive imaging speed in DOS had improved by about 60% for write, and 20% for read operations. Will need to run more tests on other HDDs to confirm. I suspect it's a software glitch.
This board does not automatically default to the previous BIOS configuration after lockup. Therefore, the user will almost always have to turn-off the AC power, hit the power switch to discharge the capacitors, and reset the CMOS jumper.
There are reports about the BSOD issue with the use of a high-speed USB device. Unfortunately, I do not have an external USB drive to test for this problem. I'm not sure if this problem is unique to the ECS NF4/939.
ECS did not include 1394 with this board. Some of the reported temperature readings are inaccurate. The sound and LAN work as advertised.
The inclusion of PCI-E 16x/1x made this board more "future-proof" for some users. Speed-wise, this board is only a tad slower than a 939 board because it lacks dual-channel memory support (probably less than 50MHz core speed penalty). If you don't need dual-core, then this combo is the perfect upgrade choice for value conscious individual.
I've been a big fan of the $80 ECS NF3/Sempron 3100 Combo at Fry's because of it's superior performance to price ratio. So when Fry's had the NF4/Sempron 3100 for the same price, I took the bait.
The 130nm 754 socket Sempron Paris supports 64 bits computing and Cool n Quiet. The C n Q software downshifts the CPU multiplier from 9x to 5x at low to moderate CPU load. The CPU multiplier is locked at 9x for a default core speed of 1.8GHz (cannot increase multiplier). The average overclock speed for this processor is between 2.3 and 2.4GHz. I can do 2.5GHz with 1.6Vcore. The default Vcore is 1.4. The maximum CPU temperature at 25C ambient, 2.4GHz core speed is 46C using a Zalman 7700Cu cooler and Antec SLK3000B case with two medium 120 x 38mm Panaflos tuned for silent operation. It idles around 30C.
ECS is a top-tier motherboard vendor by volume. Naturally, its products tend to focus on the value-oriented buyers. This ECS NF4 comes with seven Matsushita FL series and three OST capacitors for the main power circuit. I also see other OSTs and G-Luxons throughout the board. All are rated at 105C. Fortunately, all the capacitors are warm to the touch after four hours of Prime95 in MAX HEAT mode. The NF3 board has a few "hot" capacitors.
I give the board's layout a "B+" grade. IDE channels, floppy, main power , and SATA connectors are located on the right-most side of the board. The supplied floppy cable should have sufficient length to reach almost any ATX case in circulation. ECS did a good job of positioning the big power connector at the top-right corner of the motherboard. It is possible to run this board with 20 pin ATX PSU. The single row SATA arrangement facilitates airflow within the case and permits quick identification of the four SATA ports.
The board supports SATA I. There is no need to hit the F6 key during Windows installation to load special drivers unless there is an esoteric RAID configuration. Noobs will probably pass on this deal due to the lack of onboard SATA II. I use the audio and chipset drivers found at the ECS website.
The reset jumper and main headers are positioned just below the floppy connector, at the bottom-right of the board. USB 3, 4, and 5 are to the left of the main header. There's a BIOS protection jumper, front panel audio header, analog audio input, auxiliary input, SPDIF out, and IR header at the bottom-left. Make sure the protection jumper is properly jumpered when flashing BIOS. My unit would not flash via floppy. Therefore, I had to use the included Winflash software to update the BIOS in Windows.
The 9/2005 BIOS permits FSB adjustment up to 400MHz, CPU voltage in +25mV increment up to +375mV, and memory voltage in 0.1V step up to 3.1V. Other important parameters include DRAM at 200/166/133/100, Tras, Trcd, Trp, 1T/2T. There's a parameter for CPU THERMAL THROTTLING which is NOT explained in the manual. Perhaps another user can shed more light into this function. The HAMMER FID CONTROL parameter allows the user to manually set the CPU multiplier from 4x to 21x. I can change the CPU multiplier with the Sempron 3100 in 0.5x increment down to 4x. This option is NOT available with the Sempron 2800.
The PCI-E 16x connector is positioned just above the number three PCI slot. A large video card may block the use of this 3rd PCI slot. There are two PCI-E 1x connectors above the video card. A long PCI-E 1x card will definitely interfere with the NF4 chipset cooler. I've seen worse layout, where the chipset cooler is too close to the video card, making it very difficult to install/remove a long video card.
The chipset cooler spins at +6K rpm. I will build a passive heat-sink to interface with the two retainer hooks used by ECS to secure the cooler to the NF4 chip.
There are three RAM slots on this board. Only 939 boards are capable of dual-channel memory mode. Therefore, the omission of a 4th RAM slot is of little concern to most users. With the Sempron 3100, I can boot and run Super Pi with 2 x 512MB Corsair Value Select at 244MHz FSB speed (DDR400, 2.5-3-3-8-1T). Dropping the RAM speed to 166 permits 274MHz FSB. The board defaults to 166 speed with two sticks of RAM. However, one can manually set the speed to 200 without affecting system stability.
When I swapped the 3100 with a 2800 Sempron (90nm Winchester core), the board delivered 289MHz at 133/2.5-3-3-8-1T. The ECS NF3 754 board will only take the 2800 Sempron up to 262MHz. Quite impressive for an $80 combo.
This board will NOT load windows with the FSB set at 290MHz or HIGHER. A work-around solution is to set the FSB to 289MHz in BIOS, then use Clockgen to further bump the FSB in Windows (same technique used with the ECS NF3 754 board). The system is Prime95 and Super Pi stable at 300MHz FSB using the Sempron 2800 CPU.
I also compared the speed of this board with its NF3 brother. No difference in Super Pi time at the same CPU core speed. However, I noticed that the drive imaging speed in DOS had improved by about 60% for write, and 20% for read operations. Will need to run more tests on other HDDs to confirm. I suspect it's a software glitch.
This board does not automatically default to the previous BIOS configuration after lockup. Therefore, the user will almost always have to turn-off the AC power, hit the power switch to discharge the capacitors, and reset the CMOS jumper.
There are reports about the BSOD issue with the use of a high-speed USB device. Unfortunately, I do not have an external USB drive to test for this problem. I'm not sure if this problem is unique to the ECS NF4/939.
ECS did not include 1394 with this board. Some of the reported temperature readings are inaccurate. The sound and LAN work as advertised.
The inclusion of PCI-E 16x/1x made this board more "future-proof" for some users. Speed-wise, this board is only a tad slower than a 939 board because it lacks dual-channel memory support (probably less than 50MHz core speed penalty). If you don't need dual-core, then this combo is the perfect upgrade choice for value conscious individual.
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