Should I mess with an Asus A7N8X at this point?

[Salvador]

I have a friend that wants to sell me his Asus A7N8X Deluxe motherboard and 2500+ Barton chip. Should I mess with it at this point or just look at new technology? I'm asking because I still see somewhat a demand for the combo and I'm not sure why. Is it that with the newer technology, there isn't a good, inexpensive alternative to the best of the socket A stuff?

 

[Salvador]

Let me elaborate some more. I'm figuring that this combo is worth $80-$100. I already have other socket A stuff and I could just upgrade some of the stuff I have with the Asus board and the 2500+ Barton. Or.. I could just spend this money towards something new. What I'm asking is if there is anything comparable in the price range with newer technology or do I have to spend considerably more?

 

[tcsenter]

Originally posted by: Salvador
I have a friend that wants to sell me his Asus A7N8X Deluxe motherboard and 2500+ Barton chip. Should I mess with it at this point or just look at new technology? I'm asking because I still see somewhat a demand for the combo and I'm not sure why. Is it that with the newer technology, there isn't a good, inexpensive alternative to the best of the socket A stuff?

How much are we talking?

 

[Salvador]

Originally posted by: tcsenter

Originally posted by: Salvador
I have a friend that wants to sell me his Asus A7N8X Deluxe motherboard and 2500+ Barton chip. Should I mess with it at this point or just look at new technology? I'm asking because I still see somewhat a demand for the combo and I'm not sure why. Is it that with the newer technology, there isn't a good, inexpensive alternative to the best of the socket A stuff?

How much are we talking?

Well.. He's looking at some of the Ebay prices and figured that he could get $150 for the 2500+ and A7N8X Deluxe. I think that's a bit optimistic. I was thinking that it was worth more like $80-$100 for the set.

 

[tcsenter]

It wouldn't be difficult to find S754 or S939 mobo + CPU that would be a significant improvement, figuring $60 for a motherboard and $60 for CPU.

 

[NXIL]

Hi,

AMD64 3200: about 52$:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819103567

New motherboard:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductCo...List=N82E16813138269%2CN82E16813186085

About 60$.

Both new, with warranties....you can recycle your DDR 400 memory, maybe even video card...

HTH,

XIL

 

[Salvador]

It doesn't make much sense, does it? Why are the A7N8X boards in such high demand? I was looking on Ebay and they were getting well over $100 for just the boards. What gives?

I have another question. What kind of RAM do the newest systems use? I haven't been looking at hardware much since the Socket A days.

 

[chizow]

Interesting they still sell so much on Ebay, but the combo probably wouldn't go for as much on any tech-savvy FS/FT forum. Maybe $75-80. Its a great board though, epitome of Socket A/AGP and offered a full feature set. Lots of connectors, outputs, OC'ing options and the SoundStorm (able to do real-time DD encoding) sound implementation still rivals or exceeds the best integrated sound systems today.

Newer platforms are all using DDR2. As linked above, you can get some extra mileage out of DDR, and even a few budget hybrid C2D platforms can use DDR, but socket 939 and DDR in general is a dead upgrade path.

Problem with "upgrading" to this board is that you'll be pretty seriously bottlenecked in games by both your CPU and GPU in modern games. The GPU options are very limited at the high-end for AGP and the PCI-E versions of the same parts are typically much cheaper.

 

[LesterOfPuppets]

I scored my DFI L.P. Ultra-D and A64 3500+ for $110 shipped from a FS/FT forum. It runs like a champ.

I still have my A7n8xe-Deluxe with a 2200+ and 6600gt OC in it. It's still a pretty nice setup, but it does struggle with some newer games. Those ebay prices almost make me wanna sell it, but the onboard 10/100 port is shot. The gigabit still works fine, though.

I don't know if I'd wanna pay $100 for that setup, even with the nice Barton 2500.

 

[Salvador]

DDR and AGP are dead? I have a barely used 6600GT AGP card. I barely used it because I've been using the system with the ATI 9800 PRO in it.

