Which SLI board?

did MSI change the spacing between the two boards from the orignal SLI board they had?
 
I'd say hold out for the DFI... that's what I'm doing. Everyone says the kinks will get worked out on things but I tend to not trust that anymore- look at the FX series, everyone said it'd get better with drivers :rolleyes:
 
Topher said:
I'd say hold out for the DFI... that's what I'm doing. Everyone says the kinks will get worked out on things but I tend to not trust that anymore- look at the FX series, everyone said it'd get better with drivers :rolleyes:
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SHHHSH...I'm still trying to be optimistic. :p

Eh, figure I've got a week or three before the DFI comes out, I'll give this board at least that long. ;)
 
Arvig said:
SHHHSH...I'm still trying to be optimistic. :p

Eh, figure I've got a week or three before the DFI comes out, I'll give this board at least that long. ;)
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Ah yes, the song of the truly desperate. LOL :D
 
Arvig said:
SHHHSH...I'm still trying to be optimistic. :p

Eh, figure I've got a week or three before the DFI comes out, I'll give this board at least that long. ;)
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oh yeah and if you haven't heard yet... the nforce 4 ultra and nforce 4 sli are like the exact same thing except for one small thing.. all you have to do is bridge two contacts on the 4 ultra and you've got yourself an SLI ;)
 
James Earl Ray said:
Ah yes, the song of the truly desperate. LOL :D
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This from the guy who did the voice of Darth Vader...no wait...I might be confused. ;)

Yes, I'm going off topic, but if I remember right, some orginization was giving a plaque for charity work to James Earl Jones...and yes, they did goof up and enscribe it to "James Earl Ray". :D

And I'm not desperate. I haven't hit fan boy level and screaming insults to anyone who complains about the board. THAT level is desperate, I'm just optimistic. :p

EDIT: Weird, the word "fan boy" when typed as one word was edited to this !!!!!!. Is fan boy as one word considered vulgarity? I've seen people type real vulgarity (you know, four letter words starting with "F" and "S" for instance' and not have them edited).
 
Lets compare notes ;) I will migrate to Gigabyte k8nxp sli and post the oc results here.
Edit: DXG only for enabling multi monitors...or is it?
 
Topher said:
oh yeah and if you haven't heard yet... the nforce 4 ultra and nforce 4 sli are like the exact same thing except for one small thing.. all you have to do is bridge two contacts on the 4 ultra and you've got yourself an SLI ;)
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Not exactly. The Ultra-D uses what they call DXG(Dual Xpress Graphics) its not true SLI.
 
James Earl Ray said:
DFI should be the first choice, MSI second. I wouldnt even consider the ASUS. :D
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I have to say I am dissapointed in Asus this time around. Usually their quality is second to none. Especially not DFI or MSI.

I would consider an MSI board but DFI is out of the question.
 
Arvig said:
This from the guy who did the voice of Darth Vader...no wait...I might be confused. ;)

Yes, I'm going off topic, but if I remember right, some orginization was giving a plaque for charity work to James Earl Jones...and yes, they did goof up and enscribe it to "James Earl Ray". :D
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Are you sure they "Goofed"? :D
 
James Earl Ray said:
Are you sure they "Goofed"? :D
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Well...I'll assume for now they did. I mean the two men do look a tiny bit different, and are famous for slightly different reasons. ;)
 
Sir-Fragalot said:
I have to say I am dissapointed in Asus this time around. Usually their quality is second to none. Especially not DFI or MSI.

I would consider an MSI board but DFI is out of the question.
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We shall see.
 
James Earl Ray said:
Not exactly. The Ultra-D uses what they call DXG(Dual Xpress Graphics) its not true SLI.
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hmm didn't know that... didn't see any mention of that when I read about it but depending on the price difference and what difference the true sli has over it, it may still be better to just get the ultra
 
James Earl Ray said:
We shall see.
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We all know that dfi, msi, giga, asus and chaintech mobos will be all available at retail channels by the end of the month and which ones will be a winner :D
 
The ASUS kind of sucks for overclocking. And, the latest BIOS, 1003 Final, reduced the VCore options to 1.55V max. :mad: They are going the wrong way. They are catering more and more to the OEM market than enthusiasts. More money in that game. The VDIMM is decent, but the RAM gave me fits with anything higher than 240FSB with 1T.

So, dumping the ASUS and going with MSI, since that has more immediate availability. The DFI will be hard to get until the end of next month, especially with all the ASUS owners looking for a second board!
 
centvalny said:
We all know that dfi, msi, giga, asus and chaintech mobos will be all available at retail channels by the end of the month and which ones will be a winner :D
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You can already get a couple Gigabyte boards including a SLI, and although it sells out quickly, the Chaintech NForce 4 Ultra has been in stock for almost as long as the ASUS now. But yeah, next month will be interesting to see which boards have complaints, which ones have praise...and which ones have no comments and seem to be ignored for the most part.
 
