UPDATED !!!MOBO/CPU Decision Help PLEASE !!!! UPDATED !!!

[Fisher999]

********************UPDATED*****************

I have already read the excellent ?Hardware and System Building Guide for New Users? thread in this forum but I REALLY have a dilemma as I intend to order parts for a much needed new PC build I hope to start next week. I will obviously be building a much more modern system than my "Rig 1" but I STILL want to keep the cost down.

BTW, this will be about my 11th system build since 1998.


Guys I'm building a new system. I ALREADY have previously purchased some of the components in 2002, MOST that are still new/unopened, and will be used in the system like a WD 100 GB/8MB Cache/7200 RPM/ATA 100 hard drive, Lite-On LTR-40125S 40X12X48X CD-RW, Pioneer DVD-106S DVD-ROM, Hercules Game Theatre XP soundcard/box (the original model), Logitech Z-560 THX Certified 4.1 speaker system, and a Logitech Cordless Desktop Pro Mouse/Keyboard combo.

I have SOME use on a Samsung AG-type 19" monitor (it's almost never been used - long story) and I might like to possibly sell it and purchase a new 17" or 19" TFT LCD display.

The main PURPOSES for which I will be using this PC are :

1) Digital Image Editing from images captured from a Digital Camera or Digital Camcorder with possible future DVD encoding
2) CD burning ? transfer of vinyl/CD to PC music file formats
3) Microsoft Office products
4) Web browsing
5) Limited gaming

In addition to the components mentione above I have decided on an Athlon 64 3000+ "Winchester" Socket 939 CPU.

I have already purchased 1 GB of Patriot 2-3-2-5-T1 DDR400 and an Asus EAX-700X/TD/128 Radeon x700 PCI-E graphics card and a Fortron Soucre AX-500 A P/S.

I will need a socket 939/PCI-Express board for the Athlon.

I have decided on an nForce 4 Ultra board.

May I ask your advice on the nForce4 ULTRA boards I am considering???


The FIRST candidate is this ASUS A8N-E Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 Ultra which (along with wonderful ASUS quality and good board layout) has the obligatory SATA150, onboard LAN, 8 channel audio, parallel (but no serial) port and plenty of USB 2.0. Then I realized it DOESN'T have onboard firewire. I realize I could get a PCI/firewire adapter card for $20 delivered like the Koutech at NewEgg but that swallows up one of the PCI slots and I will probably need a (3) Legacy 32 bit PCI slots.

Now I will probably have no use for SLI but this ASUS A8N-SLI Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 SLI board doesn't sacrifice a PCI slot to add the additional PCI-E graphics slot, it has onboard firewire, Gigabit LAN, onboard 8 channel Realtek audio, SATA 300 (not 150) and tons of USB 2.0 ports/headers.

The last two considerations are the MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 Ultra board and the GIGABYTE GA-K8N Ultra-9 Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 Ultra board. (I ruled out the EPoX 9NPA+ Ultra because I don't like the placement of the P/S connector). Both the MSI and Gigabyte boards are quite similar.

The MSI board has (4) PCI slots, SATA 300, (2) Gigabit LANs, 8 channel Realtek audio, plenty of USB 2.0 and onboard firewire. The Gigabyte has one less PCI slot (3) but has (2) firwires with everything else being very similar to the MSI's feature set.

The Gigabyte board, the GA-K8N Ultra-9 uses a passive rathe than an active HSF on the northbridge. Although it is close to the video slot I realize the benefit of quiteness that would come with a passive rather than an active solution. Of course, noise is a critical element when building a HTPC box.

BTW, I have also ruled out the wonderful DFI nForce4 Ultra series of motheboards because they only have two standard PCI slots (I will probably need 3) and because they leave out the legacy parallel port which I will need for my legacy printer and because I am neither an overclocker nor a gamer and the DFI boards cater to that crowd.

