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

[The Pentium Guy]

Of course, it should work . Just make sure you don't get VX sticks though, those are meant for ABIT and DFI boards due to their extremely high voltage capacities.

Edit:
I'm getting far behind on school work. Sorry for not updating.

 

[computerABUSER]

Hey The Pentium Guy
I just wanted to say thanks for writing all of this out as it really helped me out as I have built many, many, computers but it's been the usual plain-jane computers for everyone at my work
for their kids to do homework and basically surf the web.

However, I have been building my own gaming machines for the last 3/4 years and I ususally will get the top of the line when I do

So fast-forward to the present day technology and I was lost since my own gaming machine was just a old Asus A7N8X ver.2.0 with the AGP technology. So I have read your writing on
todays nvidia mobos/Pci-e video cards and now I kinda understand what I'm dealing with...thanks again The Pentium Guy

Regards,
CA

 

[SynthDude2001]

Great thread/guide, TPG. I know how hard it can be to keep up with a huge thread sometimes!

 

[Suboshi]

Fantastic thread! This has really helped. A few years ago I used to be extremely familiar with this, but work has forced me to branch out (yes, I work on Sun equipment so I can't keep up with it anymore.

Just to make sure I'm on the right track, what I'm looking for right now is a new system I'm building for my father. This would be primarily a gaming system, but not overclocked - I want as much stability as is humanly possible. Cost isn't so much an issue. This would be for a few FPS, mostly MMORPG. Here's what I'm looking at right now:

ASUS A8N-SLI Premium ATX
AMD Athlon 64 4000+ 1GHz FSB Socket 939 Processor
OCZ 2GB (2 x 1GB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM Dual Channel Platinum System Memory
eVGA Geforce 7800GT 256-P2-N517-AX Video Card
Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 160GB 3.5" SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive

ENERMAX Whisper II EG565P-VE FMA(24P) 535W Power Supply
-or- (not sure yet)
Antec TruePower 2.0 TRUECONTROL II-550 550W Power Supply

Any advice?

Thanks in advance and keep up the awesome guide!

 

[IdaGno]

Originally posted by: Skyhanger
looks like there's a ton of guys w/ the eVGA SLI freebie board down at Hardforum.com. They already made a 8 page debugging/info thread so far... As for reivews and literature, those still seem sparse for the eVGA 133-K8-NF41/Jetway GT4-SLI.

http://www.nvnews.net/reviews/evga_nforce4_sli_edition_mainboard/index.shtml

 

[The Pentium Guy]

ASUS A8N-SLI Premium ATX
AMD Athlon 64 4000+ 1GHz FSB Socket 939 Processor
OCZ 2GB (2 x 1GB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM Dual Channel Platinum System Memory
eVGA Geforce 7800GT 256-P2-N517-AX Video Card
Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 160GB 3.5" SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive

ENERMAX Whisper II EG565P-VE FMA(24P) 535W Power Supply
-or- (not sure yet)
Antec TruePower 2.0 TRUECONTROL II-550 550W Power Supply

Do you need the low latency memory? Check the overclocking forum and you'll see that it's not worth the extra price premium, especially since you said you're not overclocking. I've heard plenty of good things about the that Enermax PSU, and nice choice of hard drives.

I did an update on the thread regarding the DFI RDX200 motherboard. I was busy earlier trying to get my grades up before the end of the term. Updates are coming soon ,
-The Pentium Guy

 

[HiroPhrozeN]

really good guide u helped me narrow down the motherboards i want and i think im finally ready to get one. i have a few questions and once i find them out i should be ready to go . firstly i want to buy a AMD athlon64 x2 4200+ with a Epox Epo- 9NPA+Sli, and i currently have 2x256mb of 3200 400mhz ddr ram and want to add another 512mb stick to make 1gig. does that sound like a good setup?

i have however read and this is the part i find confusing
taken from the Epox website Link
"CPU Socket:
Support Socket-939 based AMD Athlon-64/ Athlon-64 FX 2.0GTs Hyper Transport processors with up to 4000+

does this mean the cpu would not be supported? because the newest board which isn't out yet that i can find where i live, says this
Link
"CPU Socket:
Support Socket-939 based AMD Athlon-64/ Athlon-64 FX 2.0GTs Hyper Transport processors with up to 4800+"

also one other thing i have tryed my hardest to understand T1 and T2 command rates but its to comfusing :S. if i were to use the ram set up i said could i get T1? because atm i can only get 133mhz or 233 or some thing -_-'

i am atm seaching for my reciept for little more info if needed.

