which MB for 939 A64?

nismohks said:
hmm now im leaning more towards the Abit boards. im not much of an overclocker but i know enough so that i wont fry my future new cpu(939 A64 3500+)

just one thing bugs me with the AV8 thrid eye though. its the psu power plug on the MB. im afaid that there might be a fat bunch of cables thats gonna be in the middle of my case(antec P160). HOPEFULLY i am able to route thatcable behind the psu and come out just under it to the MB header like the Antec Lanboy.

btw. is the AV8 fussy with Ram? im thinkning of getting:
PC-3200 1024MB Corsair TwinX 184-pin DDR SDRAM CAS 2 (2x512MB sticks) 400mhz w/aluminium heatspreader

is that any good and is it the right speed for the A64 3500+?

my friend has a av8 and a 3500+, runs great all the time. no memory compatability issues ive heard of.
 
ok i have had enuf. i have now decided to buy my pc parts separately and not at one store since they gave gave me a crappy price! :mad:

anyway its a final toss upp between the MSI K8N, Asus A8v and Abit AV8

definitely leaning towards the MSI board atm. Which model is the best of the MSI boards?
 
holy crap this is hard. ARGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and this is already with SLI options taken out hahhha

anyway i just found out that there are 2 freaking MSI 939 boards. the K8N Neo2 and the K8T Neo 2

Which is better!!!!!!!! all comapred to the AV8 and A8V

NEED HELP!!!!! thanx for putting up with me guys lol
 
go with the neo2 platinum man.....its a sweet mobo.....mine should be here by end of the week along with my 3200+ winnie
 
I recently (last week) faced the same decision as you. I used the Anandtech article linked along with the User Feedback left at Newegg to help narrow down the choices to the same ones. Ultimately, I went with the Asus A8V. Why? Well, quite simply I've had better experiences in the past with Asus and Abit builds than I have with MSI builds. That's not to say it's bad. On the contrary, everything I've heard about it is otherwise. I just felt more comfortable working with a brand I've liked for a while.

So far no probs with the A8V build. Will be running Prime95 tonight to test stability.
 
Take it from someone who had all THREE of the those boards. The MSI Neo2 Plat is the best, it overclocked the best. The VIA chipset does not allow very high 1T clocking of the DDR. And, the MSI, clock for clock, (contrasting 1T to the sucky 2T timing at 280 FSB on the VIA boards) proved to be about 1000 points faster on the CPU score in AM3(13,300 vs 12,200ish). Up until the MSI, my Abit IC7-Max3 with a 4.2 GHz P4 Prescott had better CPU scores (12,700) than my AMD 3200 Winnie at 2.75 GHz. Not so anymore. My Winnie now beats many clocked FX-55 systems using the VIA boards. In fact, at a nice relaxed 2.5 GHz, 9X multi, 1T RAM, at 280 FSB, my CPU score is 12,500. Still higher than the ASUS at 2.7. How 'bout them apples ;)

Most people had issues overclocking the MSI due to two hidden settings. You have to set the memory to "weak" and dsiable the nVidia /ATI speed up option when you overclock.

ASUS A8V board, 84047 on AM3, CPU score 11965

http://arc.aquamark3.com/arc/arc_view.php?run=1693383416

MSI Neo2 Plat board, 89940 on AM3, CPU score 13250

http://arc.aquamark3.com/arc/arc_view.php?run=83805113
 
Get an nForce 3 Board, not VIA. VIA you might get a little better performance, but not worth the overclocking bottleneck.
 
HeavyH20 said:
Take it from someone who had all THREE of the those boards. The MSI Neo2 Plat is the best, it overclocked the best. The VIA chipset does not allow very high 1T clocking of the DDR. And, the MSI, clock for clock, (contrasting 1T to the sucky 2T timing at 280 FSB on the VIA boards) proved to be about 1000 points faster on the CPU score in AM3(13,300 vs 12,200ish).
Synthetic benchmarks don't mean much and in actual games from the tests [H] has run in the past the VIA chipset actually ran a smidge faster than NF3... NF3 had the edge in synthetic stuff and HD benchies. Not saying it's an advantage either way, all I'm saying is the differences are so miniscule that I'd go more on features, reliability, and user experiences than the performance when it's so close.

ShuttleLuv said:
Good luck. :p
Mine's just fine... Not sure if that was sarcasm, plenty of rock-solid A8V OC results on the boards as well.





My A8V has proven to be stable with varying mem timings (all at 1T) up to at 'least 280 FSB (haven't tested higher) but the processor itself is holding me back right now, it Primes at 280 with a multiplier of 8 all day long though... Unless you're doing some heavy OC'ing w/WC/phase and/or using a chip slower than a 3000+ I doubt you'll need to run much higher than that.

My proc doesn't seem to like 2.4GHz+ right now, not sure if it's a voltage issue or what, gonna fiddle with the HT later and see if a higher multiplier will work for some freakish reason (there's been reports of it working despite common wisdom saying not to go over 1,000MHz on the HT bus).
 
