Why no love for the 750a?

[Sindisil]

I'm curious as to why the NVIDIA 750a based boards seldom seem to get any attention.

I'm assuming it has to do with CrossFire, given that the ATI GPUs seem to have the bang-for-the-buck crown right now.

However, unless I'm missing something, for someone with no intention of running more than one GPU card, the 750a looks superior to anything currently available from AMD.

Non-storage performance looks rougly equal. SATA performance seems to favor NVIDIA, sometimes significantly. And the USB performance lead for NVIDIA is just embarrassing.

So, what am I missing? On paper, the ASUS M4N72-E looks like the best deal in a performance Phenom II x4 motherboard. Often things are different in the real world than on paper, though. Does anyone here know if that's true in this case?

 

[Sindisil]

<thmp> <thmp>

This thing on?

Just kidding. I guess no one here has any experience with the NForce 750a, then. Bummer.

 

[imported_seferio]

Lack of ACC is probably a major factor. Never the less you do see a few people posting about buying NForce boards. I hear they do quite well with Phenom II since they no longer rely on ACC for OCs.

 

[Absolution75]

I think a lot of people are rather sick of nVidia chipsets. They may be good for overclocking for enthusiasts or if you like to spend a lot of time in bios; but lately, nVidia just hasn't launched a stable board that is really competitive to the P45 boards (save for SLI).

I've build around 15 machines with nForce boards, at least 6 or 7 of them have had issues. Since I've moved away from the nForce chipsets, to P35/P45, I've build 5 machines with 0 issues.

When I say issues, I mean general stability is just not there.


Seriously, nForce 6xx/7xx both had SATA HD corruption on launch. They were launched over a year apart, think nVidia could have fixed this before launch?? I'm not touching those boards.

 

[Flipped Gazelle]

Originally posted by: seferio
Lack of ACC is probably a major factor. Never the less you do see a few people posting about buying NForce boards. I hear they do quite well with Phenom II since they no longer rely on ACC for OCs.

While it's true that PhII does not rely on motherboard-based ACC [unless you want to try to unlock an X3's extra core ], the SB700/750 still overclock Phenom II's better than SB600.

I had a Geforce 8200-based motherboard, and it operated very well until it bit the dust.

Originally posted by: Sindisil
I'm curious as to why the NVIDIA 750a based boards seldom seem to get any attention.

I'm assuming it has to do with CrossFire, given that the ATI GPUs seem to have the bang-for-the-buck crown right now.

However, unless I'm missing something, for someone with no intention of running more than one GPU card, the 750a looks superior to anything currently available from AMD.

Non-storage performance looks rougly equal. SATA performance seems to favor NVIDIA, sometimes significantly. And the USB performance lead for NVIDIA is just embarrassing.

So, what am I missing? On paper, the ASUS M4N72-E looks like the best deal in a performance Phenom II x4 motherboard. Often things are different in the real world than on paper, though. Does anyone here know if that's true in this case?

I think review sites tend to focus on motherboards with chipsets made by the same companies that make the CPU. Other than Nvidia, there's no really no other major 3rd party player in the mainstream chipset market.

 

[Negronpope]

Frankly, I think Nvidia isn't really producing decent chipsets for AMD processors anymore. I loved my Nforce 3 250 MB and I had an Nforce4 SLi motherboard. But, I haven't read any good reviews for motherboards based on the 750a chipset. That, combined with the fact that the manufacturers using this chipset include low-end companies like Zotac, has put me off of the 750a.

 

[nerp]

I loved my nforce 4 boards because they were really the only viable option for AMD chips back in the day. Today, AMD has awesome chipsets (780G, 790) so I really see no reason to get an nvidia board.

 

[Sindisil]

Originally posted by: Negronpope
Frankly, I think Nvidia isn't really producing decent chipsets for AMD processors anymore. I loved my Nforce 3 250 MB and I had an Nforce4 SLi motherboard. But, I haven't read any good reviews for motherboards based on the 750a chipset. That, combined with the fact that the manufacturers using this chipset include low-end companies like Zotac, has put me off of the 750a.

