8rda+ rev.2 vs. nf7-s rev.2?

Pros and cons of each? They have pretty similar specs, except NF7-S has the SATA. I want soundstorm, which both have.. Which one is better for overclocking?

abit has better power regulation. umm abit is officially soundstorm. newegg is supposed to be getting some v2 epox's in and if the price is still the same i would get that.

My Nf-7 got fried yesterday after working fine for over a month. I am returning it for the same exact motherboard because while it was working, it really kicked ***!!! Haven't tried out the 8rda but that was the other mobo I thought about getting before deciding to go with the abit. I am glad I went with abit because like I said, when it worked, it hauled ***. Just my 2 cents.

there haven't been any reviews comparing the two yet, or i haven't seen them, the 8rda+ has soundstorm quality, just no SPDIF jack to qualify it for official Soundstorm, it saves you good money for the same quality if you don't use SPDIF

drewthomas14, why do you say abit has better power regulation? where does that come from? i heard abit has traditionally had lots of stability issues

i know on my 8rda+ the mosfets got freaking hot. i think the 8rda+v2 has better mosfet layout so maybe i shouldn't have said that. but the abit does have a 12v 4-pin connector.

R4z0r4mu5 Pr|m3 said:

there haven't been any reviews comparing the two yet, or i haven't seen them, the 8rda+ has soundstorm quality, just no SPDIF jack to qualify it for official Soundstorm, it saves you good money for the same quality if you don't use SPDIF

drewthomas14, why do you say abit has better power regulation? where does that come from? i heard abit has traditionally had lots of stability issues

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soundstorm's "quality" lies in its spdif output. analogue output from the soundstorm isnt worth jack. it uses the same alc650 dac (digital to analogue convertor) that the non-soundstorm boards use - meaning the analogue outputs are very poor.

All I can tell you is that my NF7-S has been great since I bought it and I can't think of any cons. Well, other than it being more expensice that the 8rda+.

james.miller said:

soundstorm's "quality" lies in its spdif output. analogue output from the soundstorm isnt worth jack. it uses the same alc650 dac (digital to analogue convertor) that the non-soundstorm boards use - meaning the analogue outputs are very poor.

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so anyone without a sound system utilizing SPDIF is just wasting money getting a NF2 board with soundstorm? i thought there were analog standards that had to be met too to be approved as soundstorm

oh also does the ABit come with the convenient round cables?

no

R4z0r4mu5 Pr|m3 said:

so anyone without a sound system utilizing SPDIF is just wasting money getting a NF2 board with soundstorm? i thought there were analog standards that had to be met too to be approved as soundstorm

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i'm not to sure. i Don't think so, no. I read up a little about it and it turns out that nvidia have allowed 3 different makes of D.A.C's - sigmatel and realtek are two of them, the other one i cant remember, and since they all differ quiet a lot, nvidia never set a standard for the analogue outputs.

Saying that the analogue outputs were crap was a litlle over-reactive on my part. they are better than any other on-board systems, and if you have the sigmatel dac's you also get better headphone output than the audigy's, but the analogue output cant compare to them.

Digital, however, is a different story.


disclaimer:that's how i read it. I don't pretend to know it all lol

lol, thanks for the response, not like i can tell the difference between how good the sound is anyway

Do you know which boards use which sound chips?

I had an Epox 8RDA for about a month. Great board. Very oveclockable. Minor gripes. When I was sqeezing out the top fsb out of the board I would get BIOS checksum errors. Thats at around 215-220mhz fsb. The second IDE port would also stop working from time to time. I didnt have any cooling on the southbridge, I think that might be the reason. Also, over volt protection would kick in at 1.9vcore. Overall I was happy with this board. Take this for what its worth since the board wasnt a v2.

I got the Abit NF7-S v2 yesterday. The board seems to be a bit higher quality right out of the box. I immidiatley replaced the stock NS heatsink with the Vantec IceBerq and AS3. I also put ram sinks on mosfets and put a passive sink on the SB. Im guessing that the additional cooling helped a lot on the board. I was able to oc my cpu 250mhz more. 8RDA top CPU oc xp1800@2200mhz. NF7-s v2 top oc so far xp1800@2450mhz. I was also able to push the board to 230mhz fsb without a hassle. So far I think this board was worth the extra $30 I paid.

drewthomas14 said:

but the abit does have a 12v 4-pin connector.

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What will happen without connect that 4-pin connector? I saw most the nforce chipset don't have it..

i believe amd cpus draw power from the 5v of the power supply, but with the 12v line, it draws from there

i think that's how it works, P4 always draw from 12v

abit is a MUCH more reliable company than epox. trust me, i know from a LOT of experience from MANY different boards from both companys. Abits simply have less problems than epoxs do

Emericana said:

abit is a MUCH more reliable company than epox. trust me, i know from a LOT of experience from MANY different boards from both companys. Abits simply have less problems than epoxs do

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i thought it was the other way around...

...

I think with the nf7 and 8rda epox is more stable.

I should have my nf7-sv2 with vdd and vdim mod, big hsf on nb and passive on sb, and mosfet heatsinks, all up and running by the end of the week. I am waiting for an hd, but i think for now i am going to pull one out of my old machine.

I am a little worried about the vmods, when i use my multimeter the most kohms resistance i can get is like .666. This is realy low, but isn't that like just over 2.1v? With all the heatsinks i have it should be fine. I will check the voltages when i turn it on. I think i have the resistance as high as possible, i think my multimeter is just screwed up, or i am not taking the measurements from the correct spot.