*** The ULTIMATE Motherboard Selection Guide For New Users ***

[Starbuck]

Hello everyone,

I'm one of those user who do not know which Motherboard to buy.
So I'm asking you, the tech guys, to help me out.

My system is being built around an AMD 64 X2 3800.
I'm not an OCer, so I will run the board at default stock speed/settings.
I do play games occasionaly but I don't consider myself as an Hard core gamer.

What I'm looking at is stability, reliability and full compatibility with the X2 AMD cpu.

SLI : As far as I'm concerned, I don't see the benefit of it..My LCD monitor is limited to 1280x1040, and my gaming experience is moderate.
OC : Not interested to mess with this.
Raid controller : yup, Raid 0 configuration would be a plus..
Gigabit output : Why not, but again I don't have a gigabit backbone to use it.
Price of the board : not an issue as long as the board is rock solid.

What kind of board do you recommend for an average user ?

 

[The Pentium Guy]

For an average user there's absolutely nothing wrong with the Chaintech Ultra board... at $86, why the hell not?

 

[videogames101]

I'm building a pc and i'm getting an amd 3700+ san diego, i'll be usign a radeon 9800 pro and 1, possibly 2 gigs of value ram. So what motherboard?Note:I Will NOT be overclocking, though i would like the ability to oc a little in the future.

 

[The Pentium Guy]

I'm not too familiar with the nforce3 or older chipsets.... I recently got into the hardware game at the beginning of the year. You might have better luck posting in a different thread as more people will see the posts.

Edit: But I did hear that the Neo2 is good...A friend of mine's got it. After fixing the problems with it he said it's a nice and stable board (he's got it for almost a year).

 

[Blake]

I recently built this system with a 4000+ SanDiego not the X2 and am real happy with it.
It has 2 Gigabyte Lans. The memory isn't the best for overclocking, but when I set it to run at T1 instead of T2 it was noticably faster. I used the Neo2 because it has AGP video slot and I wanted to use my X800 AGP card from last year. Very fast, very stable.

AMD Athlon 64 4000+
MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum - bios 1.9
Corsair Twinx1024-3200KLPT - TDDC 2-2-2-5 T1
Two WD 74 Raptor - Raid 0
Sapphire Toxic X800 Pro ViVo
Toshiba Dvd-CD Rom, NEC DVD-CD Writer
Antec Neo Power 2.0 - 480 watts, +12v1(18A), +12v2(18A)
Windows XP2

 

[rhk0327]

The Nforce/N-Force 4 (NF4) built in Active Armor firewall causes issues to many users (blue screen of death (BSOD), corrupted downloads). They usually get the BSOD when they try to access the web with their programs. It also mess ups peer2peer(p2p) programs. The general consensus is to disable/uinstall completely to completely. Here is a search for "active armor" on forums.nvidia.com

text

Best way to do this is to uinstall Network Access Manager:

Active Armour is part of Network Access Manager. It is installed with that. Nvidia Network Access Manager should be in your add remove progams list.. Uninstall that and its gone

 

[Waylay00]

Nice guide Pentium Guy.

 

[First]

While we're at it, maybe someone can quickly rundown the differences in Athlon 64 processors. From ClawHammer to Venice to San Diego to Newcastle to Turion, etc. That would be helpful for new users too.

 

[The Pentium Guy]

Originally posted by: Evan Lieb
While we're at it, maybe someone can quickly rundown the differences in Athlon 64 processors. From ClawHammer to Venice to San Diego to Newcastle to Turion, etc. That would be helpful for new users too.

Mmm good idea.

Although this is a motherboard thread I don't think this information would hurt, especailly since my article deals with overclocking a bit.

Since they're all roughly the same price I'll just run it down rather quickly.

Edit: Updated with info about ULI. I gotta get some work done tonight for school though. If anyone wants they could run down the CPU differences, or I'll just do that tomorrow.

 

[rhk0327]

Anandtech made a rundown guide of processors. "Processory Obfuscation guide"
Text

I think it needs updates on e6 revision chips though.

 

[The Pentium Guy]

Originally posted by: rhk0327
Anandtech made a rundown guide of processors. "Processory Obfuscation guide"
Text

I think it needs updates on e6 revision chips though.

Looks good enough. Besides Anand already has information about the 'hidden PC3500 memory divider' (for the lack of better words).

As long as the information is out there in one place (aka Anandtech) it should be good. Updated guide with link to article and link to CPU section .

 

[The Pentium Guy]

I've received a few PMs asking why VIA was left out. I didn't leave it out, I just got to ATI and ULI before I did VIA, so you should see some things regarding VIA this weekend, and I'll be doing a quick refresh over the guide, fixing the prices, links, and updating some information overall.

Sorry for being a little bit late answering these questions, for the past two weeks I tried to concentrate on school so I could break into it. Things should be returning back to normal now though.

-The Pentium Guy

 

[Alaa]

where r the ECS boards?

 

[The Pentium Guy]

Originally posted by: Alaa
where r the ECS boards?

Gotcha. Gimme a few days to find out what I can about this board.

I reflashed my guide, and updates regarding VIA are coming rather soon.

