best socket 939 nf3 board?

[hansbroken]

I have been doing a lot of research on this subject over the past few days at various places. Trying to find general trends, rather than the concentrate on the highs and lows of the MB’s. I need one for a 3000+ Venice. And I have narrowed down to three MB's. Please note that the DFI UT was at the top. But, until they fix the BIOS problems & “re-work” the MB (direct quote there from DFI, so I think that means a board revision), I had to eliminate it.

I am not done on this though, so your input is appreciated.

1) Epox 9NDA3J / 9NDA3+ (Basically the same, but one has extra RAID and Firewire & I think the ‘J’ has Vcor up in 0.25v increments vs. the ‘+’ is in 0.5v increments)

Pros:

- Good price
- BIOS is OC friendly
-Good rep for a no frills & stabile OC'ing MB
-FSB/ HTT looks to be 270 to 280 max 1:1 w/ good TCCD mem. (if anyone can verify this further, please do). A few people did do better, but I am looking more at general trends to see what expectations should be for any given MB.

Cons:

- layout leaves some problems (i.e. PS socket & 4 pin 12 volt socket location means you need to route these large wire bundles around your HSF.. and a few other layout issues remain)
- RAM mem voltage only 2.8v max, but droops to 2.6 under load (that's low even for TCCD RAM).
-The FF code problem -- see this post for an extreme, but very possible, problem with this MB: http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...ht=Epox+9NDa3J
I had heard of others with FF code and sudden increases of heat in the capacitors & Mosfets around the CPU socket causing problems and thus the dreaded RMA. (which, RMA is bad since most will want to do a volt mod for mem, and that will kill your warranty)
- Many reported trouble with using two DS 512 MB RAM Modules
- The Chipset fan get noisy and needs to be replaced after like 1 mo or so.


2) Abit AV8 / Abit AV8 3rd eye: (Yeah, I know it’s K8T800 Pro. But, as long as you get a rev 1.1, the PCI locks will work – at least up to 260 HTT)

Pros

-Good rep for stability
-BIOS is well done & OC options are great (typical Abit & uGuru)
- board layout is well done
- Pretty much solid performer up to 260 HTT 1:1
- not too pricey

Cons:

-Via K8T800 chipset pretty much limits HTT to 260 – for the most part
- possible AGP issues with certain cards (like 9800 Pro) and other compatibility issues concerning Via chipset (remember though, NF3 has it share of issues too)
- Mem voltage still only at 2.8v (but appears to hold that under load)


3) MSI K8N Neo 2 Platinum (I preface this with the fact that I have done the least amount of research on this MB compared to the others thus far, so any extra input would be great. One thing I noticed so far that seems to be the general feel every ware: people either totally love or totally hate this MB)

Pros

- Looks like a good OC’ing MB consistent with the NF3 chipset
- MSI seems to have upped their quality and MB layout looks good
- good features (extra SATA controller etc..)
- Seems like those who like these state it’s not for a high HTT OC (so like keep it under 240 – 250), but it’s a good stable MB under no OC to mild OC conditions w/ tweaked memory.

Cons

- BIOS seems to lack many OC options. Could have better BIOS support & updates according to most
- I have not seen this as a major OC MB for the most part. Most who hate this MB seem to not like the BIOS OC options and it’s instability to get at higher HTT speeds (like 250+) with good mem timings.



Well, that’s it for now. I need to make up my mind very soon though. Therefore, any constructive input is greatly appreciated. I know this forum is a wealth of reliable information.. and people really know thier stuff.

Thanks in advance