[Funaro]

I want a socket 939 nForce 3 Ultra motherboard. I've basically come to terms with the saddening fact that neither DFI or Abit will be making nForce 3 Ultra boards. Therefore, I've decided it's time to put the crying towel down, and maybe consider what's currently on the market from the "other" guys. Gigabyte especially caught my eye with their offering.

The 2 options:

Model: GA-K8NS Ultra-939 / nVidia nForce 3 Ultra - Price $116.99

Model: GA-K8NSNXP Ultra-939 / nVidia nForce 3 Ultra - Price: $189.99

Now, both boards are for Socket 939 AMD 64 CPU's, and they both have seemingly identical structures (number of USB ports, PCI slots, etc...), but, there seems to be a large gap in the price between these two boards for some reason.

I've gone to Gigabyte's web site to compare features, and for the life of me, with the exception of AMD's "Cool & Quiet" feature, I can NOT figure out what the K8NSNXP offers over the K8NS. Why is one board almost a hundred dollars more than the other board?

Please, If you have any answers, could you please point out what I'm overlooking...


Thanks.

[DaMobster]

My tip is not to buy either of those boards. Just wait a month until the nforce 4 boards come out, and you will be a lot happier that you did.

[Funaro]

Originally Posted by DaMobster

My tip is not to buy either of those boards. Just wait a month until the nforce 4 boards come out, and you will be a lot happier that you did.

I've been fighting with the idea of AGP vs. PCI-e. I figured I would just skip nForce 4 altogether until the format (PCI-e) matured a little more, but who knows.

Regardless of whether or not I decide on going nForce 4, I'd still love to know what the difference is between these two boards....

[TombKeeper]

Difference is is that the expensive version has Dual Bios....if something happens to your bios (virus or o/c'ing), it's ok because you have a second bios....

Not really worth it for me though....maybe for you...?

[Funaro]

Originally Posted by TombKeeper

Difference is is that the expensive version has Dual Bios....if something happens to your bios (virus or o/c'ing), it's ok because you have a second bios....

Not really worth it for me though....maybe for you...?

Hmmm.... would DualBios really warrant a difference of price nearing almost $100.00?? Are you sure you're not leaving any other features out?

To answer your question, though, I could personally live with a single BIOS set-up. I almost always run at stock speeds, anyway. I "slightly" overclock. Besides, I've never had any trouble with Gigabyte boards in the past (I've purchased 2 thus far). Solid as a rock.

I think if you're going to sit out the nForce 4/initial AMD-PCI-e offering and you're still in the market for an alternative upgrade, for the offered features and asking price, the GA-K8NS Ultra doesn't really seem like such a bad idea, all things considered, of course.

[Joeteck]

The DPS has alot to do with it. On board voltage regulator thingy....

[KKAT]

interesting though that the NSNXP version only goes up to 1600mhz on the chipset, while the NS goes to 2000mhz
weird.
I think i'll get a K8NS ultra or a Neo2 plat.
can't afford to move to pcie yet

[recover]

according to this article..
link.

"the only difference between the K8NSNXP-939 and K8NS Ultra-939 is the missing dps heatsink on the latter.
both boards are identical and bios compatible and will thus be treated as the same board in this guide"

that's a great guide by the way.
it says the bios is compatible to each board..has anyone flashed the k8ns ultra with a bios from the gigabyte site listed for the k8nsnxp??

-recover-

[Baddox]

Get the single bios (cheaper) one. That's what I've got, it's fine, and like someone mentioned if you somehow managed to screw up a bios you could almost buy another identical board for the same price as the price increase. I wouldn't be too tempted by nforce 4 and pcie. Think about it--why in the world do consumers needs pci express? Industry is just pushing it onto the market and trying to force it on consumers who think it's the next big thing. With the exception of SLI graphics (twice the money for a maximum 30% video performance increase that isn't even supported on some games), there is nothing that pci express offers that is remotely necessary. GPU's don't perform any better than their agp counterparts, and agp still has plenty of bandwidth not being used. No other cards need an upgrade from normal pci--the only possibly thing I can think of is maybe nics will need more bandwidth soon--but that's a stretch and a gracious dose of devil's advocate.

[slagburn]

Originally Posted by recover

according to this article..
link.

"the only difference between the K8NSNXP-939 and K8NS Ultra-939 is the missing dps heatsink on the latter.
both boards are identical and bios compatible and will thus be treated as the same board in this guide"

that's a great guide by the way.
it says the bios is compatible to each board..has anyone flashed the k8ns ultra with a bios from the gigabyte site listed for the k8nsnxp??

-recover-

I have, worked fine, and it put DPS Gold in the POST screen along with Dual Bios.
Mine's the cheaper version, which by the way has dual bios, just like the K8NSNXP. So the ONLY difference is the DPS stuff, look at the pics of both and there's a heatsink on one and not the other.