Where are the mATX boards?

[thehstrybean]

I recently made my weekly trip to newegg.com and was browsing the boards for the Athlon 64 that were mAXT...I couldn't find to many, but I am looking to upgrade mine (Gigabyte GAK8S760M)...A couple of questions: 1) What chipset? I'm looking at a nForce, but newegg has the ATI Radeon XPRESS 200 chipset on the MSI RS480M2-IL board...Foxconn has the nForce 4 chipset on the Foxconn NF4K8MC-RS board...Which one is better overall? I game when I can, mostly in the summer, but during school I edit video, surf, listen to music, and type homework, ect...
2) Which socket CPU should I go with? Currently, I have a 754 2800+ @ 1.8 GHz...Is it worth it to upgrade to 939? What's the difference?
3) PCI XPress...Is it worth it now to upgrade?

 

[crazyeddie]

I just installed my MSI RS480M2-IR last Wednesday. It's a terrific board loaded with features and it's been absolutely rock-solid stable while I've been putting it through the ringer for the last several days. I'm thrilled with the board so far and I'm looking forward to adding my X800XL PCI-E card whenever ATI decides to ship it. I've been using the Xpress 200 IGP in the mean time. It won't set any benchmark records, but it's still very impressive for an integrated graphics core.

I chose this board because I was upgrading from an Athlon XP 2400+. For you, jumping to Socket 939 doesn't make much sense unless you were going to upgrade your A64 2800+ anyway. Socket 939 is considered more "future-proof" right now, but replacing your socket 754 processor for no reason doesn't make any sense.

PCI-E isn't a good reason to jump to Socket 939. Nvidia's entire lineup except possibly the 6800 Ultra is available in AGP. The 6600GT actually benchmarks faster in AGP mode than it does in PCI-E in most cases. ATI will be shipping X800-series cards in AGP form factor soon as well.

Socket 754 is projected to be around as a "budget" platform for a long time to come. The Athlon 64 series is being moved over to Socket 939 but the Sempron series is being moved over to Socket 754. The ATI Radeon Xpress 200 chipset that my motherboard is based on is compatible with both Socket 754 and Socket 939 processors.

Somebody will make a Socket 754 PCI-E motherboard, and they will make a crapload of money both for OEMs and for aftermarket sales. If you have your eye on a particular PCI-E graphics card, I wouldn't throw out your Athlon 64 2800+ just yet. If you want to stay with AGP graphics, the video chipset you want is either available there or it most likely will be soon.

Bottome line? There's nothing magical about Socket 939 and there's nothing magical about PCI-E graphics cards. There won't be any AGP SLI motherboards anytime soon, but I don't believe there's anything stopping an Nvidia partner from making a Socket 754 SLI motherboard, either.

Upgrading is always fun, but take the marketing hype with a grain of salt, and don't be in too big of a hurry to throw out your Athlon 64 2800+ too soon.

 

[thehstrybean]

That's what I was thinking...The only boards that I can find that is socket 754 with a nForce chipset are the MSI K8NM-FISRB...I was also looking at the K8NHA-M Grand and the MSI K8NM-ILSR...The latter boards are really hard to find...

 

[pompeypaul]

I live in the UK and have just taken delivery of a biostar k8nha-m grand mobo from a company in Germany heres the link :-

http://www.computeruniverse.net/ click the uk flag top right for english

ordered 5/4/5
shipped 8/4/5
recieved 14/4/5

the courier was DHL

Hope this helps

 

[Peter]

ECS and PC-Chips have a handful, socket-754 with VIA and SIS chipsets mostly. Here's a brandnew one for socket-939, VIA chipset.

http://www.pcchips.com.tw/PCCWeb/Produc...il.aspx?DetailID=356&MenuID=99&LanID=0

... and here's another one using the ATi chipset.

http://www.ecs.com.tw/ECSWeb/Products/P...il.aspx?DetailID=506&MenuID=90&LanID=0

The doubled RAM bandwidth of socket-939 will make a difference, particularly when you're intending to run the integrated graphics unit.

 

[ChineseDemocracyGNR]

Originally posted by: thehstrybean
I game when I can, mostly in the summer, but during school I edit video, surf, listen to music, and type homework, ect...
?

For the listed tasks, except gaming, an upgrade to a PCI-E socket 939 platform won't bring any noticeable benefits (if you go with the 1.8GHz socket 939 Athlon 64, the 3000+). Not worh it, unless you have someone willing to buy your parts for a very good price.

If you want to improve your gaming performance, I have a question: are you using the onboard video? The Gigabyte board you currently own has the best IGP of all currently available socket 754 motherboards, because it has dedicated memory installed on the motherboard. That basically doubles performance compared to other VIA or SiS IGP motherboards.
Of course, there's the ATI chipset available in socket 939 motherboards (only ECS and MSI at the moment). Although it is the best IGP available, it might be a better idea for you to get a video card for your current system (a 9550 or 9600 with 128-bit memory interface), that should give you better performance for about the same amount of money invested.
Your motherboard will perform just fine with the onboard video disabled, as fast as other non-discrete motherboards.