Finally a new dillema has arrived since I originally posted this thread and this thread over here at Anandtech. That is, the vanilla, non-ultra Nforce4 based MSI K8N Neo4-F for $93.50 delivered at NewEgg. Do you think this board would be a nice trade-off??? Someone, somewhere here at anandtech told me that the MSI nForce4 boards can be a little tricky to set up and that the HSF on the NForce4 chip is noisy.......

What is your opinion of the options ???

Again, your responses will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Greg

NOTE: YOU MAY WANT TO SKIP TO THE LAST PAGES IN THIS THREAD AFTER READING THIS INITIAL POST !!!

 

[shoRunner]

if speed and not budget is your priority then you'd probably be better getting a p4 since they will encode faster with the most commonly used programs. go with pci-e because if you ever want to upgrade you'll have to have it. no reason not to with prices being almost the same. give us what your budget is and it would help also

 

[imported_bum]

I'd say opt for the 939 a64 over the 478, just because 478 is aging. You'll have a lot of nforce3 and 4 options, including an agp or pci-e choice. Even if both the 478 and LGA775 offer similar performance to each other, I don't think they are that much better than the AMD at dvd encoding or office multitasking. I could be wrong though, so you'll want to check out the performance differences there.

 

[Fisher999]

shoRunner:

I have a "budget" of about $1000 for:

1) P/S
2) Motherboard
3) CPU
4) [CPU] HSF
5) Videocard
6) RAM
7) 160GB SATA-150 Hard Drive
8) O/S

.

 

[Fisher999]

BTW, do you think that 1 GB of CHEAP Corsair Valueselect RAM is a good idea or is it better to go with 512 MB of GOOD lower latency MUSHKIN PC3200 ??? The links are both to NEWEGG. The price diffence between the two is ONLY ONE DOLLAR !!!

 

[shoRunner]

how bout 1gb of cheap low latency gskill
http://www2.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820231012

 

[wisdomtooth]

Originally posted by: Fisher999
I have a "budget" of about $500-$600 for:

1) Enermax P/S
2) Motherboard
3) CPU
4) RAM
5) O/S

1) Seasonic Super Tornado 400 $85 Runs quieter and vents better than the Enermax.
2) MSI RS480M2-IL $92.50 (has on-board video-- Add PCIe vid card later)
3) AMD64 Winchester 3K+ $146
4) Corsair 1GB on sale at Newegg $103 Add another stick later on for dual-channel

Total $426.50

Should leave you enough for the OS (or just migrate your current OS onto your new system).

HTH.

 

[shoRunner]

Originally posted by: wisdomtooth

Originally posted by: Fisher999
I have a "budget" of about $500-$600 for:

1) Enermax P/S
2) Motherboard
3) CPU
4) RAM
5) O/S

1) Seasonic Super Tornado 400 $85 Runs quieter and vents better than the Enermax.
2) MSI RS480M2-IL $92.50 (has on-board video-- Add PCIe vid card later)
3) AMD64 Winchester 3K+ $146
4) Corsair 1GB on sale at Newegg $103 Add another stick later on for dual-channel

Total $426.50

Should leave you enough for the OS (or just migrate your current OS onto your new system).

HTH.

for your budget that would be a good system. you may want wait for the venice core, it would overclock better and give you sse3 support which some encoders will use

 

[Fisher999]

What do you think of this Gigabyte SOCKET 939 NFORCE THREE/AGP board versus thsi Gigabyte Socket 939 nFORCE FOUR/PCI-EXPRESS mobo ???
The only difference I can see, besides the $13 price difference is the fact that the nFORCE 3 board has AGP (so I could use one of my current AGP cards until I could afford a higher end card) and the nFORCE4 board uses PCI-Express for video.

Is there THAT big a difference between the nFORCE3 and nFORCE4 chipsets???

 

[wisdomtooth]

PCI Express is the future. If you know you will be updating your video card within the next 12 months, there really is no reason to stick with AGP.