Arvig said:
You can already get a couple Gigabyte boards including a SLI, and although it sells out quickly, the Chaintech NForce 4 Ultra has been in stock for almost as long as the ASUS now. But yeah, next month will be interesting to see which boards have complaints, which ones have praise...and which ones have no comments and seem to be ignored for the most part.
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We will see Gigabyte sli in action soon :D I hope it will kick the hell out of my neo2 ;)
Edit: If not then DFI is the next in line....Gigabyte with a lot of features that arent neccessary for benching. I have to disable most of it in bios :(
 
centvalny said:
We will see Gigabyte sli in action soon :D I hope it will kick the hell out of my neo2 ;)
Edit: If not then DFI is the next in line....Gigabyte with a lot of features that arent neccessary for benching. I have to disable most of it in bios :(
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You have the Gigabyte SLI board then? Or are getting it soon?
 
I'm still concerned about the gigabyte board. The ram banks seem way to close, too close that it looks like they are out of standard. I don't want my ramsinks to be touching each other. Seems like their thinking is heat them all up to the same temp so when one gets too hot, it'll take the others with it. Maybe they are in cahoots with memory manufactures. all joking aside, the gigabyte board is out of question for me. The DFI board is looking better and better every day asus jerks these people around.
 
LittleMe said:
I'm still concerned about the gigabyte board. The ram banks seem way to close, too close that it looks like they are out of standard. I don't want my ramsinks to be touching each other. Seems like their thinking is heat them all up to the same temp so when one gets too hot, it'll take the others with it. Maybe they are in cahoots with memory manufactures. all joking aside, the gigabyte board is out of question for me. The DFI board is looking better and better every day asus jerks these people around.
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One thing I noticed about the BIOS screenshots of one of the Gigabyte reviews, the CPU voltage could go all the way up to 1.75, but the memory voltage only .2 over standard. If they call standard 2.5 on that board, that's 2.7. If it's 2.6, that's 2.8. My memory's suggested voltage at stock speeds is 2.75, as I said before I have Corsair PC 3200 XMS XL Pro. If it maxes out at 2.7, I'd be slightly undervolting my memory. :rolleyes:

As to the final only volting to 1.55...hopefully when they put back up a new final 1003 (they did yank the old one...was it a beta-final? ;) ), that won't be the case. But I guess again I'll see what they do, and go from there....with all due respect seems odd talking about what's in 1003 final when they yanked it back off anyway, at least as of now.

EDIT: I thought the lower voltage options were only for Winchester core CPU's though? Not that such is great for a Winnie core overclocker, especially a guy on a Vapochill or some such, but I thought one could still hit 1.65 with an older core, or an AMD 64-FX.
 
Yes, I saw they yanked the 1003 Final. I had already downloaded it and used it a bit. So, never had to go back and look to see if it was still there. And, that was last night when it was available, so it is a pretty recent pull back. The 1.55 limit is indeed for the lower VCore chips like the Winnie. But, I used to run it higher so that on my MSI I could get to 2.75 GHz. Now, I am kind of stuck at around 2.5 GHz.

And, after running AM3, the CPU score is a paltry 11,200. At the same 2.5 GHz on the MSI Neo2, 12,500. Big swing. But, I should have an MSI SLI board to test by Wednesday/Thursday. I want to see what that has first hand. I still think the DFI board will be the best, but the MSI looks promising.

One other item, has anyone noticed strange memory timings reported using A64Tweaker? It seems like the tool is not reporting right.
 
James Earl Ray said:
The MSI board has been revised since the reference sample. I wonder if that is a good thing?
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Hopefully, they are trying to answer the features on the DFI board, and take notice of the ASUS issues ;)

May be good, may be bad. But, I guess I will find out soon enough.

The good thing is that I did not waste any money on these Innovatek NV40 blocks. A few minutes with a dremel, and voila, no more cap in the way! Fits nicely on the 6800 Ultra PCI-E cards. Now, the single slot back plates can go on. No more double slot backplate.

blocks7eg.jpg
 
Well, it is coming straight from HongKong. So, it is called the Diamond, not the Platinum. No difference, but for marketing purposes, Platinum is the US name.
 
I can't wait to get a hold of mine. I've been looking at watercooling them but I'm not sure yet. Do the cards block the chipset or can you still watercool it?
 
I am not watercooling the ASUS one, and boy is does it whine. I will have to look at the MSI placement, since the PCI-E 16X slots are closer to each other. But, if it as noisy as the ASUS, then I will have to figure out a way, even if there is no room.
 