Impulse said:
Synthetic benchmarks don't mean much and in actual games from the tests [H] has run in the past the VIA chipset actually ran a smidge faster than NF3... NF3 had the edge in synthetic stuff and HD benchies. Not saying it's an advantage either way, all I'm saying is the differences are so miniscule that I'd go more on features, reliability, and user experiences than the performance when it's so close.


Mine's just fine... Not sure if that was sarcasm, plenty of rock-solid A8V OC results on the boards as well.





My A8V has proven to be stable with varying mem timings (all at 1T) up to at 'least 280 FSB (haven't tested higher) but the processor itself is holding me back right now, it Primes at 280 with a multiplier of 8 all day long though... Unless you're doing some heavy OC'ing w/WC/phase and/or using a chip slower than a 3000+ I doubt you'll need to run much higher than that.

My proc doesn't seem to like 2.4GHz+ right now, not sure if it's a voltage issue or what, gonna fiddle with the HT later and see if a higher multiplier will work for some freakish reason (there's been reports of it working despite common wisdom saying not to go over 1,000MHz on the HT bus).

The screen shots have the memory and CPU at different multipliers. All I can contend is that the Neo2 was better on the memory clocking than the VIA boards. With the same CPU and memory, the VIA boards could not clock as high. For instance,you only have your memory at 209. I run my memory at 280 FSB (reliable, had it as high as 295) and 2520 (9x multi by 280) on the CPU. That was my gaming mode. For O/C benching, I ran it at 275x10. The ASUS could not get the memory reliably over 250 FSB, 1T.

And, I found that while the GFX score can be cheated on AM3, the CPU score cannot. So, maybe the synthetic benchmark final fps result may be inaccurate, the CPU score is not. And, in games, I found the Neo2 faster. If you run the VIA at stock speeds versus the NF3, maybe it is a little faster. But, I have never compared results at stock clocks. I bought the boards for O/C potential, and the VIA boards did not deliver.
 
Sorry if this has been asnwered. but why have you ruled out PCIE? Have you already gotten an AGP video card? If not, that DFI board is the way to go. Its maybe $15 more than the MSI K8N Neo2 for PCI-E and SLI. Not only that, I have see unbelievably awesome memory overclocks on that board....DDR740 anyone? If you have to go AGP, go with the Neo2, I have it and love it, but I think that PCI-E would be smarter if your just building this.

Oh, and as far as your question about The K8N Neo2 and K8T Neo2 FIR and FSR, they are different chipsets. I dont know the difference between the two, but the FIR and FSR are the Via K8T800 chipset. Maybe onces the K8T800 and ones the K8T00 Pro, I havnt looked into all that much. The nForce3 board, the Neo2 Platinum, is by far the best out of all the s939 AGP boards.
 
i ruled out PCIE because i couldnt find a 6600GT with ViVo for it. even n AGP versio of a 6600GT ViVo is hard enough to find..especially in australia
 
nismohks said:
is the MSI PCIe board for a64 any good then?

The K8N Neo4 Platnum is supposed to be a very good board. PCI-E of course, but its not just that. 8 sata ports, raid 5, ect make this board look really promising. I have heard some good OC storries also. With PCI-E really being where the future of video cards it is (after all, ATI is releasing there last AGP card in less than a month), I think it would be foolish not to get a PCIE board, expecially if you dont have a graphics card yet. As far as vivo goes, isnt that on alot of X800 cards? Have you looked into them or are you sold on nvidia?
 
pigz said:
there is (not sure about the nforce4 chipset) only one 939 mobo that is worth it...

MSI K8N NEO2 PLATINUM

ps. great for overclocking
pss. epox has serious issues

Bring me the Epox serious issues. On few other forums, I've seen people having incredible lucks with Epox.
I suggest Gigabyte as other than limited v-core, it has much much better components used through out than MSI as well as better bios option and memory compatibility. (F5 bios is must btw on Giga)
Those who want to dispute me, I went through 5 K8N Neo2 atm or 6th and 2nd Gigabyte. (just S939 alone not counting Asus A8V and few oddities).
Let's just say, I already saw 3 MSI dead board one way or another (either shotty QA or shotty components, you really won't know difference until you start hitting the system)
In fact, I am getting my 2nd RMA board from them sometime next one month -_- (last RMA took longer than a month and they are 20 miles away from me)
(one of dead board went straight back to dealer)
General problem I've seen with MSI is that over time, something that deals with memory on board gets flakey and will start losing over clock... or worse yet, lose one of channel all together. I believe there are some deisgn problem for those who are not running bare stock speed and voltage on things.
Gigabyte on the other hand, was rock solid till I pushed too much voltage for it's power circuit to handle the power. (Don't worry, most of you will never hit the ceilings I've gone to.... 3.4ghz A64 around 1.95v or so is where it collapsed)
I just love these claims of which one works and which one doesn't based on nothing but rumors fed from one to another. :rolleyes:
If you do plan to recommend, you must have used the product at least once and comparible product as well. If not, you are just spreading unsubstantiated rumors. :rolleyes:
 
Back
Top