 

[Alaa]

i just saw many sites talking about it..anyway thanx for that great guide

 

[Sacraster]

great guide

 

[c3p0]

Nice motherboard guide for new users. A bit nForce slanted, but nicely done. I have been building PC's for over 12 years and have found good and bad qualities in just about all the motherboards. You really have to sit down and decide what features are most important to you, the build your PC around those features. There's not a lot of point in buying the top of the line SLI board if you never intend on playing games. I think you get the point.

The only comment I have is that you never mentioned the Soltek motherboard. Now that they are out of the motherboard business, there's probably no reason to include them in your guide. I happen to be a proud owner of a SOLTEK SL-K8TPro-939 board and absolutely love it. It's not the fastest motherboard available, but it is one of the most forgiving and rock solid motherboards I have ever owned.
Nice Work!!!

c3p0
:beer:

 

[The Pentium Guy]

Originally posted by: c3p0
The only comment I have is that you never mentioned the Soltek motherboard. Now that they are out of the motherboard business, there's probably no reason to include them in your guide. I happen to be a proud owner of a SOLTEK SL-K8TPro-939 board and absolutely love it. It's not the fastest motherboard available, but it is one of the most forgiving and rock solid motherboards I have ever owned.
Nice Work!!!

c3p0
:beer:

I actually liked that board...

http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview...hreadid=1528344&enterthread=y&arctab=y

I created that thread quite a while ago about a month after registering, I completely forgot about it. I was definately new to the hardware scene back then, as you can tell from the content of my post.

If soltek is really out of the hardware business, then there's no real reason to buy from them, especially if you're RMAing to a nonexistant company .

As for my guide being nForce4 slanted.... I think you have a point. ULI's chipset is marketed towards the budget consumers, and the ATI chipset isn't out, so I can't jump into large assumptions on that one.

Sorry for not updating, I need to catch up on some sleep as I've been literally swamped with school work (not to mention SAT prep as well).

-The Pentium Guy

 

[The Pentium Guy]

I just finished setting up a DFI Lanparty SLI-DR board.

Athlon64 X2 3800+
Enermax SLI Certified 535W (snag this deal, I think it was $70 at ClubIT, ZZF, or Newegg...)
7800GTX
WD160GB-SataII
DFI Lanparty SLI-DR
2x512MB OCZ Gold PC3200

Just a little tip for beginners:
-Make sure all 4 power connectors on the DFI are plugged in. I don't think the manual actually mentions this - but I heard this was important for stability in overclocking.
-Make sure that you check your connectors. No clue... after fiddling with it a bit I got it to work.
-Haha. Make sure your RAM isn't defective . Bad stick of RAM = problems.
-Flash your BIOS to the latest for X2, or it'll lag massively.

My opinion?

Awesome. I wouldn't exactly call this board an "experts board" as many people have said. In fact, the diagnostic LEDs* are damn useful. Helped eliminate a few problems....Manual's a bit skimpy, but it's more than enough to help you get started. Help for BIOS options can be found ... right here on Anandtech. Don't buy into that "this isn't a beginners board" advice though. DFI-Street will offer you plenty of help, oh, and so will Anandtech forums .

**But NOTHING beats the voice POST reporter on my ASUS P4P800-e Deluxe (and on other ASUS boards as well) - it "speaks" to you and tells you what the problem is.

On the other hand, all that extra stuff included with that board? Sort of useless.

But I gotta admit, this is one hella sweet board.

Updates coming tomorrow.
-The Pentium Guy

 

[Josh7289]

***EXCELLENT*** GUIDE!

Great job! Keep up the good work!

 

[RichardIII]

Interesting. I have an Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe, which got a kind of bad review, but I have had NO problems with it or any of the fans. I have nothing overclocked though. It is a tad noisy, but not bad, IMO.

Rich

 

[The Pentium Guy]

Originally posted by: RichardIII
Interesting. I have an Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe, which got a kind of bad review, but I have had NO problems with it or any of the fans. I have nothing overclocked though. It is a tad noisy, but not bad, IMO.

Rich

It's a good board, but still, watch out for the fan. You don't want your chipset due to fan failure.

Edit: Updated thread.

 

[harobikes333]

I'm planning on getting a XFX 7800GT from zipzoomfly.com

I don't plan on overclocking the card or the computer unless it gets to the point I have to overclock.

I'm planning on getting a AMD x2 3800+ for my cpu
---------
OCZ Value Series 2GB (2 x 1GB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200) Unbuffered Dual Channel Kit System Memory Model

What mobo do you suggest?

P.S. This is my first build.....

Thnx and hope for some great replies!! *crosses fingers*

 

[The Pentium Guy]

Tricky. Doesn't look like you need an SLI board, and you clearly said you won't overclock (unless you have to). How about the EPoX 9NPA+? Even though it's a good overclocker, the price is now $95 at NewEgg, you can't really go wrong with that.

PS: Lots of 's all over your message. You can draw a diagonal line straight through them .

-The Pentium Guy

 

[harobikes333]

Lol wow thanks for answering!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So the EPoX 9NPA+??? Hmmm sounds like a plan I'll Look it up and look at the specs^^

So do you think that the DFI mobo that isn't SLI is still over kill for someone like me?