Which Nforce4 board to get?

[sheltem]

Hi, everyone. I plan on getting an Nforce4 board, Athlon64 3000+ and a Radeon X800XL. I have several questions:
1. What is the best Nforce4 board under $100 thats good at overclocking? I'm looking at the MSI Neo4-F, SOLTEK NF4PRO-939, EPoX EP-9NPAJ, BIOSTAR NF4ST-A9.
2. If I decide to go all out for the DFI Lanparty NF4 board, will my Kingston HyperX PC3200 (2-3-2-6) be able to take good advantage of the board? Let me put it another way. Is it worth the $30+ that I spend on the DFI Lanparty considering what memory I have?

 

[frx218]

IMO I would get the DFI Lanparty NF4 seeing that I would overclock a good amount, and even with the DFI getting cheaper " value" ram wont hurt. ( OCZ has great value ram)

If your willing to spend a little over 100 that would open up a lot more options.

 

[CheesePoofs]

The DFI board is nice, but it won't work well with that ram. I had the same Hyperx 2-3-2 and it wouldn't run 1:1. I sent them to DFI, and they said it just wouldn't work with the nF4 boards.

 

[Grubert]

I'm in a similar situation, but I need an optical digital audio output, so the DFI is out, as are the Gigabytes. So it's MSI or Asus.

 

[Promethply]

Get the MSI, as it's less picky with RAMs.

 

[Macro2]

SOLTEK NF4PRO-939

 

[sheltem]

Thanks for the advice. It looks like I'm going for the MSI board. I have another question to ask. Currently I have 2x 512mb PC3200 Kingston HyperX 2-3-2-6, as mentioned earlier in the thread. Would the Corsair XMS 512mb PC3200 2-3-3-6 be a better overclocker? Or should I just sell both of my Kingstons and go for another brand?

 

[Lukozer]

Why so set on the NF4? What's wrong with the K8T890 chipset? Since you're not using SLI and will be using an ATI vid card you should give that some consideration. I'm using the Abit AX8 and it's a great mobo...

 

[Baked]

Originally posted by: Grubert
I'm in a similar situation, but I need an optical digital audio output, so the DFI is out, as are the Gigabytes. So it's MSI or Asus.

Your best bet would be to get which mobo you like then get the Chaintech AV-710 sound card, which has optical digital out.

 

[ChicagoPCGuy]

Originally posted by: Baked

Originally posted by: Grubert
I'm in a similar situation, but I need an optical digital audio output, so the DFI is out, as are the Gigabytes. So it's MSI or Asus.

Your best bet would be to get which mobo you like then get the Chaintech AV-710 sound card, which has optical digital out.

The Chaintech AV-710 is AWESOME. I am using one right now, and very glad that I bought it over the Audigy2. Has 7.1 analog out and SPDIF in both coax and toslink flavors on it. Highly recommended. Drivers are highly stable as well (the latest one from viaarena.com that is).