As you can tell, I'm not much of a gamer. Well.. Games that rely on any of the latest hardware anyway. Last time that I was looking to upgrade was to either a socket 939 socket 754. I was told to go for the socket 754, but never pulled the trigger because I had just purchased a new AGP card and couldn't find any boards that I liked with AGP. Plus it was a bit expensive and I wasn't sure about the new technology at the time.

Anyway... I think that I can now why the board still fetches good money. I think it's for people like me that haven't read up on technology for a while, don't need the latest and greatest and who are still most comfortable with the socket A platform.

 

[etherdude]

I just took my A7N8X-Deluxe V2.0 and Athlon XP 2600+ Mobile (All running at 3200 speed) out of my system and purchased an Intel E4300 with the ASRock 775Dual-VSTA motherboard. I kept my Crucial DDR-400 Ballistix memory and my trusty ATI AIW 8500 AGP card for the time being.

Let me say that the A7N8X was the most stable, reliabl;e system I have ever had. It is a wonderful system for running XP. However, if you want to run Vista at some point, or want to start working with HD content, then this is not that great a system. The Athlon is too slow for HD playback above 720P and the Nvidia NForce 2 will be limiting for Vista support. As far as I know, the Nvidia Soundstorm will not be supported under Vista (rumor?) and you will have to run with Microsoft mobo drivers since Nvidia will not be supplying Nforce Vista drivers for Nforce 1, Nforce 2, or Nforce 3.

Having said that, the market price for the combo you describe is in the $100-120 range on Ebay. It is a very solid and useable system. I probably will keep mine and use it as a backup system in a different case oncve I retire my AGP card and my DDR memory (I have enogh other parts).

Etherdude

 

[Salvador]

Originally posted by: etherdude
Having said that, the market price for the combo you describe is in the $100-120 range on Ebay. It is a very solid and useable system. I probably will keep mine and use it as a backup system in a different case oncve I retire my AGP card and my DDR memory (I have enogh other parts).

It's actually going for more than that. I've seen it go for $150 for the pair. $100 or more just for the mobo. Crazy.

There must be quite a few people out there that don't think that they can buy something to re-use their DDR RAM and their AGP cards like you have done Etherdude. Or.. There are a lot of people that were really comfortable with the socket A stuff and don't want to give it up just yet.

 

[Cerb]

I just bought a board on eBay after mine died just a week ago, and I'm amazed, as well. For $200, I could be set up with a 1GB AM2 system sans video card, and only $100-120 to reuse DDR. Lanparty boards and that Asus are just insane for what they're going for. Oh, and some Soyos. Sure, you can use your DDR and AGP, but you can go Intel and do that, too (Asus' P5PE-VM is nice for that).

It's a nice board, but if new parts are on an option, it's not all that compelling. My guess, though, is ignorance. Sure, some people will have their socket A stuff, and be using the Soundstorm, but not enough to justify those prices.

 

[Salvador]

Originally posted by: Cerb
I just bought a board on eBay after mine died just a week ago, and I'm amazed, as well. For $200, I could be set up with a 1GB AM2 system sans video card, and only $100-120 to reuse DDR. Lanparty boards and that Asus are just insane for what they're going for. Oh, and some Soyos. Sure, you can use your DDR and AGP, but you can go Intel and do that, too (Asus' P5PE-VM is nice for that).

It's a nice board, but if new parts are on an option, it's not all that compelling. My guess, though, is ignorance. Sure, some people will have their socket A stuff, and be using the Soundstorm, but not enough to justify those prices.

Which board did you buy on Ebay?

 

[Cerb]

DFI KT600-AL. Nothing too special, used, but I have no real desire for an upgrade of any internal component yet. Just needed something that worked, wasn't too crappy, didn't have an old VIA or NF1 chipset, but had AGP 8x, passive NB cooling, over 2 RAM slots, and room for my AX-7. Er, and not be expensive enough to make me think of getting a S754 CPU and mobo, instead (there are a few nicely priced in FS/FT, after all). No hard to find requirements, right? :roll:

I cold have held out for better, I think, but I'm already past a week without my PC, so even VIA gets a chance .