What motherboard has stayed relevant for you the longest?

brinstar117

Limp Gawd
Joined
Mar 11, 2010
Messages
213
By relevant, I mean a motherboard that served as the backbone for your main desktop computer the longest by virtue of having the longest upgrade path. I really want to hear about some crazy lengths some of you may have gone through to keep a motherboard competitive.

I imagine that there will be some good 'ol 440BX Slot 1 motherboards that will have survived from Pentium II -> Pentium III Tualatin chips through judicious uses of adapters and slotkets. Having a motherboard from 1998 to 2003ish in those days was insane, not to mention the Tualatins were outperforming Intel's Pentium 4 line.

I am sure that AMD motherboards will have nice long runs as the company has a long standing history of supporting their sockets long term.

Honorable mentions are welcome if you want to mention motherboards that just keep on truckin' even though they no longer serve as your main desktop. I'm sure I'll see file servers and firewalls galore.
 
asus a8n-e, went from a 3700+ to a x2 4200+ was legit! kept that for probably 4 years
 
DFI Ultra D, and DFI x48, both still running. the Ultra D was a replacement for another board. X48 was just replaced a few months ago and will fine it's home as a new Home Server, the Ultra D is the bedroom HTPC.
 
Shuttle AN35N Ultra with Athlon XP 2500. Very stable, can leave running for weeks without issue and still running to this day although not used as much. I value stability and have had better luck with AMD when flip flopping between AMD and Intel.

Looks like I'm not alone judging by the reviews:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813150045
 
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The original BadAxe (that's a 775 for the first Core2s). It eventually ran out of RAM. Too bad these things don't take registered memory and then Chrome came along. Hah! KABOOM.

My 4-socket socket 940 Supermicro but that's cheating :)

My X8DAi (dual 1366) but it's getting a bit long in the teeth and faster CPUs for it are still expensive.
 
It's certainly not a crazy length of usage, but my long runner was the Asus P4C800-E Deluxe. Took me from a 2.4 Northwood to a 3.2 Prescott.

I think I ran with it from 2003 to 2007 when I finally moved to a machine with PCI-E for the 8800GTS 640MB.
 
Not so old but my x48 Rampage Extreme still kicks mad 775 butt. Super honorable mention to my epox ep-9npa ultra, dfi nf4 ultra-d and my gone but not forgotten asus pc-dl.
 
At home my ASUS P5Q Pro is by far the longest I have owned a motherboard. I purchased this for a linux based HTPC on Black Friday of 2008 (35% cashback off ebay price deal sponsored by live.com using the profits of selling AMD shares - oh the irony..) and it has run every single day since it was installed. At work we had an athlon system run 10 years although I can not remember the motherboard.
 
Abit IP35 pro, still using it!
Tossed in a Asus pcie 4x sata3 card to add 2 more ports, nothing else changed.
 
Asus P35-Deluxe Wireless running my HTPC. Core2Duo, S775

Asus Rampage Formula running a Q9450, S775 for my wife's webpage and my daughter's homework.....the thing is practically bulletproof.:D

Got a Gigabyte P965 DS3 with a Q6600, that I use for folding and testing components.

For light work in my office I have a Shuttle XPC that has an nForce chipset and an FX-53 CPU.......I think I bought it in 2004......has a discrete GPU.....BFG GT6800..........best little PC I've even seen.
 
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The oldest system I currently have is my retro gaming rig.

The motherboard is an ASUS K7V (slot A Athlon)

It is running at T-Bird Athlon (The only Slot-A chips that had on-die L2 cache).

Video card is a 3dfx Vodoo5-5500

Sound card is a SoundBlaster Awe64 Gold!

It doesn't get powered up very often, but it runs like a champ.

I modified the Athlon Heatspreader and a S939 heatpipe cooler to cool the CPU. It doesn't even get warm.

I also have an old Tyan S1854 board running a PIII-933. It was also meant to be set up as a retro gaming machine, but I never got around to it. I have an ATI 9800 pro that will be going into that machine.

Both of these systems are in old Dell Dimension cases like this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Dell_XPS_T600R.jpg

Just a bit of rewiring for standard motherboard plugs and they are really nice cases for retro systems.
 
Asus A7N8X Deluxe. That baby was a beast! Those nForce2 chipsets were good.

If I remember correctly, I began using a Thunderbird Athlon (model escapes my memory), then an Athlon XP 2800+ (Throroughbed) and finally an Athlon XP 3000+ (Barton). In order to unlock those little guys you had to do a "pencil trick"... I believe I took the Barton from 2.1GHz to 2.6GHz or so; I cooled it with a Koolance Exos.

It lived inside a Thermaltake Xaser III, with a side window. I also had a bazillion lights in there that pulsed at the rhythm of music. Heh, it was my Fast and Furious Computer Guy era.

Heck, I still have it around. I bet my left arse it would still run.
 
My daily use/gaming computer
EVGA 680i SLI
part of build in Q1/2 2007
decommissioned due to failure in Q3 2013

Kids daily use/gaming computer
Shuttle rebranded SN78SH7
2010ish - Current
 
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DFI Ultra D, and DFI x48, both still running. the Ultra D was a replacement for another board. X48 was just replaced a few months ago and will fine it's home as a new Home Server, the Ultra D is the bedroom HTPC.

I logged in just to reply that I had a DFI Ultra D that I used for a long time too, I still do, in the closet, and that thing was a beast. Opteron 60% overclock for the bragging rights.
 
