Top 939 motherboards...

[imported_grounded]

Here's the deal...

I have PC3200 DDR memory and a PCIe graphics card and I want to move to a 939 setup. If I go single core, it will likely be a Athlon 64 3700+ San Diego core. If I go dual, I am thinking of an Opty 165, but I am on a tight budget and it depends on how much I can get for my current setup (Abit NF7-S v2.0, Mobile Athlon XP 2500+, SI-97 heatsink).

These are the features I would like for the board (but they are not all necessary):
1. Passive chipset heatsinks
2. Possibility for SLI (not sure if I will ever go this route or not)
3. SATA II
4. Good overclocking platform
5. On-board firewire

I have been looking mainly at nForce4 boards, but I am wondering about the Radeon XPRESS 3200 boards... which chipset has proven better for performance / stability / overclocking?... is there an advantage of one over the other?

I have liked my abit board and was looking at three Abit boards: the KN8 SLI, the AN8 32X, and the AT8 32X.... but I recently saw a review that said these boards were not the best when it came to overclocking.

Can anyone help me out here? I have been out of the game for a little while and I am trying to refresh myself on newer stuff. Thanks

 

[Ridesy]

Grounded,

Socket 939 boards are now becoming old I am afraid, but I have two 939 Asus boards, both of which would fit your requirements:

1. A8N SLI-Premium - this has SLI capabilities, but if in SLI the 2 x PCIe 16 channels run at 2 x 8. That said my kids use this for gaming with 2 x 7600GT and a 4800+ CPU with 2Gb PC3500 RAM it runs any game fine.

2. My rig is an A8N32 SLI-Deluxe and that runs 2 x PCIe 16 at full speed and I now have 2 x 8800GTX mounted in SLI, although my FX60 does mean I don't actually get much benifit from the second one in DX9 benchmarks.

Only other thing to add is that as I say these aren't new generation boards (about 12 months old) and Asus stopped updating BIOS for the Premium some time ago and have now stopped updates for the A8N32 as well, but I am happy with mine until the new 4 x 4 stuff settles down.

Ridesy

PS: They both OC fine, but the A8N32 is best for this and will run FSB over 300 and some have it upto 330.

 

[Heidfirst]

Originally posted by: groundedI have liked my abit board and was looking at three Abit boards: the KN8 SLI, the AN8 32X, and the AT8 32X.... but I recently saw a review that said these boards were not the best when it came to overclocking.

they are all perfectly decent overclockers - the AN8 32X & AT8 32X will happily compare to any board using the same chipset. I preferred my AN8 32X over my AT8 32X but ymmv.
The KN8 SLI is obviously in a different league feauturewise but is cheaper because of that - it's still capable of doing over 325 external clock though with little fuss & that will max pretty much most CPUs ...

 

[Zap]

My wife's system uses an KN8 which can do at minimum 300MHz HTT stable, which should take most CPUs to their limits. However, the shipping BIOS would not POST at anything over 250MHz, so perhaps that's where those rumors about bad overclocking came to be. I don't think you'd be disappointed with Abit boards as far as overclocking. I haven't owned, but had helped out with a build using an Abit SLI board with a heatpipe cooler (don't remember model). It also seemed to overclock fine. Note that you'd want one with a heatpipe cooler if you want to go passive. Also, if you want "SLI" specifically and not just "dual graphics capable" then you need an Nforce SLI chipset board.

 

[imported_grounded]

Can anyone answer my question as per the chipsets: nForce4 SLI vs Radeon XPRESS 3200? Which chipset has proven better for performance / stability / overclocking?... is there an advantage of one over the other? (I know the Radeon chipset runs a lot cooler because of lower power demands)

 

[lopri]

DFI LanParty NF4 is the best of the best. I know you wrote down passive cooling as a requirement, but I would not recommend passive cooling for any NV chipsets. (unless using very good quality after-market heatsink, such as Thermalright HR-05) ASUS switched to a fan from heatpipe on A8N-SLI Premium, and my A8N32-SLI board (see sig) started showing weird behaviors as of late. (only a year old) As far as Socket 939 motherboards are concerned, there is no other board worth buying, as long as there is DFI LanParty series.

 

[imported_grounded]

What about the NF4 vs 3200 chipsets?

(I have a 7600GS card that will probably only be run in a single configuration.)

 

[lopri]

Radeon 3200? I can't speak from my experience, but the board can be very picky and has a steep learning curve. Note that one supports SLI, and the other supports CrossFire. They're mutually exclusive so you might want to take into account your choice of video card(s).