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

[Away]

I work with MSI boards on a regular basis and have nothing but high praise for them. They are extremly stable and easy to configure. I rarely have problems with them and would rank them on par with Asus. You will not be disappointed with either company and I wish you luck in your buying desicion.

 

[Megatomic]

Hi Greg, I have a few comments to add.

1. The high end MSI NF4 board seems the best to me. It meets your PCI slot needs, has tons of extra features (USB and firewire), and it has superb SATA support. If I was going to go NF4 this would be the board I'd get.

2. Have you considered instead of a Winchester core chip a Venice core chip? I've seen great stuff about those chips. Higher overclocks, lower power usage, SSE3 being the most significant.

 

[Gerbil333]

Originally posted by: Fisher999
Gerbil333:

What a well-though-out, well-written, educational post !!! THANK YOU !!!

I feel like a weight has been lifted off of my shoulders, truly !

I really needed some detailed but easy-to-understand no-nonsense advice that touched upon some of the really important issues like the quality assurance records of some of these board companies and what one might expect in real life experiences. :thumbsup:

I particularly appreciate the "heads up" on MSI qualty control issues with their Mobos. I do not have much patience for the RMA thing and some of those Asian companies can be a real pain to work with so I've heard.

You didn't mention the quality control issue problem with Gigabyte boards. I'll assume that they have better quality assurance than MSI.
Since you started your post talking about Asus boards and frowned when you mentioned I can't purchase the A8N-E because it doesn't have firewire leads me to believe that your believe in Asus quality. I hope I'm not assuming incorrectly.

I'm not so sure I need firewire; I do not use it now; I just didn't want to have a board that was firewire-less since I know that many vidoe-related components utilize (or at least did) the firewire interface. I could always add a PCI/Firewire card like this Koutech down the road if necessary.

SO, you have helped me narrow it down to the Gigabyte GIGABYTE GA-K8NF-9, GIGABYTE GA-K8NF Ultra-9 or the Asus A8N-E.
BTW, the Gig GA-K8NF-9 uses an active hsf rather than just a heatsink which we see on the Ultra 9.

Thanks again for your input and hopefully, you can check back at my response and give me one last opinion.

Greg

I haven't owned any Gigabyte boards, so I can't comment on their reliability. I only know one person who has one, and he's had no trouble And yes, I've had great success with Asus boards.

I don't use firewire either, and I have no plans to do so in the future. However, my Audigy 2 ZS has a firewire port, which I assume works as any standard firewire port would. Thus, the lack of firewire on the A8N-E hasn't bothered me at all. I guess you'll have to decide on that for yourself.

Originally posted by: Away
I work with MSI boards on a regular basis and have nothing but high praise for them. They are extremly stable and easy to configure. I rarely have problems with them and would rank them on par with Asus. You will not be disappointed with either company and I wish you luck in your buying desicion.

I know. I'd estimate that at least 90% of people have never had any trouble. I've been unlucky. I think they use cheap components, and its luck of the draw. Here's one Newegg review on the Neo4 Platinum SLI backing up my claims:

I want to give this board a full five stars, because I bought it. I just can't. It's a nice board, it has a lot of good options at a VERY good price.....but it's limited in its ability to overclock. A lot of folks on the MSI forum boards are complaining about being stuck @ 219 fsb. Another group is chipping their teeth about having to power off and on again a few time to get it to start up. All I can speak for personaly is that my max oc, on an AMD 3500+ is 225fsb x11. Not as much as I wanted, but still okay. The big problem I'm having is that I have to turn it on, watch it freeze, turn it off, and turn it on again for it to even load to the bios. This is a problem, and hopfully MSI will fix it with an upgraded bios, but for now it limits my rating to a generous 4 stars.

I could search for a few posts on here and from the Futuremark forums with the same remarks.

Again, I do recommend MSI, but there's a higher chance of needing to RMA the board than with the other manufacturers.

 

[Away]

Good info to know on the MSI boards. I'll have to look around in some more forums to get the full dish. Thanks for the heads up Gerbil333.

 

[Gerbil333]

Don't let it keep you from buying a board. The small possibility of needing an RMA would be painless with Newegg other than the $9 spent on return shipping.

 

[Fisher999]

Originally posted by: Away
Good info to know on the MSI boards. I'll have to look around in some more forums to get the full dish. Thanks for the heads up Gerbil333.

Originally posted by: Gerbil333
Don't let it keep you from buying a board. The small possibility of needing an RMA would be painless with Newegg other than the $9 spent on return shipping.

