Motherboards - On comparison for new upgrade

[TeLoS]

I've been scanning the threads for about 2 weeks now and it seems the NF7-S is the best board of choice at the moment.

I'm not a rich person but when i have some money saved i like to know its going in the right place.

I've decided to upgrade my motherboard next, you can see my current setup in my sig, i just updated it as i have been around much till recently and forgot to update it.

I'm a big gamer and like performance more then anything, i can't afford to OC too highly, because any damage is not good news due to lack of cash, though a guaranteed decent overclock that is'nt riskly and will work with what i currently have is a definate bonus.

So whats best for me?......

Epox 8RDA3+
Abit NF7 / Abit NF7-S
Abit AN7
Asus A7N8X / Asus A7N8X Deluxe
DFI LanParty NFII Ultra-B
DFI NFII Ultra Infinity

Major OC'ing is'nt really necessary till i get a CPU worth OC'ing and some faster RAM, so using all the info i've provided above, what would be the best motherboard for me and why?

After the mobo, in no particular order i plan to add the following to my rig.

Corsair or OCZ ram
Maxtor or WD Sata HDD's
AMD CPU Barton Core, 400fsb no particular model, though suggestions for a good OC in the future would be nice

Any suggestions, comments are mostly appreciated.

 

[TeLoS]

=(

Yeah, thats i thought to.....

 

[AmpCoder]

I would get a NF7-S Rev. 2. I have never had any problems with it at all.

 

[lugee]

NF7-S or the A7n8x Deluxe. the E model has more options.


the Delta L isnt that bad. I think it should give you some sufficient gaming ability. (I had this board before i purchased my a7n8x)

What you really need to do is get is a set of high performance ram. unless you really want to get the SATA and 6 channel sound set up, im sure the DeltaL would provide more than enough overclocking power.

CPU, go for the barton 2500. @ 2.2ghz, its runs smooth.

o yea, to answer your question about why these two are the better choice...The NF7-S is a great overclocker. if i was to choose a board over my asus, it would be the nf7. the a7n8x and teh NF7 are the most popular boards on the forums. the majority of the peope use these two boards. So support would be really easy to find. If your looking for a board that will probably last you for a while, gofor the A7n8x-E Dlx. It has gigabit Lan and Wifi (i think) and all the goodies. since you want SATA, these two are a definite choice.

I used several cpu's on my a7n8x (xp1700, barton2500, xp2100, xp2400) they all ran fine at overclocked speeds.

If i were you, i would avoid the boards that are really hard to find support. One way or another your gonna hit a problem.

good luck.

 

[simpleman]

i like my epox

 

[TeLoS]

Current board is quirky, its getting old and has a few issues, none that hinda my gaming mind you, none to serious, but i'd rather have a good working board that'll give me all i need and wont need upgrading again anytime soon (unless i blow it up).

NF7-S looks the best choice so far, but very tempted to see if Abit fix the AN7 issues. Maybe possibly i might even take a good look into the DFI Lan Party beast, nice board, but i dont think i like the glowing PCI's on Infinity one, (or is it the other one? :-s).

Was also hoping to hear from more Epox owners, i can't but be tempted to do a little research into the 8RDA3+, i'm sure i remember good stuff mentioned about it quite alot on here just before its release.

Thanx for comments etc so far all.

Look forward to more comments.

 

[AmpCoder]

I would either wait for the next revision of the AN7, which shouldn't take too much longer, or go ahead and get a NF7-S Rev 2 or DFI Ultra Infinity now..

 

[deadkenny]

OK, my comment is that I don't see the point of upgrading from a K7N2-L to another nForce2 m/b if you don't plan on doing some serious OC'ing. Save the money for a future upgrade or a new video card, as that will have a much bigger impact on your gaming than a m/b upgrade.

 

[TeLoS]

At the moment i can't do any clocking....... board is quirky and does'nt initialize monitors on boot up sometimes, this makes it very hard to OC at all, at least with a new board i could do something with it rather then have it on stock settings all the time.

And who likes upgrading?...... the feeling of adding a new part! i know i do.

 

[kidloco]

Iv recently upgraded from a MSI KT6, it was nothing but trouble, a bugger to boot, constant IDE problems. Got that sick of it I went and bought a NF7S-r2,

This new board is the mutts nuts mate, stable as hell and very quick, not had a single problem with it and XP went onto SATA first time without a hitch. cant reccomend it enough

 

[TeLoS]

Thanx kidloco, very helpful to here your comments......

Always nice to hear from people, wether their experiences be bad or good, input is a good thing.

Seems to be a bit of atmosphere in these forums since i started visiting here again. Well maybe its just me, but it does'nt seem anyone is quite soo chatty these days.

Think i'll prolly hang around for the newer revision of the AN7 just to see what people have to say about it after they fix it.

Keep them comments coming.......

Peace!

 

[DocGiggs]

Hmm.. what I would do...