EVGA 680i SLI

Hail the 680i! They had some problems but mine's been good to me. I'm not sure what qualifies as relevant, as it's an old gaming machine that's now just a box in the corner that only gets used for internet-looking-at, but it's still chugging after 7 years with a Conroe and an ancient Asetek AIO liquid cooler.
 
Oldest but no longer relevant would by my first build, Athlon thunderbird which still works.
Modified heatsink, air duct with a panaflo keeping the IBM 60gig deskstar [has not exploded yet]
somewhat cool in the original case which is damn rough compared to what we have today.
It did not even have a rear fan for exhaust so I mounted with screws a screaming Delta 50mm.

Abit board before they went to all Rubycon's. Surprised the jayco caps have not leaked yet.

1qiu00.jpg
 
Abit AN7 with Athlon XP 2600+ barton. Had built several PC before that but all are Intel. AMD at that time was super fun & highly tweak-able, upgraded to a DFI nF3 LanParty 250Gb with an 754 A64 3000+. Performance improvement was huge, games run much more smooth, might be the IMC that first introduced with the 754 platform?
/Still remember I had to use a 40x40x25mm Sanyo Denki 8000 rpm fan to cool the nF3 chipset or it will crash while stress testing. LOL. And my A64 3000+ was delidded :D
/Still using 1024x768 CRT back then, what a time :)
 
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ASUS P5B Deluxe (Socket 775).

Used it for 4 years with 3 different CPU (E6400 > E8400 > Q9550).

I loved it.
 
Definitely X58/i7 920 build. Really has lasted a long time and I still don't see a reason to upgrade.
 
Abit board before they went to all Rubycon's.

I miss Abit. The board that indoctrinated me into this system building show was a Slot-1 BX6. To this day I don't think there's been a faster way devised to turn your cpu molten than Softmenu II voltage tweak was.

Before that board I was a computer "user". Since then I've been a geek.
 
Longest is actually OEM S370 board. Then the following sockets...

478 (4 Years) Gigabyte
AM3 (1 Year) ASUS
775 (4 Years) Gigabyte
1155 (3 Years +) ASUS

Highly doubt I am buying 1150 given it's destined to be limited in future compatibility like 1156 before it and there's a dramatic architecture change in store.
 
Any amd motherboard I have had, particularly my socket-A motherboard, can't remember which one but it was a asus.

And no intel motherboard ever.....I currently have a Maximus V Formula Socket 1155 and it is already irrelevant and waiting to be replaced with the new 2011 revision later this year.
 
Asus P5B-E in my Lian Li PC-61 from 2006. First PC I ever built.

Still chugging along like a champ. :)
 
Asus A7N8X Deluxe. That baby was a beast! Those nForce2 chipsets were good.

If I remember correctly, I began using a Thunderbird Athlon (model escapes my memory), then an Athlon XP 2800+ (Throroughbed) and finally an Athlon XP 3000+ (Barton). In order to unlock those little guys you had to do a "pencil trick"... I believe I took the Barton from 2.1GHz to 2.6GHz or so; I cooled it with a Koolance Exos.

It lived inside a Thermaltake Xaser III, with a side window. I also had a bazillion lights in there that pulsed at the rhythm of music. Heh, it was my Fast and Furious Computer Guy era.

Heck, I still have it around. I bet my left arse it would still run.

+1

I loved my A7N8X Deluxe. I think I used it in my primary rig for 10 years... Way beyond its "competitive upgrade path", but it still ran everything I needed it to. Toward the end though I was about ready to pitch it out the window. Glad I didnt. I have plans to make it a decorative piece in my new office soon.
 
Either was my Abit NF7-S rev1 I had paired with a Barton, Radeon 9500 moded into a 9700 and oc'ed and 2 gigs of Corsair DDR that was just flat out beastly...
Or maybe my DFI LanParty NF4 with a X2 3800, dual EVGA Geforce 6800 GT's and 4 gigs of OCZ DDR2.
I miss my old pcs sometimes...
 
Asrock 775Dual VSTA.

This beast had DDR1 and DDR2!! It also had AGP 8x and PCIe x4 slot lol.
 
Asus A8N-32 SLI Deluxe. I only upgraded CPU once, a single core Opteron at 1.8Ghz to a Dual Core Opteron at 1.8Ghz. I O/Ced that Dual core Opteron from 1.8 to 3.015GHz on Air and ran that from 2006 to my Sandy Bridge upgrade back in 2011.
 
Gonna say the x58 platform. Started with a 758A1, went back to s775 for a while and then bought my first Classified. 3 E760s later , I've finally decided to try s2011. All 3 760s are still in use. I just did some friends favors when they were upgrading and need hardware. I'm gonna say a good 5 years - can't remeber when x58 came out but I was there from the beginning until a month ago
 
Probably a tie between;
Abit NF7-S, which existed as about 3 separate systems
AMD 1700+ (AGOIA if memory serves), Barton 2500 (i think I managed 2.6ghz stable on air), and eventually a 3200+ which is still running today.

DFI SLI-DR, which has really made its way around the house
Originally a gaming machine with an Athlon 64 3400, then a Opteron 165, then it got a video card swap and became an HTPC, then it got another few swaps and 7 additional hard drives and it became a home media server, then it got an Opteron 175 and became a second gaming machine gain with a newer HD, then it was decommissioned. I've now got it back up and running with 4 r9 270's doing Litecoin mining.
 
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