True, NewEgg, from whom I do 90% of my PC components purchasing, are very good even AFTER the sale.

My mobo will definetly be purchased from them; PARTICULARLY if I DO go with MSI

 

[Fisher999]

Originally posted by: Away
I work with MSI boards on a regular basis and have nothing but high praise for them. They are extremly stable and easy to configure. I rarely have problems with them and would rank them on par with Asus. You will not be disappointed with either company and I wish you luck in your buying desicion.

Thanks Away, I appreciate the "good luck" wish !

 

[Fisher999]

Originally posted by: Megatomic
Hi Greg, I have a few comments to add.

1. The high end MSI NF4 board seems the best to me. It meets your PCI slot needs, has tons of extra features (USB and firewire), and it has superb SATA support. If I was going to go NF4 this would be the board I'd get.

2. Have you considered instead of a Winchester core chip a Venice core chip? I've seen great stuff about those chips. Higher overclocks, lower power usage, SSE3 being the most significant.

Megatonic:

Yes, I have considered the Venice Core Athlons but if this $292.95 delivered price for the Athlon64/"Venice"/Socket 939/3500+ over here at NewEgg is any indication of things to come, I think they are going to be a LOT more expensive than the $146 delivered for the Athlon64/"Winchester"/3000+ over here at NewEgg .

I guess we can't always have what we want now can we ??? :brokenheart:

Thanks for posting !

 

[Megatomic]

It's not fair to compare pricing on those chips IMO. One is 400MHz faster than the other and offers an architectural improvement however slight it might be. Not to mention the process improvements.

But I understand price constraints, as I told you earlier I'm standing pat with my current system for that reason.

 

[Fisher999]

Originally posted by: Megatomic
...But I understand price constraints

That's the ONLY reason I mentioned price at all; it sometimes IS a constraint!

 

[The Pentium Guy]

If you feel the need for wireless, get the Gigabyte GA-K8NXP-939 (not sure if I spelled out the model name right ) - its the same as the GA-K8N-Ultra 939 (the one I recommended earlier), except for $20 more it comes with

- Integrated Wireless Card
- Gigabyte's DPS (6 phase power daughterboard thingy that keeps the voltages stable for longer lasting performanec)
- SLi
- Better packaging .

Dunno. It's $162, I'd say it's a good deal, compared to the GA-K8N-Ultra 939... $20 more for that good stuff.

-The Pentium Guy

 

[Fisher999]

Pentium:

Thanks for responding again to this thread. Yes you did get the model number of the Gigabyte board you mention correct. :thumbsup:

Yes, the "XP" series have been on my list. For some reason, however, the seem to be harder to "find" out there; at least with vendors with which I am familiar.

Thanks for reminding me about that board though.

I agree, if I can find one, that the extra $20 would be well spent.

Thanks again for you input.

Greg

 

[Fisher999]

Originally posted by: The Pentium Guy
If you feel the need for wireless, get the Gigabyte GA-K8NXP-939 (not sure if I spelled out the model name right ) - its the same as the GA-K8N-Ultra 939 except...

-The Pentium Guy

Pentium, I found it in-stock over here at NewEgg for $165.50 delivered.

Thanks again for your "heads up".

Greg

 

[The Pentium Guy]

Originally posted by: Fisher999

Originally posted by: The Pentium Guy
If you feel the need for wireless, get the Gigabyte GA-K8NXP-939 (not sure if I spelled out the model name right ) - its the same as the GA-K8N-Ultra 939 except...

-The Pentium Guy

Pentium, I found it in-stock over here at NewEgg for $165.50 delivered.

Thanks again for your "heads up".

Greg

Heh, you posted on: 05/01/2005 03:52 PM

It's now 4:32 PM.
The price is now $162.00

It's amazing how things change in 30 minutes .

-The Pentium Guy

 

[Fisher999]

Originally posted by: shoRunner

Originally posted by: shoRunner
if not i'd go with the gigabyte board with the x700 card. its definately a better card than the 6600 in everything but doom.

sry i guess i should be checking to see if things are instock...

Sho:

That G.Skill RAM you recommended must be REALLY popular. As of this weekend I see that it is once again OUT-OF-STOCK over here at NewEgg !!! :Q

 

[Fisher999]

Originally posted by: The Pentium Guy

I have very poor vision; that's why I use the CAPS and the BOLD. I can find no way to increase font size in the options available in these thread reply boxes. If you know of a way for me to increase my font size PLEASE let me know.