(which is why I recommended a board with on-board video since a new video card is something you are reluctant to buy at the moment).

 

[Fisher999]

Is G.SKILL a GOOD, STABLE memory brand ??? I am only asking because I have never heard of it and I have purchased a LOT of Mushkin and know it is reliable???
I do NOT overclock and STABILITY is my BIGGEST concern !!!

I'm open to new suggestions though, that's why I posted this thread !!!

 

[Rip the Jacker]

Damn man... Stop with the BOLD.

G. Skill is one of the best RAM manufacturers with Mushkin, TwinMos, Corsair, Crucial, etc.

It's popular for A64 OC RAM.

 

[Fisher999]

Wisdom:

THANKS for your suggestions !!! :thumbsup:

Your CPU choice is the EXACT candidate I have bookmarked for an AMD/Socket 939 system, the PSU is right in the ballpark pricewise with my Enermax Choice (I'm just a little concerned about the Seasonic's low 22 AMP 12 Volt rail), and I was considering this CORSAIR value select 1 GIG ( 512 x 2 ) RAM set !!!

I also like your motherboard choice except I need an ATX board, not microATX.

Thanks again for your input; if you can find an ATX 939 board with integrated video please let me know !

Greg

 

[SlitheryDee]

I got some of these. Pretty good stuff for the price.

 

[Duvie]

Get the sckt 939 only because it can be had for cheap and later on you can upgarde to adual core chip on the same platform with mobo or ram change out.....

The search function which is nice for these threads opn questions "asked a 1000 times", but in the last week we have seen that AMDs dual core solution is so heads above the competition it is worth considering in any purchase now or then....

 

[Fisher999]

SlitheryDee:

Thanks for the suggestion!

Please keep them coming folks !!!

 

[wisdomtooth]

Fisher999:

You can still use that microATX board in a full ATX case. The only thing you will be giving up is a few PCI Express 1x slots when compared to an NForce 4 board, and maybe 1 or 2 PCI-classic slots... Which is no big loss since there aren't anything useful out there for PCI Express 1x slots right now anyway.

22 amps on the 12V rail is more than plenty if you don't plan to SLI two video cards.

HTH.

 

[Fisher999]

Wisdom:

You "hit" one of the reasons I don't like the Seasonic P/s choice because ONE of my choices if I go with AMD may be this Gigabyte SLI mobo along with this SLI capable P/S !!!

Do you know of a cheaper but GOOD SLI capable P/S???

 

[wisdomtooth]

The problem is, SLI and your budget/goals are somewhat incompatible.

If you want a rig that is capable of SLI, you will have to get a mobo that costs upwards of $140 at the cheapest, an SLI video card that's going to cost you another c-bill and then some, and a more expensive PSU. You will have to up your total budget including the OS beyond $800.

Not only that, one of your stated goals is limited gaming. SLI is for those who wants frame-rate bragging rights in the latest-and-greatest games. It will not help you at all for the other goals you want to fulfill.

Is SLI worth it? You'll have to decide for yourself before you commit.

HTH.

 

[Fisher999]

Wisdom:

I wasn't thinking about doing SLI NOW but as a possiblility for the future. By buying a SLI-capable mobo NOW (only about $40 more than a non-SLI mobo) and a SLI-capable P/S (only about $20 more than an equivalent NON-SLI P/S) then at least I would have that capability in the FUTURE. I could just use an ULTRA CHEAP PCI-Express video card as a graphics choice now, right ???

How did you get you estimate up to $800.

ANY Windows XP O/S is suited for SLI, is that not correct ???

