What's the best Socket A motherboard out now?

[JackBurton]

Alright guys, I've lost track of the Socket A boards out today. What is the best one out now? I have a spare 1600+ I'd like to use in it.

 

[Addy]

IMHO the Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe and the Abit NF7-S.

 

[JackBurton]

Originally posted by: Addy
IMHO the Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe and the Abit NF7-S.

I was looking at the A7N8X-E. I'm glad it's a good board because I like the built in dual nics. I'm going to use it in one of my servers, so it will really come in handy.

Thanks man.

 

[kalex2]

I would highly rec the ASUS A7n8x-E very very stable! I have been running the A7n8x in several pc's and all have been rock solid.

 

[Concillian]

I have two of the -E Deluxes and the only disadvantage is the FSB overclocks pretty poorly compared to the other boards. If all you're after is ~200 MHz FSB they are great, but if you're looking for 220+ FSB, you need to look at Abit or DFI.

 

[JackBurton]

Originally posted by: Concillian
I have two of the -E Deluxes and the only disadvantage is the FSB overclocks pretty poorly compared to the other boards. If all you're after is ~200 MHz FSB they are great, but if you're looking for 220+ FSB, you need to look at Abit or DFI.

Yeah, I'm not looking for overclocking on this board. I just want everything to run stock and be rock solid.

 

[Fern]

Might wanna look into the Shuttle AN35N-Ultra. I've got one in aserver box. Nice price at about $55.

 

[CraigRT]

there are a bunch.
it only depends on budget.

the A7N8X-E is fantastic, but one of the more expensive socketA boards.. I personally loved mySL-75FRN2-L Soltek, and it was UBER cheap... both are great boards, I've had extensive experience with both.. only extra you get with Asus is features.

 

[JPS]

My vote is the SL-75FRN2-L which newegg still has in stock!

 

[JackBurton]

The cool thing about the Asus board is that it does have dual nics AND it has a passive heatsink on the chipset. I'd like to keep this system as quiet as possible.

 

[Odeen]

You may want to get a used A7N8X Deluxe (Note: No "E"). If you just have a 1600+ and you aren't overclocking, get a Revision 1.04 board. Revisions 1.xx did not officially support 400mhz FSB, so they can be had relatively cheaply on the FS/FT forums.

The board has dual NICs integrated into the chipset, unlike the A7N8X-E which has one integrated NIC and one NIC on the PCI bus. Having both NICs integrated frees up your PCI bus (It only has 133 megabytes/second bandwidth) for other devices, such as the integrated SATA controller.

 

[mdahc]

I'm surprised no one mentioned the EPoX EP-8RDA6+Pro. In my opinion, it's probably the best Socket A motherboard out right now in terms of features and performance. It includes the nForce2 Ultra 400GB chipset, which is probably the best K7 MCP out there. If you're really going to be running a server on this board, the on-chip gigabit ethernet controller would come in mighty handy, not to mention you'd get native SATA support. If you want a second NIC, they're like $5, right? It would be PCI, but at least your primary ethernet controller would be real gigabit (not ~600Mbps ethernet). I know you said you liked the Asus board's passive heatsink, but I think the EP-8RDA6+Pro's features far outweigh the 30-40db of fan noise than can easily be dampened. I don't know how much you're looking to spend, but for < $100, I think the board is the best for Socket A.

 

[CraigRT]

Originally posted by: JackBurton
The cool thing about the Asus board is that it does have dual nics AND it has a passive heatsink on the chipset. I'd like to keep this system as quiet as possible.

the newer versions of the FRN2-L are passively cooled if that helps you at all.

the Soltek board really does kick ass..

good luck......