Hi guys,
I have a question: I have to decide to buy a board from these: Gigabyte K8NS-Ultra 939, Gigabyte K8NSNXP (but I think it is too expensive, does it worth that DPS thingy?), Abit AV8-3rd eye and Epox 9NDA3+. I will be using it with a 3200+ winnie.
Which one would be the best, regarding BIOS stability, high stable FSB, good voltages, Micron memory performance, AGP/PCI locking etc?
Thank you very much.
Epox ... better than the Abit AV8 and Gigacrap Nf3.
EPox does have some limitations and additions to its bios.
Mem voltages and Cpu voltages are capped at 2.8 and 1.7 if i am not mistaken.
But it have the advantage of setting the chipset voltage which the MSI can't.
Thats all I remember.
Here is a review:
http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2253
There are some complains here that Epox has a narrower range of voltages (although as far as I see it is easily moddable) and some bios bugs. Assuming that I will scrap gigacrap off the list, will the AV8 remain a viable alternative for it? I've seen that it is very tweakable, Abit usually stands for "overclocking stuff" but I don't know which one of K8T800Pro or NF3 to choose from...
Thanks for the link.
you may look here http://www.geizhals.at/?fs=SLI&in=Quote:
Originally Posted by Benny Lodewijk
AV8 would be a cheaper option with reasonable overclocking options. But there is a reason why so many people choose to stick with an Nvidia chipset, cause it can really scale dizzy heights given the right CPU ... i repeat .. the RIGHT CPU!!
well, im "jumping-ship", by-by AV8, hello Neo-2...this:
:exclamati runs great with bh5 (needs bios 1.36b or newer)
was all i needed to see.
(with my luck, BIOS 18 for the AV8 will get BH-5 working...)
Short notes on Epox 9NDA3+:
- could not use Zalman CNPS7000A backplate due to some resistors (capacitors?) on the back of the motherboard
- could not use the SATA ports 1 and 2 when using an Arctic Cooling VGA Silencer NV5, the airduct covers them entirely
:(
If you dont mind waiting till next week sometime i'll jump on the newer bios's for the 9nda3+ and test em out. have 2 2x256meg sets of bh-5 1 2x512 set of bh-5 1 2x512 set of 3700EB and 1 2x512meg set of ocz3200plat rev2 available to me so i can pretty much test for everything except ch-5 =)Quote:
Originally Posted by caligula
Ive run the asus a8v dlx(1.02 that locked) and this 9nda3+. For the casual user i would say the asus is the better of the two boards(i refuse to use msi or gigacrap on princable). This epox has been extremely nice to me tho but the asus just seemed nicer for whatever reason. running 250x10 3-2-2-8 1T on my above average 3500+ NC and hassnt given me any real problems with the epox tho. Same issues with the alc850 sound and my headset(doesnt pic up my mic real well) is the only real complaint i have. For a winny tho your going to want to do the vcore mod. Not sure if its in the release notes or not but vcore doesnt go up to 1.7v, it goes to +.2v. Fine for NC's on air that really shouldnt need 1.7vcore anyway but your limited to 1.6vcore on the winny's unless its been changed.
Only reason i switched off my a8v 1.02 board is because ovp kicked in at 2.77vdimm :rolleyes:
Already done the move, but thank you.
Now I'm on Epox - looks fine, only 1.6V in my 3200+ winny (weenie) that runs 3dmark at 280x9 but no prime95.
Will change the CPU after E0 stepping will pop out. Looks more like a Palomino compared to a T-Bred B.
yea, the winny's are not much better than my 3500NC except for the minimal clock for clock efficiency boost. 2.5ghz or there abouts at 1.6vcore unless its a very good chip.
I dunno if im gonna wait for the E0's or not. im eyeball'n those 4000+'s pretty hard, if they drop in price a little bit i think i'll own one.