Very sorry about that, I'm sorry if I offended you.
Heh, to increase font size? Easy...

a) Increase (or decrease actually) your resolution

b) In internet explorer just go to View | Text Size | Largest .

Hope that helps a bit.

-The Pentium Guy

Pentium:

Do you remember when I responded that I was already using the "text size" feature in IE but that STILL didn't change the test size in these Anantech boxes?

Well today I actually set up my computer using the "accessibility wizard". Things are (overall) much easier to see now with the exception of these darn Anandtech message boxes, lol. Nothing I seem to try improves or changes the font size in these message windows. :disgust:

I guess I'll just have to keep on squinting, lol. :roll:

 

[Fisher999]

Originally posted by: Fisher999

Originally posted by: ribbon13
Biostar as a company gets nothing but :thumbsdown: from me.

The A8N-SLI is great for those who are skilled in the Art of PC.

The Gigabyte is a nice solid board from my experience with it.

Why will you need 3 PCI?

First, thanks for responding to my thread !!!

I probably will need (3) 32 bit PCI slots, one for my soundcard (just because I love it's break-out box), one for a Standard TV tuner, and possibly one for an eventual HDTV Tuner. One of the HDTV tuners I've looked at, sorry I can't remember which one right now ( maybe an ATI) explained at their website (which I can't find right now, lol) that one would STILL need to employ a STANDARD TV tuner along with it. I am considering either this ATI E-HOME WONDER or this ATI TV Wonder Elite Remote Control Edition or this Hauppauge WinTV-PVR250MCE PCI Interface Video Recorder, TV/FM Tuner Card .

At any rate it looks like I MAY need (3) 32 bit PCI slots...

...Thanks again for your response Ribbon!

Greg

Originally posted by: ribbon13
I suggest looking at this thread. As well as this one

That board looks like it will suite your needs just fine.

Ribbon:

Again, thanks for the threads here at Anandtech concening tv capture cards.

Sorry I was so vague yesterday about the ATI TV tuner requirements and why I thought I would need both a standard AND an HDTV tuner card if I wanted to have HDTV tuning capabilities. I was exhausted. By evening I remembered the ATI support page over here at ATI which explains that for users of BOTH the ATI HDTV Wonder AND Windows Media Center Edition 2005 that Windows MCE2005 ONLY recognizes the HD "portion" of the ATI card and that the end use STILL has to have a STANDARD TV tuner card, like ATI's own E-Home Wonder standard TV tuner card installed in one's system in order to have BOTH standard AND HD TV capture.

Now, the thing that I DON'T know is if this "issue" is an ATI "issue" or a Windows "issue".

In other words, has ATI "decided" on this requirement so that users of their products will have to purchase BOTH the standard AND HD TV tuner cards and thus they will make more money OR if it is a WINDOWS "issue".

I don't know if you can help but I am trying to "search" to discover if there is any information out there on the availability of an HDTV tuner (like the Hauppauge brand for example) which does NOT have this same "issue" with Windows MCE2005.

Again, thanks for your input to my threads.

to Ribbon

Greg

 

[Fisher999]

Originally posted by: Gerbil333


I could search for a few posts on here and from the Futuremark forums with the same remarks...

Gerbil:

Would you mind doing this research??? Do you have the time???

Greg

 

[Fisher999]

Originally posted by: The Pentium Guy

Originally posted by: Fisher999

Originally posted by: The Pentium Guy
If you feel the need for wireless, get the Gigabyte GA-K8NXP-939 (not sure if I spelled out the model name right ) - its the same as the GA-K8N-Ultra 939 except...

-The Pentium Guy

Pentium, I found it in-stock over here at NewEgg for $165.50 delivered.

Thanks again for your "heads up".

Greg

Heh, you posted on: 05/01/2005 03:52 PM

It's now 4:32 PM.
The price is now $162.00

It's amazing how things change in 30 minutes .

-The Pentium Guy

LOL, no actually the price hasn't changed at ALL in 30 minutes, although we all HAVE seen change that fast at NewEgg.

You quoted the price before shipping (we all get so spoiled by some of NewEgg's free fedex shipping items) but I was quoting the DELIVERED price - NewEgg charges $3.50 to ship the board !!!

Oh, btw, you DID have the model number incorrect Your GA-K8NXP-939 is a combination of a couple of their different mobo model numbers, lol. :roll:

The correct model number is GA-K8NXP-SLI but THANK YOU for the "heads up" :beer: to you