What is the best Socket 939 Athlon Motherboard with AGP?

[Schadenfroh]

I am starting to have trouble on one of my systems that uses an nforce3 ultra socket 939 (AGP). The issue is with the motherboard and it is out of warranty.

I am frustrated by the lack of updated drivers from nvidia for the motherboard, so what I am after is a motherboard that:

[*]Supports AGP
[*]Supports the AMD Socket 939 (Specifically the Athlon64 4000+ single core)
[*]Standard sized ATX with 4 ram slots
[*]Dual channel DDR support for speeds of PC3200
[*]Good drivers for Vista (or updated XP drivers)
[*]Not nvidia (I am finished with them for their lack of nforce3 ultra support)

I have an OEM license for Windows on it, but I can get Vista Business for cheap through my university, so licensing is not a problem. The system has 2gb of Corsair XMS PC3200, an AMD Athlon 64 4000+, and an AMD X1950 pro 512mb AGP. I see no reason to upgrade the entire system and trash the other components at the moment.


Thanks

I define best as being the most stable with great driver support, I will not be overclocking.

UPDATE
I am looking at the Abit AV8 (NOT the 3rd eye), any idea if this puppy works with the A64 (San Diego core)?

http://www.uabit.com/index.php...id=48&page=2&model=175

 

[o1die]

The old agp 939 boards weren't designed for vista, but vista should find the device drivers for them anyway. Vista found all the devices for my old ecs kt800 pro chipset board. All the agp boards have been discontinued for at least a year or more so even with warranty, the manufacturer's won't have a replacement board to send you. 3B Tech has the msi neo2 FX nforce3 in stock for $79. They are extremely rare now. I got a uli chipset board from them cheap, but when they sold out, they couldn't send a replacement, so I got a refund instead.

 

[Dazed and Confused]

The best one for what u want is the Abit AV8-3rd eye. It's soo damned good that Alienware used it on thier 939 systems for over a year

 

[Dazed and Confused]

Oops, double tap

 

[Schadenfroh]

Originally posted by: Dazed and Confused
The best one for what u want is the Abit AV8-3rd eye. It's soo damned good that Alienware used it on thier 939 systems for over a year

The reviews on Toms Hardware look great for that model, any word on if Vista has decent XP or Vista drivers for that thing? I recall the horrors of the 4 in 1......

 

[tcsenter]

All VIA, SIS, and Intel AGP chipsets are supported in Vista through the Universal AGP driver supplied by Microsoft. NVIDIA (and thus ULI) refused to participate in Microsoft's Universal AGP driver initiative that would do away with vendor-written AGP drivers in favor of the UAGP driver supplied by Microsoft.

Therefore, AGP drivers must come from NVIDIA and NVIDIA has said it will not develop Vista drivers for nForce3 and earlier chipsets.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Damn Nvidia driver writers slacking off again...

 

[Schadenfroh]

Originally posted by: tcsenter
All VIA, SIS, and Intel AGP chipsets are supported in Vista through the Universal AGP driver supplied by Microsoft.

Interesting.... Would I be taking any performance hit by going to Vista x64 from xp32 if I were using a VIA K8T800 Pro?

Also, anywhere that I could buy an AV8 3rd eye at an online store? Ebay is rather scarce.

 

[Makaveli]

One of the best AGP A64 boards ever released

Msi K8N Neo 2 Platinum which i'm using right now.

Been rock solid since day one.

And yes Vista will work fine on this board with a Single core cpu, but once you put in a dualcore chip, Nvidia hasn't released updated chipset drivers, and you won't be able to get videocard drivers installed properly

So i'm sticking with XP, until the Phenom X4 is out.

 

[Schadenfroh]

Thanks for the reply, Makaveli, but as I stated in the OP, I am not looking for an nforce3 because of the lack of driver support.

I am currently looking at the MSI K8T Neo2-F V2 ( Via K8T800 Pro based) which can be found on ebay

It looked like the perfect motherboard, till I noticed that it only has 2 ram slots

 

[tcsenter]

Originally posted by: Schadenfroh
Interesting.... Would I be taking any performance hit by going to Vista x64 from xp32 if I were using a VIA K8T800 Pro?

No more than with any other chipset when moving from XP to Vista.

 

[Schadenfroh]

I think I may have found her, but it does not state that it supports the Athlon64 4000+ (San Diego):
http://www.uabit.com/index.php...id=48&page=2&model=175

 

[Heidfirst]

with appropriate BIOS (the latest is 28) the AV8 can handle any S939 CPU
http://www.abit.com.tw/cpu-sup...t800pro_av8_series.htm

 

[Schadenfroh]

Originally posted by: Heidfirst
with appropriate BIOS (the latest is 28) the AV8 can handle any S939 CPU
http://www.abit.com.tw/cpu-sup...t800pro_av8_series.htm

Ahh thanks for the link, excellent, abit's NA page did not have the latest firmware. Anyone able to comment on the K8T800 Pro in XP 64?

 

[o1die]

I tried the beta version of xp 64, and it found all the device drivers for my ecs kt800 pro board. I had no need for the driver cd.

 

[Schadenfroh]

Originally posted by: o1die
I tried the beta version of xp 64, and it found all the device drivers for my ecs kt800 pro board. I had no need for the driver cd.

Usually the drivers that ship with windows lack the performance / features of drivers from the manufacturer. Although most of the time, they are pretty stable.

 

[Makaveli]

And yes I agree the lack of driver support with the Nforce 3 is quite sad. However by the time I'm gonna want to run vista i'll be on a Quad core chip so it will only be a distant memory