 

[The Pentium Guy]

With a simple BIOS flash, the board should be compatible with your X2. Pretty common thing to do. By the way, it'll usually boot up - it might just recognize one core only until you flash your BIOS.

You should be able to run 2x256 + 1x512 just fine - don't expeect excellent overclocking (in comparison to having 2x512MB), nor dual channel. And if 1T doesn't work, then 2T should work, it really makes no difference in terms of speed unless you're looking for a 1-2% speed increase.

because atm i can only get 133mhz or 233 or some thing -_-'

That's scary - make sure your current board supports the RAM you're using. If your sticks are advertised PC3200/DDR400, they should work for the EPoX at those speeds...

Hope that helps,
-The Pentium Guy

 

[HiroPhrozeN]

ah ok thank you for your help, i was just confused about the website and how it says it will only support up to 4000+.

wen i run my ram at 400mhz my computer crashes it is only stable at 133mhz so i hope i can use 400mhz wen i get the new mobo and processor. i currently have amd athlon xp 2400 with epox 8rda+ nforce2 and yeah the computer guy recommened it *shrugs* took me ages to find out why my computer was randomly crashing as it was a new computer at the time.

 

[ITPaladin]

Correction to the OP:

Let's start off with the Audio: High definition Azilla Audio. If you enjoy music but you're not an audiophile enough to buy a sound card, this should be a great integrated audio solution. Reminds me of nForce2 and Sandstorm?

Soundstorm

 

[fishhawk]

Great thread. This would have been very helpful had I seen it last week when buying two motherboards for another project (turns out I had selected the Chaintech VNF4 Ultra, but this thread would have saved me a lot of time).

One thing that would be very good in motherboard reviews is whether they support true S3 sleep (fans off). Maybe this all works in socket939 motherboards, but it wasn't the case in the past with Socket754. For a budget htpc that I built a month ago, I was trying to find a budget mb that would go to sleep with fans off. Just because the manual said it was there, doesn't mean it works. I found that the ECS 755-A2 didn't support S3 sleep, but the Nforce3-A did. But with all the googling I did, I could never find a definitive answer. Only when I emailed ECS (and got a response in less than an hour) did I find out the Nforce3-A would do the job.

 

[blottogg]

Pentium Guy, thanks for the continued effort. I only wish I'd read your guide before building my rig... I might have made a different choice.

My .02 regarding motherboard choice comes from experience building my second rig. After some on-line research, I picked the following components:

Athlon 64 4000+ San Diego
Zalman CNPS7000B CPU cooler & fan
ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe
Corsair Twin x 2048-3200c2 (2 GB total in two sticks)
OCZ600ADJ SLI PSU (600 watts)
2 x BFG 6800GT OC (256 MB each)
Hitachi 160 GB SATA II HD
Win XP Pro
Lian-Li PC-V1000 case

I went with the A8N-SLI Deluxe rather than the Premium because I had read that the passive cooling pipes didn't work correctly with an inverted case (like my Lian-Li.) After assembly I got it to POST on the first try (yeah!), and all went well with 66.93 graphics drivers. 7X.XX drivers all caused a hard crash and auto reboot without graphics (black screen, but normal boot noises.) Cycling the power restored graphics. The only game I was playing at the time was Pacific Fighters, which had other problems with the 7X.XX drivers anyway, so I just reinstalled the 66.93's and pressed on...