I've been building systems left and right for the last 4 months, around 20 something in total. I've tried a ton of boards and sine I build custom systems with clients I know personally I walk them through every step of the way so my clients know what they are getting and let them do the choosing. This doesn't mean I don't make any recommendations to my clients, because I do. Basically, here is what I tend to recommend:

For AMD XP systems:

$80 - AMD barton 2500+

$70 - Asus a7n8x-x (for those on a budget)
$110 - Gigabyte GA-7N400 PRO2 (for a nice middle of the road)
$115 - Asus a7n8x deluxe-e (for those with a little extra dough)

All the above mentioned boards are easy to use and all will take a barton 2500+ to 3200+ speeds. Just make sure you don't get any memory slower then pc3200. I'm currently running 1GB of Geil Golden Dragon pc4000 memory in my system and love it.

For AMD 64 systems:

$210 - AMD 64 3000+ (newcastle)

$140 - Asus K8V Deluxe
$130 - MSI K8T Neo FIS2R

I've only built 2 of these systems, and used one of each board. Both boards run smooth and do everything they are suppose to with a little overclockability.

For Intel systems:

$170 - Intel P4 2.4B

$110 - Intel 865PERL (for low price, low adjustability, but stability)
$180 - Asus P4C800E-Delux

I usually go for the Asus with intel systems mainly because of the overclockability on it. I did build one system where a guy got a P4 3.0C and an Intel 865GBF board along with XP Pro for $199 retailers price. Just put that one together last week. I personally don't like the Intel board at all though in terms of adjustability. But for the price it was an awsome deal.

Those are my current recommendations for different systems.

To me though, the best bang for the buck has to be this system for all parts in a system has to be this:

$80 - AMD Barton 2500+ running at 3200+
$110 - Gigabyte GA-7N400 PRO2
$220 - Geil Golden Dragon pc3200 1GB
$220 - EVGA Geforce FX 5900 running at 500/1000
$250 - WD Sata Raptor 10Krpm 74G HDD (if you have the dough get 2 for raid (^^)
$20-50 - for a case you like preferably without a PSU
$27 - Fortron 300W FPS300-60PN PSU
$20-50 - for a heatsink you like, I love the Jet 7 for $40 though
$20 - Rotron Comair Major modded to 12V for 130 CFM of air at 32 dba (buy it from http://www.brigarelectronics.com/Me...e=BE&Product_Code=JQ24B3-E2&Category_Code=FAN ) This is the best air cooling case fan I've seen for the price. You just need one of these monsters. Have fun getting it mounted though. I welded mine in place but there are other ways.
$30 - For a DVD rom to match your case
$100 - for a DVD burner or another $30 for just a CD burner.


~$1100 for a killer system.

There are other ways to skimp if you can't come up with that much money. Going from the Sata drive to a regular 80GB drive will drop the HD costs from 250 to around 80. Also, going for only 512 MB of memory will only cost around $110 instead of $220. Doing just those 2 things will shave almost $300 bucks off the total cost.

While I recommend the AMD usually to most customers, some are adament about the P4 for their own mind boggling reasons. I WILL, however, recommend the P4 to the right customer with certain needs. In particular, I built 2 comps for a couple small recording studios. In each case I highly recommended the P4 for the major advantage in encoding times offered. I also recommended the SB Platnium sound card along with some monitoring speakers. Under most cases though, I don't recommend the sound card because there is a very small difference in performance from the onboard sound on these boards and a good sound card, at least not for the price.

Sorry I droned on, mebbe I should have made this a normal post instead of a reply?

 

[TeLoS]

Hey dude, sorry i had'nt noticed a reply to my thread for a few days, but what a great run down of whats good and whats not, in your own opinion of course. The info above has done me a big favour in recommendations, though i'd personally sway clear of the nvidia cards, especially any FX that are lower then the 5900, but thats another matter.

I'd like to have the option of pruchasing alot of them parts, but a "upgrade 1 bit at a time" kinda guy as thats all my cash will permit me to do as of late.

Also preferably i'd spend more on a better case then as you referred to above, reason being, a nicely built case that requires virtually no screws is nice along with it housing at least 4 case fans is nice to. Current beast will house 5 fans........ thats also helped along with a PCI air exhaust thingy!!... ....

I hear yer on the memory, i have 768 of PC3200 which is rather nice, though something a bit faster and a higher amount will be considered in the future.

HDD's, Sata is something i've not have the pleasure of using yet, i doubt i'll have anu issues, and i'm definately a WD or Maxtor man when it comes to HDD's. Only used Maxtor myself but know alot of people that build using WD's, so its pretty easy to choose a decent HDD in that sense.

I'm hoping to stray into the industry somehow toward the future, and i'd like to know when working customers i understand the parts and how they work, and have some good knowledge on what i'm recommending, its nice to see you share the same kind of approach i'd like to use myself.

Thanx for the input matey!