Glad your happy with the board,
Just an extreme noobie......I take it no-one uses the Abit AV8 3rd Eye very much here? I also have an Msi Neo2 plat so the tips here were useful. Any help with the Abit would be much appreciated.
EPOX EP-9NDA3+ :
It seems that dimm slots 1 and 2 dont not like 2x512MB (dual channel)...
Dual channel would give me 1000's of errors in test 6 of memtest, using 2x512MB matched modules in slots 1 and 2. When moved to dimm slots 3 and 4 all worked perfectly. More wierdness; dimm slots 1 and 2 work perfectly with 2x256 modules (dual channel), weird eh.
I have confirmed this issue with 2 other friends, that have the same board.
Tested with 1T command rate enabled and with both the 10th Nov 04 and 25th Nov 04 (beta) BIOS revisions...
Epox Tech over at AOA forums, has now retracted this statement -->
This is his current take on the SATA lock of the 9NDA3+ -->Quote:
I've been testing here today and can state that the native and transceiver ports all seem okay for me upto 290ish where I fade a little at 5x HTT!!!
Quote:
It is true that those ports aren't locked due to the fact they adress their timing refference from the HTT bus since they are on a PHY and not a PCI controller to enable NV Anydrive.
Is this kinda normal ? unmodded 9nda3+ 5x HTT, FSB 275, micron chips 1T 2.8V 1:1, 1.65 Vchipset...
Yeah, it seems that the Epox can handle higher HTTs (over 1000MHz). Its quite strange really. Run 3Dmark 01, 03 and 05 to test for HTT stability :)
p.s. is your memory in dimm slots 3 and 4?
Yes, memory is in slot 3 and 4.
Tested already with 3dmark for stability, no problem encountered...
saaya, please update the first topic with 5x HTT at high FSBs...
I built a AV8 + 3500+ for a friend with 2x512 BH-5.....Quote:
yea, the winny's are not much better than my 3500NC except for the minimal clock for clock efficiency boost. 2.5ghz or there abouts at 1.6vcore unless its a very good chip.
It seemed stable at 11x227=2.5Ghz at only 1.45Vcore, that was with an XP-120.
He's using it at 11x219 at 1.425 Vcore day-to-day no problems.
[NOOB]
Well it seems that I can't get the MSI K8N NEO2 NB sink off.
This may sound very noobish for you, but it's true as I have always been with Asus. Can someone give any tips/guides/tricks? (Ohh man... i'm such a noob!)
:p: :)
Thanks.
[/NOOB]
Also, I'm not sure which revision (A1/A2) I got, but I will check this soon.
Which BIOS I should go with? Does the 1.36 has a final version yet?
To get the heatsink off you need to squeze the clip from the back side of the board. Squeze the clip and push the pin out, careful though, it's on a spring so don't lose it, I fired one across the room :D.
The latest official BIOS is 1.4, although a lot of people still prefer the 1.36 for overclocking.
Great! Thank you very much!
Not sure if anyone else mentioned this : with BIOS 1009.xxxx BETA if you select 5x HTT (1000) you actually get only 4x once you pass 210 MHz or so :). Not sure what happens if you get really far (like 290 or so).
I was talking about the ASUS A8V .. sorry, I forgot to mention.
What's up with that orange PCI slot?
Can I use it for my Audigy?
I believe the orange slot is shared with a nic or another onboard componentQuote:
Originally Posted by Swing
Hiya!
I guess there are people here who have tested alot of socket939 boards. I'm asked all the time at another board (music making) about recomendations for a socket 939 motherboard, and have a difficult time awnsering. It somehow seems that just about everything has little bugs in them.
They won't overclock, or if they do it will be very trivial (with stock voltages). What they need is maximum stability, and a well working pci-buss (for high end soundcards with 10 inputs and outputs).
Do you feel nf3 would be the right chipset, or are the advantages only for overclocking? They won't be running any benchmarks so if it's 5% slower then something else it won't really matter...