When the 81.85 drivers came out, they solved the game problems, so I tried those. Now I was getting the hard crash both in game and from the desktop. Much troubleshooting later (going from dual card to single card, swapping the BFG's, power connections, drivers, etc.) showed the second PCIe graphics slot on the ASUS was dead. Among all this flailing I also discovered that the ASUS utility for updating the BIOS was just as useless as I had found it several years ago during my first build. All of my attempts to update the BIOS with the utility were met with "unable to connect", "too many users" or "no appropriate BIOS found on this server". After a call to ASUS tech support and customer support, I RMA'ed the board. The folks I talked to both times were great.

Talking to folks at TigerDirect (we have a retail outlet here in the Chicago area) they recommended either MSI or Abit to replace the ASUS mobo. I've had good luck with MSI in the past (I went with one of their socket A boards on my first build, which is still running strong as my wife's computer) but hadn't ordered one initially because I'd read in a NewEgg review that their mobo BIOS couldn't be flashed to support X2 processors (I might want to upgrade later.) Later reseach showed this to be wrong, or at least corrected in later releases of the board. The good news was that the MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum SLI POST'ed too, and the MSI update utility works very well. I was still getting occasional hard crashes though. Then the PSU died...

At this point I gave up, dropped back 10 and punted to a local computer shop. Talking to the tech there, he confirmed that the PSU was dead, and that he'd read an article noting problems with PSU's powering SLI'ed cards with a Y connector (two molex connectors Y'ed into one PCIe graphics power connector.) They pulled the dead PSU, and I RMA'ed it, which is where I now sit. I don't know if the PSU was the underlying cause of my crashes, or if the ASUS PCIe slot failed on its own, but right now I'm hoping the problem was a slowly dying PSU, which cascaded problems to the mobo.

Lessons learned:

- Trouble shooting new build systems is a pain, since all the components are essentially "unknowns". With upgrades, you've at least got a handle on the performance of the rest of the system.

- ASUS updating utilities are much less useful and "idiot proof" than those of MSI.

- SLI hasn't been completely sorted out yet, and problems can be tough to solve. The problem can lie in the game code, drivers, graphics card(s), mobo, PSU or some combination of these.

For the moment, if I had to recommend one of the two, it would be the MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum SLI. I don't overclock, and prefer the update utility of the MSI board to that of ASUS. I'm comfortable cleaning and updating graphics drivers manually, but not comfortable doing the same for the motherboard drivers or BIOS. Quite frankly, I hate computers, but I love flight sims. My goal is to have a stable, fast, low maintenance system which will run flight sims. The MSI may not be the fastest performer, but in my experience it is stable and easy to maintain. Once I get the PSU back, and can have the techs dive into the system, I may change my opinion.

Sorry for the long first post, but I hope this info will prove useful to some of you. Thanks again for all the work you've put into this thread Pentium Guy.

edit: included specific MSI mobo model number

 

[The Pentium Guy]

Nice post, I'm sure people will find this information useful when they build, especially the part about the Y-adapter. It's always good to use a seperate line for each high-powered item in your case (like your graphics card for example). Good point about the ASUS A8N-SLI Premium not working in an upside-down oriented case. There's not much which you can do about that.

- Trouble shooting new build systems is a pain, since all the components are essentially "unknowns". With upgrades, you've at least got a handle on the performance of the rest of the system.

Yeah, it's a bitch.... but for whatever reason I enjoy troublehshooting (but only after the problem has been resolved ).

 

[egriebel]

My MSI K7N2G bit the dust, so it's time to get a new mobo/cpu/mem/gfx. I've been researching for a week and I need some advice. I put my last two systems together, and I want something that will run pretty solid, no wild O/C, and SLI is not important. I'm not a framerate junkie either, as you can see from my proposed gfx. My proposed rig:
- decent 939 mobo, Epox 9NPA+, DFI Lanparty nF4 Ultra look really nice
- A64 3200+ Venice (152 @ newegg.com)
- Geforce 6600GT PCIe 128MB (129 @ newegg.com after MIR)
- 2x512MB ram

The problem I'm having is that my budget is $500 (yeah, I know, haha), and it seems nearly impossible to hit this number.

The DFI looks really sweet, but I'm getting scared off by the warnings about super quality memory and PS, I'm more in the "Value" range with my budget. I can't go down to 2x256 for the memory either.

Any suggestions? Are these boards too "enthusiast" for my budget?

