So I need to find a Socket 754 Motherboard

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Confusednewbie1552

Golden Member
Jun 24, 2004
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Edit: So I ordered the motherboard, thanks for the help everyone!!!

So which board is better:

This one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813136167

Or this one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813136147


So I need a Socket 754 motherboard for my 2800+

It needs to have AGP and I would prefer for it to be an ATX motherboard, but micro ATX is fine.

I'd like it to have an intergrated Ethernet port as well as firewire.

I'd like it to have pins that would work with my front panel I/o: Speaker jack, Mic Jack (theese two arent as important) and most importantly: Firewire and 2 USB ports.

I'd prefer for it to have an Nforce chipset. Whether its an Nforce 3 or an Nforce 4 I don't care.

Also in the past I have had poblems with the chipset chip becoming too hot due to the fact that all there is is a heatsink and no fan, so if it is possible is there one with a fan on the chipset?

It has got to also be able to support SATA and IDE, I don't care too much about RAID.

Anyway thanks for future suggestions!

Edit: The DFI Lan Party with the Nforce 3 250 Gb chipset looks pretty good, any known problems/issues with it?
 
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Heidfirst

Platinum Member
May 18, 2005
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The DFI is fine but to get the best performance out of it you will need to do some tweaking in the BIOS & it's a quite complicated BIOS.
 
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Confusednewbie1552

Golden Member
Jun 24, 2004
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Well I did a quick search on Socket 754 and all I got was mostly For Sale posts/Sempron things. Anyway I made this topic to find out AnAndtech users opinions and suggestions on some Socket 754 boards.

So the DFI is difficult to use/install? Is it worth getting? So far the DFI boards seem to be the best based on reviews.
It seems that there are 3 types of DFI boards for Socket 754. 1 of them has PCI Express so it doesn't apply to me. Therefore I'd like to know which one of theese is better:

This one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813136167

Or this one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813136147

I can't find a whole lot of difference between the two except that ones cheaper and the others expensive. The expensive one seems to have better reviews though. So unless there's another board that is better than theese two choices, I'd like to know which one is better performance wise as well as the one that gives you the "most bang for the buck" though this doesn't neccesarilly mean the cheaper one.

Thanks so far!
 
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imported_Kiwi

Golden Member
Jul 17, 2004
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All of DFI's LanParty MB's, save for one that I know of, are decent products. They aren't in the budget price category, for that range DFI has fewer options. The problem one was a s939 NF3 Ultra board that was very late being released, and dropped from production after a very short run. The three DFI MB's that I have had some experience with ran quite well with a minimum of changes to the setup.

Only when you want to push the systems hard will you discover the level of detail that is available for adjusting everything to go as absolutely fast as your combination of CPU, HSF, and RAM will let you go. There just isn't another MB maker that gives you as much control. On the other hand, for a moderate OC level, it's simple enough to do.

I have no experience with their budget boards, or even any non-nVidia based LanParty MB's.


:thumbsup:
 
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imported_Kiwi

Golden Member
Jul 17, 2004
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Originally posted by: Confusednewbie1552
Alright thanks Kiwi, so which DFI board is better?

This one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813136167

Or this one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813136147
Click to expand...

That second one, a DFI LANPARTY UT nF3 250Gb Socket 754 NVIDIA nForce3 250Gb, is the LanParty MB that I would have no hesitation suggesting, although I skipped past the s754 CPU's from s462 myself. Neither of my own DFI's, nor the one I put in a system for a friend, were from a DFI line that wasn't their best. I don't know anything about any "budget" price MB's that they have produced, and can't make a judgment either way about the cheaper one.


:confused:
 
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Inappropriate4AT

Banned
Apr 15, 2004
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Asus K8N-E Deluxe, DFI Lanparty UT, K8N Neo Platinum. I've had experience with all 3, pretty good boards. The Asus was my favorite, the K8N Neo was a close second.

And a known issue with the DFI board that'll save you a lot of headache if you get it, the sata 1 and 2 ports aren't bus locked, so you can't overclock while using those ports. Use 3 and 4 if you own an sata drive and want to overclock.
 
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Confusednewbie1552

Golden Member
Jun 24, 2004
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Thanks Kiwi and Inapprioriate4AT !!!!

I have a Sata drive, so if I use 3 and 4 do I have to do the bios flash thing to make my sata drive work?

If so is there a topic in this forum that tells how to do it?

Thanks for all the help!!!
 
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Inappropriate4AT

Banned
Apr 15, 2004
4,143
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Originally posted by: Confusednewbie1552
Thanks Kiwi and Inapprioriate4AT !!!!

I have a Sata drive, so if I use 3 and 4 do I have to do the bios flash thing to make my sata drive work?

If so is there a topic in this forum that tells how to do it?

Thanks for all the help!!!
Click to expand...

As long as you have Windows XP sp1 or better, you won't have to do anything special to get the sata drive to work. What happens is, when you overclock by increasing the fsb speed the the AGP/PCI bus will increase which can make things like hard drives and video cards not work properly. Most modern boards have an AGP/PCI lock that will remedy this, and the DFI does, but for some reason it only locks 2 out of the 4 sata ports. If you don't plan on overclocking, or only raise the fsb to about 220mhz or so it shouldn't be an issue. But if you only have 1-2 sata drives and would like to overclock the CPU, just make sure you use either port 3 or 4.
 
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Heidfirst

Platinum Member
May 18, 2005
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Originally posted by: Inappropriate4AT
but for some reason it only locks 2 out of the 4 sata ports.
Click to expand...
chipset shortcoming, all nF3 boards suffer from it.
In fact some nF3 boards didn't even bother implementing the ports on SATA 1 & 2.

"Does the Windows XP cd automatically come with SP1? I got my CD in 2004."
should do, iirc SP1 came out in 2002.

 
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JBT

Lifer
Nov 28, 2001
12,094
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I've got the DFI NF3 250GB board I'm actually selling it now for ~$70 shipped. Its a great board. Reason i'm selling it is I'm getting a PCI-eXpress system.
 
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Confusednewbie1552

Golden Member
Jun 24, 2004
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Allright thanks everyone! I appreciate the sugestion Stumps, but I just submitted an order for the DFI Lan Party for 107$ (shipped+tax) JBT if only you told me sooner =( Oh well, anyway thanks everyone!

But JBT how was your experience with the DFI Lan Party? Any known issues, advice you can give me, or is the board perfect and good to go :D ?
 
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JBT

Lifer
Nov 28, 2001
12,094
1
81
Its been a great board. Its seems to report temps a bit high esspecially if you've got a Clawhammer Core though it does report my Newcastle temps pretty high as well.. Either way with SATA just use SATA port 3-4 and your good to go.
 
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