Well, I linked to a review that seemed to show the XFX 750a based board doing quite well ... beating the 780GX board it was being compared to. Not that I would buy the XFX board ... I was considering one from ASUS.

I was hoping for any first hand knowledge of the a 750a based board, especially with a Phenom II. The first hand knowledge you did report seems to indicate good experience with NVIDIA boards, albeit older ones.

Regardless, thanks for taking the time to respond.

 

[Sindisil]

Originally posted by: nerp
I loved my nforce 4 boards because they were really the only viable option for AMD chips back in the day. Today, AMD has awesome chipsets (780G, 790) so I really see no reason to get an nvidia board.

I guess the reasons I thought it might be better to go with the 750a were better disk performance and better USB peformance, while appearing to give up nothing except CrossFire.

The wildcards, from what I've read, were stability, reliability and overclocking performance with the Phenom II. I was hoping to hear some first hand info on those fronts.

 

[Sindisil]

Originally posted by: Flipped Gazelle

Originally posted by: seferio
Lack of ACC is probably a major factor. Never the less you do see a few people posting about buying NForce boards. I hear they do quite well with Phenom II since they no longer rely on ACC for OCs.

While it's true that PhII does not rely on motherboard-based ACC [unless you want to try to unlock an X3's extra core ], the SB700/750 still overclock Phenom II's better than SB600.

That's what I've read. I was hoping to hear how well the 750a overclocks the PhII, relative to the SB7xx. I haven't been able to find any reviews that address that, though, as all the PhII articles seem to use AMD based motherboards.

I think review sites tend to focus on motherboards with chipsets made by the same companies that make the CPU. Other than Nvidia, there's no really no other major 3rd party player in the mainstream chipset market.

Yeah. Sadly, that appears to be the case.

 

[Aenslead]

Originally posted by: Absolution75
...

I've build around 15 machines with nForce boards, at least 6 or 7 of them have had issues. Since I've moved away from the nForce chipsets, to P35/P45, I've build 5 machines with 0 issues.

When I say issues, I mean general stability is just not there.


Seriously, nForce 6xx/7xx both had SATA HD corruption on launch. They were launched over a year apart, think nVidia could have fixed this before launch?? I'm not touching those boards.

Please explain these issues. I am a system builder and have used all kinds of nForce chipsets for my configs; say, instead of using G33/31 I go for GF7150/7050 boards; Instead of P45, I go nF750i. Most of them even configured with a RAID setup.

How can you tell when you have a SATA HD corruption issue? I am assuming this is already solved as of today, no?

What other issues have you had experience with?

Thanks.

 

[Absolution75]

Originally posted by: Aenslead

Originally posted by: Absolution75
...

I've build around 15 machines with nForce boards, at least 6 or 7 of them have had issues. Since I've moved away from the nForce chipsets, to P35/P45, I've build 5 machines with 0 issues.

When I say issues, I mean general stability is just not there.


Seriously, nForce 6xx/7xx both had SATA HD corruption on launch. They were launched over a year apart, think nVidia could have fixed this before launch?? I'm not touching those boards.

Please explain these issues. I am a system builder and have used all kinds of nForce chipsets for my configs; say, instead of using G33/31 I go for GF7150/7050 boards; Instead of P45, I go nF750i. Most of them even configured with a RAID setup.

How can you tell when you have a SATA HD corruption issue? I am assuming this is already solved as of today, no?

What other issues have you had experience with?

Thanks.

Every reference board had SATA corruption (depending on the HD) and was fixed with a bios update.

