which of the nforce3 250 mobos for quality

[Schadenfroh]

which is a higher quality motherboard?

chaintek
or
gigabyte

current system specs to show stuff that i will carry over and what im coming from

A7N8X deluxe rev2.0
Athlon XP 3200+
1 gig corsair XMS pc3200
Asus Geforce4 TI4200 128mb
Creative Labs Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS

 

[alent1234]

I said before that because of the Abit thing I may go for Via, but I'm looking pretty close at the MSI K8N Neo Platinum. People are saying good things about it.

 

[CraigRT]

I personally don't mind Gigabyte boards, and would probably take the Gigabyte over the Chaintech...

but I'd take a K8T800 Pro chipset over the NF3 250 I think anyways. (Abit KV8 Pro)

 

[Schadenfroh]

sticking with nvidia tho, might postpone till socket 939 mainstreams, i own a nforce2 right now and im used to the drivers and i am very satisfied with it and also familar with the install process of nvidia nforce drivers.

 

[CraigRT]

perhaps the MSI would be good for you then... K8N Neo Platinum
I wanted this board also, but again, not quite sure if I want the NF3 or the K8T800 Pro.. I think I want the VIA.

 

[First]

I'd definitely go with an nForce3 250Gb board, haven't seen any reason not to. Gigabyte, MSI and Epox make great nForce3 250Gb boards. Actually, Gigabyte's board isn't a 250Gb, it's a 250. But still a great board, overall.

 

[Keljian]

Evan: no offense, but the gigabyte board, while a veritable masterpiece of engineering, was a little light on for memory/bios support to begin with. Yes it's a great board, but until gigabyte release a bios that has less problems with ram I wouldn't recommend it.

The nf3-250 (gb) arena is a full on minefield at the moment, each of the boards have significant quirks with either ram or temperature sensing. That said - the only two I'd recommend right now would be the MSI and the Epox, but make sure you're aware of the problems before you buy

 

[First]

Originally posted by: Keljian
Evan: no offense, but the gigabyte board, while a veritable masterpiece of engineering, was a little light on for memory/bios support to begin with. Yes it's a great board, but until gigabyte release a bios that has less problems with ram I wouldn't recommend it.

The nf3-250 (gb) arena is a full on minefield at the moment, each of the boards have significant quirks with either ram or temperature sensing. That said - the only two I'd recommend right now would be the MSI and the Epox, but make sure you're aware of the problems before you buy

Agreed, the Epox and MSI boards are the best. But I'm not sure what problems you're referring to with the Gigabyte board. What BIOS are you using?

 

[Schadenfroh]

rog, no biggie, ill wait till more stuff with the 250gb comes out

 

[Zvorak]

I bought the Chaintech VNF3-250

It has the nVidia3 250 and it cost me $95 at newegg...

This is the first Motherboard I have bought in the last 5 years that hasnt been an ABIT and I like it. Can't argue about the price and the feature set is better than any first gen A64 board.

Although it is not a (gb) board and is pretty cheap I thought the quality was pretty good. I cannot see purchasing the K8T800pro over the Nvidia3-250 or 250gb because of the benchmarks done either here or at Tom's... not to mention with the gb version you offload the main bus from the strains of your ethernet.

just some food for thought

 

[hokahknow]

I am getting the MSI K8N Neo Platinum.

 

[hokahknow]

Oh... make sure you get a 250gb motherboard. Not the plan 'ol 250.

 

[Keljian]

Originally posted by: Evan Lieb

Originally posted by: Keljian


Agreed, the Epox and MSI boards are the best. But I'm not sure what problems you're referring to with the Gigabyte board. What BIOS are you using?

I've tried every bios I've been able to get my hands on (including F1, F2b and F2d)

F1 had problems with my samsung ddr(setting a 200mhz x2 ddr speed wouldn't stick in the bios - on a subsequent reboot it'd default back to 166), and toms (while not as reputable as it used to be) showed the gigabyte to have the most issues with running ram in a recent review. F2b was no better and had less options overall. F2d allowed the ram to work as normal at 200mhz but the temperature sensor data is screwed up (cpu fan is running at max speed, temperature reports mid-high 60's (celcius)) not to mention easytune tabs don't work. There's a thread on all this in this forum

here:
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.cfm?catid=29&threadid=1316125&enterthread=y

I'm currently using the f2d bios.

I'm sure all of this will be sorted out in bios updates, but for now it's not something I'd recommend