Thanks!!

 

[The Pentium Guy]

$500? Try the EPoX though, with a 3000+ instead of a 3200+. You definately want 1GB of RAM though, lesser than that would be very scary in this world. So:

EPoX 9NPA+: $100
3000+ Venice: $130
6600GT: $130
2x512MB Corsair ValueSelect: $80

Comes out to be $440... Good enough? I wouldn't underestimate the EPoX as an overclocker though, it's excellent.

Edit: I'd use the extra cash for a better graphics card (take a look at the X800 series, like the X800XL), unless you really don't need it.

 

[dinthron]

I am a novice OC'er. Limited experience with bumping CPU clock and/or multipliers, voltage bump for video card and memory.

I'm looking for a new core upgrade. I've already decided on:
CPU: Athlon 64 x2 4400
Video: Geforce 7800GT SLI (single)
Data drive: SATA150 7200


I have:
Adaptec 3400S SCSI controller for boot drives. 3 IBM 10K drives in RAID5.
Audigy 2 ZS internal sound card.
Thermaltake Silent Purepower W0011 ATX 480W

The motherboard candidates were:

GIGABYTE GA-K8NU-SLI
DFI nF4 SLI-D(R?)
ASUS A8N32-SLI

in escalating costs. Do I get corresponding extra performance from the $125 at bottom to $230 at the top end with the limited tweaking I know.

I also have two choices for memory already purchased:
PC3200 (DDR 400) (512x2) OCZ OCZ4001024ELDCGE-K 2-2-2-5
PC4000 (DDR 500) (512x2) Geil GL1GB4000DC 2.5-7-4-4

Mostly used for MMORPG gaming (Everquest and City of Heroes).


(Edit: Deleted ASUS A8N-SLI Premium - Should I?) Other sugestions?

 

[Cabbages]

Great guide. Very informative and complete.

I just wanted to see if you have any suggestions on the system I am planning to build (First time build, I am a complete novice).

Case: Any suggestions on a quality case that is less than $125?

Motherboard: Asus A8N32 SLI deluxe

Processor: AMD Athlon X2 4200+, or AMD Athlon 64 4000+

Power supply: Antec Neopower 500 or 550

Graphics card: I plan on getting one XFX Geforce 7800 GTX now, and purchasing another for SLI when the prices go down.

Sound card: Low end Creative X-FI or middle to high end Creative Audigy 2

HDD: undecided

RAM: Undecided\I dont know much about RAM



I know I am a complete noob, and im glad you take the time to help other people out. Any advice or information would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

 

[Craxen]

I'm building my rents a budget computer, this will be an enormous upgrade and switch for them coming from a 5 years of utter hell using a 333mhz G3 Imac and also this will be my first complete build.

I am unsure of what mobo I should pick, they don't need an oc or sli mobo, this system will mainly be used for web surfing, word processing and some audio recording. At the same time, I don't want to build them a pos either, it took me several weeks to convince them not to purchase an e-machine. haha

In order to save some cash I was considering the nvidia 6150 chipset, in particular I had the GA-K8N51PVMT-9 mobo set in stone after a lot of brooding and research, but a few recent reviews as of last week are giving me second thoughts so I would appreciate any thoughts/advice on other solutions. If I went with a standalone graphics card it would be a cheap pcie 128 MB card, but unsure of what stable/reliable board and or do you think I should settle for the onboard solution?

Proc: AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Venice 1GHz FSB Socket 939

Case Pending: Antec

Ram: Corsair ValueSelect 1GB (2 x 512MB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200)

HD: Western Digital Caviar 250GB 7200 RPM SATA

Thank you for any help/advice. I greatly appreciate it.

 

[ThrownYogurt]

Pentium Guy,

I am building a custom PC for myself for when I go to college for video game design and development, but mainly this PC will be for ultimate gamage, I could post specs if you wish. I was "Googling" the net trying to compare motherboards and I came accross this old thread, so I hope you can notice this post and releive my efforts with my contemplation...

