What's the best current AGP motherboard/CPU setup?

[murphy55d]

Before you say it, no, PCI-Express is not currently an option. Don't ask why, it just isn't.

Prefer it to be standard ATX as well, not really looking to go mATX.

I ran across this board, is there anything better?

thanks.

edit: i stumbled across this...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16813157097

is this a good board?

 

[o1die]

I have 2 asrock dual sata II's. Both newegg open box specials. Extreme pcgear had this board for $68 last time I checked.

 

[eplebnista]

Motherboard

CPU

 

[tcsenter]

ASRock 939Dual-VSTA = Great board but there will be no further driver support since NVIDIA acquired ULI well before Vista went RTM then killed any further development for ULI chips (including driver support). In addition, the board is discontinued and has been unavailable for weeks (except refurbished or open box).


MSI K8T Neo2-F V2.0 = Probably your best bet for AMD CPU + AGP, ongoing driver support from VIA, uses the venerable K8T800 PRO NB, but S939 CPU availability is dwindling, particularly higher-end models (dual-core).


ASRock 4CoreDual-VSTA = Very refined board, ongoing driver support from VIA and refined BIOS support from ASRock, has real AGP 8x instead of fake AGP, uses the VT8237A SB limited to SATA/150


ASRock 4CoreDual-SATA2 = Same as 4CoreDual-VSTA except uses the new and relatively unproven VT8237S SB that supports SATA/300, only three BIOS versions to date, due to VIA's recent track record I would be wary of this new SB until it has been proven in the wild longer and has a couple more BIOS updates (the VT8251 was a dud precisely because of problems getting SATA/300, AHCI, and HDA to work).

 

[murphy55d]

Well I chedked out extreme PC gear, and they have a ton of AGP 939 boards. Asus A8V Deluxe, Abit UL8. Abit AV8-3rd eye(WTF?). MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum, and a couple Gigabyte/DFI/ECS boards. They are all discontinued... what do you think of any of those?

 

[tcsenter]

Originally posted by: murphy55d
Well I chedked out extreme PC gear, and they have a ton of AGP 939 boards. Asus A8V Deluxe, Abit UL8. Abit AV8-3rd eye(WTF?). MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum, and a couple Gigabyte/DFI/ECS boards. They are all discontinued... what do you think of any of those?

If they're in the discontinued section, you'll notice there is no way to add them to your shopping cart because the "buy now" button isn't available. Discontinued means "we ain't got none no more."

 

[murphy55d]

Damn, youre right. I didn';t even notice. I thought discontinued just meant no longer in production, but here's what we have left. Oops.

 

[murphy55d]

So, if I got the MSI K8T-Neo2-F 2.0 board, 2 sticks of PC3200 DDR400 ram, and an Athlon 64X2 3800+ Toledo($69 on newegg, if there;s a better CPU for that price, let me know), would that work out alright? Can I even use the dual-core CPUs on this board?

 

[tcsenter]

Looks OK to me:

MSI CPU Support Chart

 

[heyheybooboo]

Originally posted by: murphy55d
So, if I got the MSI K8T-Neo2-F 2.0 board, 2 sticks of PC3200 DDR400 ram, and an Athlon 64X2 3800+ Toledo($69 on newegg, if there;s a better CPU for that price, let me know), would that work out alright? Can I even use the dual-core CPUs on this board?

If you pull the trigger on that MSI mobo be very careful with your ram selection. Carefully read their recommendations. Single-sided sticks in slots 2/4 will maintain ddr400/dual channel

 

[tcsenter]

Originally posted by: heyheybooboo
If you pull the trigger on that MSI mobo be very careful with your ram selection. Carefully read their recommendations. Single-sided sticks in slots 2/4 will maintain ddr400/dual channel.

There are only two DIMM slots on the board, supporting up to 2GB. Even if it had four DIMMs, this is S939 AMD64. Rev. E and later AMD64 S939 processors support six DIMM ranks @ DDR400 with 2T CMD, which could be composed of thusly:

Two double-rank modules = four ranks
Four single-rank modules = four ranks
Two double-rank + two single-rank modules = six ranks

All of which would preserve dual channel operation (provided the BIOS support is there and the channels are populated correctly).

 

[murphy55d]

I don't plan on overclocking this, so can you recommend 2 sticks that would work well? I was just going to get 2 512 corsair value select sticks from zipzoomfly.

 

[tcsenter]

Originally posted by: murphy55d
I don't plan on overclocking this, so can you recommend 2 sticks that would work well? I was just going to get 2 512 corsair value select sticks from zipzoomfly.

This CAS2.5 Corsair Value Select Kit would work fine:

Corsair VS1GBKIT400 1GB (2 x 512MB) PC3200 CAS2.5 Kit - $52.00 shipped

But, I would jump all over this before the rebate offer expires:

Crucial Ballistix 1GB (2 x 512MB) PC3200 CAS2.0 Kit - $33.00 shipped (after rebate)

 

[murphy55d]

wow, great deal. thanks tc.

 

[heyheybooboo]

Originally posted by: tcsenter

Originally posted by: heyheybooboo
If you pull the trigger on that MSI mobo be very careful with your ram selection. Carefully read their recommendations. Single-sided sticks in slots 2/4 will maintain ddr400/dual channel.

There are only two DIMM slots on the board, supporting up to 2GB. Even if it had four DIMMs, this is S939 AMD64. Rev. E and later AMD64 S939 processors support six DIMM ranks @ DDR400 with 2T CMD, which could be composed of thusly:

Two double-rank modules = four ranks
Four single-rank modules = four ranks
Two double-rank + two single-rank modules = six ranks

All of which would preserve dual channel operation (provided the BIOS support is there and the channels are populated correctly).

Opps! I was thinkin' about another msi K8T Neo2-F mobo. MSI s939 NF & VIA mobos with 4-slot dimms are quite particular as to memory. I'm just passin' on my own experience ... and what msi recommends . . .