Best Basic Nforce4 ultra mobo??

A

allygash

n00b
Joined
Aug 11, 2004
Messages
26
Hi guys,

need another mobo 4 my other pc, amd3500 with 6800gt pci to go in. I dont need SLI on this one, or a sound chip(have spare SB audigy 2 zs). Only 2 HD's to go in(no raid etc). I'm lookin for the most basic nforce 4 ultar board out there, dont need all the bells n whistles.. Was looking at abit & asus any recommendations?

Thx.
 
i like the referbed dfi-lp ultra d , the ECS also seems to be a good mb . i have heard lots of good things about the chaintec--but i haven't built one. :cool:
 
The chaintech's are nice, good entry level nf4 board. Take a look at the ABIT AN8 too.
 
I have that ECS KN1 board and I've been having some bios issues. The CPU thermal throttling seems to be stuck at 50% even though I changed it in the bios, still shows 5x for the multiplier in ClockGen instead of 10x. I've been considering that new DFI-DAGF, anyone try that yet? It's $89 at newegg
 
Not all A8N-Es can overclock properly. Some have a currently unresloved issue where the HTT multiplier is fixed at 5x no matter what it is set at in any bios except 1001, limiting HTT to 220MHz. The chipset fans are noisy or unreliable, or both. If you intend to overclock your board I would suggest getting a DFI UT Ultra-D refurb from newegg; this is what I did.

My A8N-E maxed my 3200+ at 2.45GHz on bios 1001, my DFI refurb currently runs it at 2.6GHz (highest tested so far). All other parts are identical. Using bios 1001 means that you will lose SATA-II support and have MBR changes/errors if you install recent NVidia IDE drivers.

However, the A8N-E is perfect at stock settings, and the chipset is located out of the way of the 16x PCIE slot, allowing use of a tall passive heatsink. I sold mine to someone who will use it for a HTPC application, which it will be well suited for.
 
Epox 9nda+ is nice except for the position of the IDE connector if you've got a real long card like a 7800. I can't believe more people don't use these boards. Epox is good quality, no gimmicks and frills type stuff.
 
curtisfong said:
Not all A8N-Es can overclock properly. Some have a currently unresloved issue where the HTT multiplier is fixed at 5x no matter what it is set at in any bios except 1001, limiting HTT to 220MHz. The chipset fans are noisy or unreliable, or both. If you intend to overclock your board I would suggest getting a DFI UT Ultra-D refurb from newegg; this is what I did.

My A8N-E maxed my 3200+ at 2.45GHz on bios 1001, my DFI refurb currently runs it at 2.6GHz (highest tested so far). All other parts are identical. Using bios 1001 means that you will lose SATA-II support and have MBR changes/errors if you install recent NVidia IDE drivers.

However, the A8N-E is perfect at stock settings, and the chipset is located out of the way of the 16x PCIE slot, allowing use of a tall passive heatsink. I sold mine to someone who will use it for a HTPC application, which it will be well suited for.
Click to expand...
Even BIOS 1008? You'd think that they'd fix it by then...
 
The Chaintech VNF4/Ultra is about $30-40 cheaper than the ASUS, and it overclocks very well. I had my Venice at 300x9 = 2.7Ghz with it. It has a great range of VCore and VDimm voltages. I wouldn't even consider a different cheap NF4 Ultra board.
 
i have an ECS board and ive had them in the past with no problems. maybe i was just lucky ho knows :D
 
epox 9npaj. cheap, has everything, stable.

very truly yours,
politenessman
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top