 

[the wombat]

Originally posted by: wisdomtooth

Originally posted by: Fisher999
I have a "budget" of about $500-$600 for:

1) Enermax P/S
2) Motherboard
3) CPU
4) RAM
5) O/S

1) Seasonic Super Tornado 400 $85 Runs quieter and vents better than the Enermax.
2) MSI RS480M2-IL $92.50 (has on-board video-- Add PCIe vid card later)
3) AMD64 Winchester 3K+ $146
4) Corsair 1GB on sale at Newegg $103 Add another stick later on for dual-channel

Total $426.50

Should leave you enough for the OS (or just migrate your current OS onto your new system).

HTH.

Go for this.

 

[Fisher999]

Wombat:

I am concerned about what SirCha0s has to say over here concerning the mobo or more specifically the ati chipset.

 

[shoRunner]

http://anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2269 <--real benchmarks.

your confusing me by what are saying. first you want to go agp cause you already have an agp card, then you say you want to go sli...if you go sli your gonna be spending a minimum of $60 on a pci-e gfx card unless you just get a pci gfx card. and sli is not a choice for any budget consious buyer. $1000 bucks for 2 ultras vs $450 for a x850xt and the ultra's are never 2x as fast, most ever would be maybe 40% in doom3 or something. 1 decent video card that is upgraded everyone once in a while would be a better choice IMHO. the ati board gives you the best integrated solution, basically a cut down version of a x300se.

in your first post you said that you'd be using it for limited gaming, that really doesn't fit the description of an sli system, since the sli cards will not be helping you in anything but gaming.

 

[wisdomtooth]

Originally posted by: Fisher999
Wisdom:

I wasn't thinking about doing SLI NOW but as a possiblility for the future. By buying a SLI-capable mobo NOW (only about $40 more than a non-SLI mobo) and a SLI-capable P/S (only about $20 more than an equivalent NON-SLI P/S) then at least I would have that capability in the FUTURE. I could just use an ULTRA CHEAP PCI-Express video card as a graphics choice now, right ???

How did you get you estimate up to $800.

ANY Windows XP O/S is suited for SLI, is that not correct ???

If you are going to go SLI in the future, why buy a cheapo non-SLI capable video card now?

The whole idea behind SLI is to get an SLI-capable vid card now, then simply add an identical one later on to lash them together. That's why you have to up your budget to 800+ if you want to go this route.

If you go for a cheapo non-SLI capable vid card now, you will have to buy TWO SLI-capable video cards later and spend even more money in total.

Frankly, you should edit your original post to "MEGA GAMING MACHINE!!!" if you got your heart set on SLI. Because your original specs don't look like you were looking for a mega-gaming machine at all.

 

[Fisher999]

Show and Wisdom:

Sorry ! I didn't mean to confuse anyone. It's just that I have spent so much money in the past on computer parts. I have 3 UNUSED AGP cards; Asus GF2 GTS VIVO, Leadtek GF2 Pro and Gigabyte ATI Radeon 8500. I've also have a MSI KT7 Turbo Limited Edition/VIA KT-133A Mobo (the FIRST RED Mobo)(UNUSED)/Original Athlon 1.4 GHz (SEALED)/128 MB Mushkinl PC-133 Revsion 2 RAM (SEALED) , a Soyo SY-TISU/i-815P mobo (UNUSED)/Celeron 1.1 A FC-PGA2 (SEALED)/256 MB Crucial PC-133 (SEALED) and an ECS K7S5A/Sis735 chipset mobo (UNUSED) to sell. I have to get busy doing some posting on eBay or here on Anandtech. The money I paid for those UNUSED items alone would pay for a heck of an SLI-based rig today. Oh well, such is computer depreciation.
My mistakes from the past make me want to do the right thing THIS time around.

I just had the thought in the back of my head that if I could leave myself SLI-READY than at least I would have that OPTION down the road. However, I understand your logic and based on my computer useage I do not need to change my thread title to "Mega Gaming Rig", lol.

I'll forgo an SLI-ready mobo and P/S and that will SAVE $70-80 right there.

The system WISDOM reccomended will probably do just fine but I will make a few adjustments to his recommendations and post my final decision later.

THANKS ALL !


Greg