Here is the extensive changelog of a reference 680i bios:

The following was updated in release P33:

Added support for new Penryn dual core CPUs
Added FSB-overclocking support to the new Penryn FSB-1066/1333 CPUs
Fixed compatibility issues of OS + ACPI
Fixed restoring disabled device states & fan speeds after suspend/resume
Fixed PCI and PCIe compatibility issues
Added device functionality improvements (includes GPUs & Sound cards)
Fixed SATA / MAC / USB compatibility issues
Added support for auto-overvoltaging when overclocking
Improved nTune compatibility
Improved memory compatibility
Also includes these updates from bios P20, P21, P23, P24, P25, P26, P27, P28, P29, P30, P31 and P32:

Improved Core 2 Quad 1333 stability and overclocking
Updated Wolfdale CPU microcode
Improved Core 2 Duo 1333 overclocking
Resolves issues with G0 stepping CPU's detecting odd multipliers
Improved overclocking for Kentsfield 1333 FSB CPUs
Additional 1333 FSB Support for future CPUs
Fixes intermittent S3 Resume bug
Improve S3 resume functionality
USB flash key functionality improvements
Overclocking and memory improvements
WHQL-related HPET fixes
Quad-Core OC Improvements
Additional support for 1333MHz CPU's
Wireless PCI card fixes
Vreg fan header default set to on
Memory performance improvements
Vista WHQL Certified
USB Floppy improvements for RAID installs
Correct CPU temp and voltage system monitor displays in BIOS
Correct default CPU multiplier setting
Fix "Code 50" hang received under certain VGA configurations
Fix for SATA disk drives
Improvements to memory stability and overclockability
Disabled spread spectrum tables for improved overclockability
Improve POST screen CPU speed reporting
Improves X-Fi and internal audio functionality
WHQL Certified BIOS
Improvements to overclocking
Enhancements for Quad-Core CPUs

Same thing happened with the 780i series.


Issues I remember off the top of my head:

1) MSI nForce 3: Sometimes the machine wouldn't power on, would take about 30 minutes to an hour before the machine would power back on after it was unplugged.

2) DFI nForce 4 Ultra-D, the thing was NEVER stable, memtest86 tested memory for days, good ram. The PC would bluescreen if left on overnight. Sometimes bios seemed corrupted (random gable on screen, raid didn't work sometimes). Had to hard reset to alleviate these issues. This board was finally replaced with a Gigabyte EP45-UD3R; the machine is 100% stable.

3) A different DFI nForce 4 SLI-DR, PCI slots died, general stability was poor, this was upgraded to a ECS nForce 650i.

4) My own DFI nForce 4 SLI-DR, eh, the north bridge fan died on it, nothing that special - but still . . .

5) ECS nForce 650i, the board was never stable. Would hard lock all the time. This was upgraded to my nForce 680i, which by the time it was upgraded, had gone though numerous bios fixes, where it was finally stable (but . . . see below). This board didn't support memory voltages over 1.9V, what the hell is with that?? (Same with the EVGA version, so its not vendor specific.)

6) EVGA 680i, the board just flat out died, no post, RMA'ed for the Rev 1.1 board, has been stable ever since.

7) I also have a ECS 630i system running at my home away from home. With my old Maxtor Diamondback 10 drive, the drive performance would drop to 1-2MB/sec, never did this on any other board. Supposedly its an issue which each vendor has promptly ignored due to the limited group of people experiencing the issue.

There was also a DOA board that I got, but, meh, thats luck of the draw I guess. There is probably a bunch of other random stuff that made me formulate my opinion that nForce chipsets are garbage, but its been like, a couple years since I've installed one (other than the 680i which I transfered I guess).

There are a bunch of other machines I've built with nForce chipsets that didn't have problems though.

My personal upgrade path:
MSI nForce 3
DFI nForce 4 SLI-DR
EVGA 680i SLI
Gigabyte EP45-UD3P

So far, I like the latest board the best, even if S3 sleep doesn't work.

Another gripe with nForce boards I have is that they run hot, requiring active cooling.

 

[Aenslead]

Thanks for the input. Fortunately for me, I've had no problems like that.

I have had, however, problems with RAID setup in my 680i and 730i/GF9300 boards, but surprisingly it was cable-related: I was afraid I had the HD corruption problem, but as soon as I changed cables, I never saw the problem again.

As you can see in my sig, I also have a ref.dsgn 780i board which I am very happy with and have had no issues whatsoever (OC and all); Still, I will take your comments seriously and configure middle-end and low end workstations with P45/43 chipsets instead. Don't want angry customers with expensive PC's dying, do we?