ASUS A8N-E Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 Ultra ATX AMD Motherboard

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I am RMAing my Epox mobo tommorow and have been researching all night long for a repleacement board. I have decided on the ASUS A8N-E Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 Ultra ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813131530 ) since I will probably go 8800 before I go SLI again. I based my decision mainly on folks posts here and customer reviews at Newegg and through Google searches. I will cross post this in the AMD mobo section also for wider coverage but if a Mod must delete I understand. Please the one in Asus section.

I will be running the following components on it and just wanted to see if anyone has any thoughts/input/warnings before I order this. Probably by lunch tommorow.

Components:

-Athlon 64 FX-55 San Diego 2.6GHz 1MB L2 Cache w/ an AC Freezer 64 Pro
-4x PC3200 ram - (my son grabbed the tight OCZ while I'm waiting on parts so when I build it will probably be some Kingston Value ram and I'll upgrade it later)
eVGA 512-P2-N573-AR GeForce 7900GTO 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 Video Card
-Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3320620AS 320GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive (OS drive)
-2x Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 ST3250824AS 250GB 7200 RPM 8MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive (storage)
-AuzenTech XMYSTIQUE7.1 7.1 Channels 24-bit 96KHz sound card

 

[icurfatass]

what was wrong with your epox that made you return it? which epox did you have? I am deciding a8n-e and EPoX EP-9NPA3ULTRA. The epox should be better in OC.

 

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9PNA+ SLI It would not handle more than 2 SATA drives.

 

[icurfatass]

do you plan on overclocking? Did you overclock with the epox? If you did, what were the results? When you get the asus, can you over clock too? I want to see which one is better. From the forum, epox has a better reputation in overclocking.

Can't you use sata controllers to handle more sata drives?

Remember A8N-e is not sli

 

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I will OC on the new board to test but usually just keep stock on main gaming rig.
I did not get great OCing results from my Epox even with an FX-55 2.6 San Diego CABCE chip.
I also had multiple problems with applying SP2 and the board itself had a defect when it came to the SATAs. It has 4 ports but something did not work on them. Multiple tests proved this. http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=484208&highlight=epox

I'm not running SLI right now anymore and probably will not. I have a 7900 GT/GTO now that handles everything I throw at it with all settings maxed out. Next card will be an 8800 when they are semi-reasonable in price.

 

[baltoos]

The A8N-E has a quirk when overclocking. It will not run 1T Command at anything more than ~240-245HTT. Since you won't really be o/c'ing it much, it should be just fine.
-Dave

 

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Just came today. I will put it all together on Saturday. I've got 4 builds to do that day.

 

[wesleys_dad]

asus a8n-e

very good choise on the board.the 1T issue isnt with all boards.ive run upwards of 260htt running with 1T using corsair xms 3200c2 ram.ive never experienced it at all.no one has isolated why some setups will not do 1T over 240 as far as i know.this is without a doubt one of the finest boards ive owned.i run my system at 250htt,1 to 1 with the ram and its been o/clocked from day 1.its stable as a rock and has never crashed or blue screened.its a rock solid board.you will be very happy with it........