[Nyn]

This is my first post on the forums so be gentle.

Some Background:

I've been involved with computers/computer enthusiasts since I was about 5 years old and got my first Computer (Comodore 128). Since then I've owned various systems along the way and by the time I was in my teens was simply building my own systems as it was the only way to truely get what I wanted.

That being said, I do spend a fair amount of time researching buying decisions, pouring over reviews and test data from users here on these forums as well as enthusiast sites. I like to know what it is my hard earned dollars are getting and like most I generally try to get the most bang for the buck on a budget.

I do a yearly upgrade/build. So, every year sometime in the months just after christmas I've managed to save around a thousand bones to drop on some new hardware. This year happend to be an exciting/awkward time for my build. In previous years the solutions and upgrades were fairly simple and didn't require a whole lot of real hardline thought. Everything was AGP, everything (for gamers) was running better on Athlon processors, pc3200 was what you bought and about the biggest hard hitting decision (for some) was do I buy a Radeon or an Nvidia GPU? This year we have PCI-E, 64 bit processors, SLI, and a slew of new bells and whistles to choose from.

For the better part of my time I've been an Abit supporter and used their boards in my own systems almost exclusively. I've been happy with thier products over the years, they've (generally) overclocked well, and have all the latest bells and whistles that most enthusiasts would want.

After weighing options and looking at prices I opt'd to go with the MSI K8N Neo4 SLI board from which to build my platform this year. And I have to be honest, I remember a time when MSI boards were sub par at best and frankly moving from my tried and true Abit boards was scarey. However, I knew I wanted to go SLI this year and I knew that Abit's offering won't be out for some time (if ever) given the current fiscal state of the company. I looked at ASUS as I know them to also be a reputable company and have had friends use them in the past. In comparing what I would get from Asus or DFI or MSI SLI boards I came to the following conclusions:

1. Asus is feckin expensive.
2. I didn't like DFI's board layout
3. MSI uses an SBLive audio chip (i skimp on audio)
4. For the 189$ pricetag from Newegg the MSI board was the most feature packed at the best price.

So I decided to take the plunge and give MSI a try. System specs are as follows:

MSI K8N Neo4 SLI
Athlon 64 3500 (.13 micron)
1gig (512x2 Corsair Value Ram)
36 Gig WD Raptor Drive
1x MSI Nvidia 6600 GT
Thermal Take 480 watt Silent Purepower PSU

With case, fans, and some extras I was able to real this rig in just around $1000 usd.

I also had to order the PSU 20 to 24 pin power converter from another online retailer. As I found out last Friday when my hardware arrived the PSU did not come with the adapter and made me for a rather grumpy guy over the past weekend.

Last night I put it all together and fired it up. All I can say about the board is.. flawless. Being that it is a new system everything is at stock speeds presently, but I had not one issue with installation. The system is up, stable, running cool, and doing it's burn in thing.

Anyway I just wanted to sing my inital praise of the K8N Neo4 SLI board. Again I was a bit sceptical about switching.. but so far I'm very impressed and happy with the decision.

After I give the rig some burn in timie I'll start messing with OC'in this thing and seeing just what she can do... although I suspect I will be limited due to my Ram.

Future upgrades that I intend to make happen over the next 3~6 months.

Second Raptor 36 gig in Raid 0 config
Second 6600 GT in SLI mode
Replacing the Value Ram with more OC friendly Ram / moving to 2 gig.

If you read this far thanks and Big initial to the K8N Neo4 SLI board!

[lazygirl88]

hi.. I just ordered a neo4.. and my PSU is 20pin.. do i need to buy the 20-->24 pin converter for this board?

[mostholy]

no you can just use the 20 pin from your power supply. Just did mine that way yesterday and it works just fine.

[Nyn]

The particular PSU I ordered (Thermaltake Silent Purepower 480) did not come with a 20 to 24 pin adapter. I did read that people were using a straight 20 pin on the motherboard ~ however if you do that you will loose the functionality of the onboard SBLive chip. I ordered a 20 to 24 pin adapter and the system including the SBLive audio work just fine.

I'd recomend spending the 10 bucks for the adapter.

Nyn

[Freezer26]

Ok my question to all you professionals, I just cancelled my order quickly from newegg. Two reason's: 1.) I was reading the fine print and saw that it says nothing about supporting this:

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...103-501&depa=0

All I see people with is the 3500+ or better....???

and B.) I found it cheaper than newegg somewhere else!! LOL But I still love newegg dont get me wrong!!

So please help me!! If not this mobo, which one should I go with??
Needs: PCI - xpress, SATA, and that's about it, but a good OC'er..Thanks to all!!

Quote: "The only fool bigger than the person who knows it all is the person who argues with him."

[ookabooka]

Uhm, it is a socket 939 mobo, it will support socket 939 processors, including the 3000+. Does anyone happen to know if this thing supports pci/agp/pci-ex lock? Also if the onboard SATA RAID would be locked as well.

[Sentential]

Originally Posted by ookabooka

Uhm, it is a socket 939 mobo, it will support socket 939 processors, including the 3000+. Does anyone happen to know if this thing supports pci/agp/pci-ex lock? Also if the onboard SATA RAID would be locked as well.

Yes its all locked

[Sentential]

As for the nature of the PSUs you will need a 24 pin PSU for an Nforce4. Such examples of a 24 pin would be Fortron Blue Storm, Fortron 550W / 530W. And any of OCZ's Powerstream modles 420/520/600.


____

Also the Nforce4s support as low as 3000+ since they have BIOS to support the winchester cores. This was only an issue on the origional board about 4 months ago