I had to pay $599 each. It may seem a little steep, but it seems that some of the vendors are revisiting the MSRP of their cards. This is what evga is setting it at going forward. For now, that is.
 
Nah, thats not steep. Mine were 799 each. I guess thats lower than everybody else who had them in stock at 1000+ a piece.
 
HeavyH20 said:
Well, it is coming straight from HongKong. So, it is called the Diamond, not the Platinum. No difference, but for marketing purposes, Platinum is the US name.
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I thought the Diamond was the equivelent of the "Deluxe" in the ASUS A8N-SLI line, and the DR in the DFI's...i.e. 8 SATA ports instead of four, and some other extras. Also seen a shot of a "Diamond" that had a small fan on the MOSFET heatsink, off to the side kind of, while the Platinum was missing that and just had a heatsink there.
 
Here's a cut from a review

There will be two versions of the MSI nForce4 SLI board shipping worldwide; in the US it will be called the MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum/SLI but in the rest of the world it will be called the MSI K8N Diamond. There will be some slight changes in the specs between the two but nothing major.
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I'm guessing they mean just a fan or something?
 
Hmm. I know they were marketing it a little different, but never realized the small items. But, sounds like the Diamond is a bit better? I wonder why the US version would get short changed a bit? I will have to peak at the MSI site and see what is up.

EDIT: As far as I can tell, it looks like a similar spec for both. There is a fan on the MOSFET heatsink on the Diamond that the Platinum does not have, as noted, but the specs look similar. Both have 6 SATA II ports (4 on nVidia, 2 on Silicon), etc.
 
I have the MSI Platinum SLi - i'll be damned if i know what it is called in the US, but i am finding the board pretty nice :D. It is the one down from the diamond, it only had one ethernet connection, and "only" 4 SATA via the NF4 chipset.

havent updated the bios to the latest yet and am running it at 10x265, 180/200 divider on the RAM, 2.85v on ram, 1.58Vcore, couple of notched up on NF4 (cant remeber what exactly as at work ;). This is my first MSI board and i am impressed so far, i wish there was a bit more Vcore, but pretty nice really. A factor for me was the onboard sound which is Soundblasted live, and is far superior to the ALC850 i had to endure (still missing soundstorm :( )

NANA
 
bananaman said:
I have the MSI Platinum SLi - i'll be damned if i know what it is called in the US, but i am finding the board pretty nice :D. It is the one down from the diamond, it only had one ethernet connection, and "only" 4 SATA via the NF4 chipset.

havent updated the bios to the latest yet and am running it at 10x265, 180/200 divider on the RAM, 2.85v on ram, 1.58Vcore, couple of notched up on NF4 (cant remeber what exactly as at work ;). This is my first MSI board and i am impressed so far, i wish there was a bit more Vcore, but pretty nice really. A factor for me was the onboard sound which is Soundblasted live, and is far superior to the ALC850 i had to endure (still missing soundstorm :( )

NANA
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I think the Diamond has the fan on the MOSFET heatsink, and extra SATA ports controlled by a Sil chip, up and beyond the 4 NVidia chipset SATA ports.

Well, then again I guess I could look on MSI's site. :)

Weird, they only list the Platinum on the USA site, and it has six SATA ports, but no little heatsink over to the side for the MOSFET heatsink.

Went to MSI's Global site, found this, the K8N Diamond:

http://www.msi.com.tw/program/products/mainboard/mbd/pro_mbd_detail.php?UID=638

And this, the K8N Platinum:

http://www.msi.com.tw/program/products/mainboard/mbd/pro_mbd_detail.php?UID=641

Diamond has the heatsink I mentioned, and two extra SATA ports via a Silicon Image controller, among other things.

So...I guess our Platinum might be a hybred of the Global's Diamond and Platinum?

For the record, the USA site's K8N Neo4 Platinum SLI. No MOSFET fan, just a heatsink, but does have two Silicon Image SATA ports up and beyond the 4 NVidia ones:

http://www.msicomputer.com/product/p_spec.asp?model=K8N_Neo4_Platinum/SLI&class=mb
 
LittleMe said:
So, I'm reading all the problems with the A8N-SLI, which has me a little concerned. It's probably going to be 2 - 3 weeks before I order whatever board I'm going to get. Should I go ahead and just get the A8N-SLI and hope all gets fixed or should I go with the Gigabyte board or hold out for the MSI or DFI boards? I've gone with a 3500+ A64, 2x512MB sticks of OCZ PC-3200 Platinum Edition Rev2 and 2xAsus v9999's (GeForce 6800 Ultra's). Yea, I actually found a place with 2 6800 pci-e ultras in stock so I jumped on it.
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um the Asus Ultras are just that Asus. They are not true Ultras. take a close look at the memory specifications
 
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