Originally I was going to go with the ABIT AN8 SLI Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 SLI ATX AMD Motherboard, priced at $139, but then I came across your note:

eVGA 133-K8-NF41 $139 nForce4 SLI board. I'd suggest looking the JetWay board as opposed to this board, Jetway actually makes the eVGA motherboards and overclocks better
Basically in my opinion there are better alternatives to the eVGA at this point, HOWEVER, if you're purchasing an eVGA 7800GT/7800GTX you can get this SLI motherboard for free! So if you're not a hardcore overclocker and are looking to save some cash, here's a great way to fatten that wallet.

Is this true? If I purchase that video card I can get this MoBo for free? With that video card being already on my list it would save me some extra cash indeed. However I've looked on newegg.com and zipzoomfly.com and did not see any info saying that I can get that MoBo for free anywhere. If so where could I find this deal?

Before I decided to get the eVGA Geforce 7800GT I was going to get the Albatron Geforce 7800GT and the only different specs on the cards is that the Albatron has a RAMDAC of 400MHz and the eVGA has none. Is that much of a difference? Is an extra $40 worth the RAMDAC (I don't even know what RAMDAC does by the way)?

Much help would be so much appreciated since I am very anxcious to put in my order on newegg.com and would like to get away from my Pent.4 and 328mb RDRAM, it's killin me in the MMOG's=P

Thank You,
Billy

 

[TotallyWired]

Amazing thread T.P.G. Thanks for all the info and work u put in it.
Brown-nosing out of the way and on to the noob question.
I am a gamer and am wondering if there is any significant performance increase that I might get from changing my mb to the ASrock Nforce4 939Dual from the MSI Nforce3 Neo2 Plat.

Spec.
AMD64 3700 San Diego with Thermaright XP-90 @ 2.8ghz
2 x 512mb OCZ 3200 Plat. Rev 2
MSI Nforce3 Neo2 Plat.
BFG OC 6800GT with Zalman VF700-CU 2 @ 430mhz/1.2ghz
2 x WD 74gb raptors
PC Power & Cooling Turbo-Cool 510/SLI... might get to SLI some day
Coolermaster Stacker

 

[legolad]

Originally posted by: Craxen

In order to save some cash I was considering the nvidia 6150 chipset, in particular I had the GA-K8N51PVMT-9 mobo set in stone after a lot of brooding and research, but a few recent reviews as of last week are giving me second thoughts so I would appreciate any thoughts/advice on other solutions.

I too am looking at this board right now. The ASUS board is also getting good reviews but is hard to find. I really couldn't care less about the onboard video. What I want is a good MicroATX board that supports Dual Core AMD, dual channel RAM, gigabit LAN, digital audio, and can perform as well as or better than any other MicroATX board (forgetting about the onboard graphics).

My confusion is related to the differences between nForce4 and these new 6150/430 boards. All the reviews focus on the onboard graphics which i don't care about. I want to know how the 6150/430 boards compare to the nForce4 MicroATX boards in NON-GRAPHICS features and performance.

Has anyone seen a good comparison. I've read a lot of individual board reviews, but none of the sites I've been to really look at how these boards/chipsets compare.

 

[Bxerkr]

A very informative and concise guide. Personally I have been looking at the A8N-E to be my next motherboard, the other potentials being either the EPOX 9NPA+Ultra or the DFI LanParty UT Ultra-D. While the latter two might be better overclockers what concerns me is that they seem to place their chipset fans very close to the PCI-E slots fanning hot air on the base of the graphics card. This is an important consideration in my case as my graphics card is passively cooled.

 

[Avalon]

Nice guide

 

[spamcop]

Thanks to The Pentium Guy and all the others who have contributed to the thread. I almost made it through every post, so forgive me if this was asked:

I am a system builder and I will not overclock a system. *I* can't because of the risk (if it breaks or goes unstable, I own the problem). What I would like to see is a consensus amongst the members about stock (not overclocked) performance. What motherboards performs the absolute best for gaming _without_ being overclocked? Price, relatively speaking, is not an issue.

Thanks
./spamcop

 

[gatesofhell]

Thanks for the guide, Im a noob to computer hardware so this helps me get a start, I appreciate the time you put into it.