computer components & hardware - Recommend Good Asus Socket 939 Mobo

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Recommend Good Asus Socket 939 Mobo

"Capman" wrote in message
...
I am looking into building a PC for our daughter and wanted to get
some suggestions on a good Asus or Abit motherboard for an AMD 64
3200+ cpu.

If I went the socket 754 way, several people have suggested the ASUS
K8N-E Deluxe.

What motherboard would be recommended in Socket 939?
I am looking for stability above all else and would like the extras
such as firewire if at all possible.

It comes down to a question of video card type and intended use.
If you want to use an existing AGP video card, the Asus A8V Deluxe is an
excellent choice. If you plan to purchase a new video card and want to go to
PCI-Express, then the A8V-E Deluxe would do well. If, by some chance, your
daughter is an avid gamer and you want to equip her with the ultimate in
video horsepower, consider the A8N-SLI with two PCI-E video cards.
As 40 PC told you, all these seem to be without major issues and my
experience with the A8V-Deluxe bears that out. No problems and excellent
performance.
I can't comment on Abit.

I don;t know much about Abit S939 boards, but I don't think that you can
go far wrong with Abit (unlike others, cough...Matsonic...cough). As for
Asus, there are 2 things to look at when getting a board:

-The future upgradability of the board.

-The cost of the board.

The A8V is the cheapest S939 board from Asus. Be sure to get the
E-revision, as the first one had a few problems with the SATA frequency
not being locked, making overclocking a risky proposition - data
corruption has been seen by people using the onboard SATA controller and
overclocking. The PCI SATA controller also present on the board (it's a
RAID controller, but it still works) does not have this problem. That
said, I have been using an original model A8V Deluxe since July and
can't fault it.

Future upgradability comes in the form of the A8N SLi. This is mainly
because it has PCI Express slots - the current PCI and AGP standards
will die off due to the march of progress (but not just yet). The board
itself does cost a bit more than the A8V and it hasn't been out so long,
so there may still be problems that they haven't picked up on yet. You
may not need SLi for uber-performance right now, but the capability is
there and that's what counts.

PCI Express graphics cards can be found for fairly cheap (if you want a
basic card) in the form of the GeForce 6200 (do not get the TurboCache
variants - they're slower and more expensive) and also for the very high
end (6800 Ultra), so you needn't worry about that.

I personally would go with the A8N SLi to ensure future upgradability.
Both boards have a decent amound of SATA, Firewire and USB ports, but
the A8N has lots more than the A8V. You might want to wait a bit if you
are aiming for this board, so that Asus can release a newer version that
corrects any problems with it (like the unstable SATA on the original A8V).

However, if you are shooting for the lowest price possible on fairly
modern and stable components, then the A8V-E is the board to go for.

If I went the socket 754 way, several people have suggested the ASUS
K8N-E Deluxe.

I've recently built a system with a K8N/Sempron 3100+ with a pretty good
overall result, performance-wise.

There aren't any Abit socket 754 boards here in Italy yet...

--
Pepe
Milano, Italy

"BananaOfTheNight" wrote in
message ...
I don;t know much about Abit S939 boards, but I don't think that you can go
far wrong with Abit (unlike others, cough...Matsonic...cough). As for Asus,
there are 2 things to look at when getting a board:

-The future upgradability of the board.

-The cost of the board.

The A8V is the cheapest S939 board from Asus. Be sure to get the
E-revision, as the first one had a few problems with the SATA frequency
not being locked, making overclocking a risky proposition - data
corruption has been seen by people using the onboard SATA controller and
overclocking. The PCI SATA controller also present on the board (it's a
RAID controller, but it still works) does not have this problem. That
said, I have been using an original model A8V Deluxe since July and can't
fault it.

snip
The A8V-E is not a revision to the A8V, but a completely different model
that sports a PCI-E video slot instead of AGP. I think you meant to refer to
the Rev 2 A8V.

The A8V-E is not a revision to the A8V, but a completely different model
that sports a PCI-E video slot instead of AGP. I think you meant to refer to
the Rev 2 A8V.

Oops, my bad. Yes, I did mean the Rev 2 A8V. Thanks for pointing out the
error.

I've had good luck with the A8V-Deluxe. It has more features than I'll
probably use. From my experience, ASUS mobos rock!

I'm running an A8V-Deluxe with:
* AMD 64 3500+
* 1GB Kingston HyperX DDR400/PC3200 (Dual Ported - 2x512Mb)
* 2x74Gb 10,000 RPM SATA WD drives in RAID-0
* XFX GeForce 6800 (Extreme Gaming)
* Sony DRU710A Dual Layer DVD writer

Far Cry never looked so good and runs smooth as silk.
Can't wait for HL2.

Not sure where you're located but I just ordered the new DFI LanParty
NForce4 Ultra-D from NCIX.com
It's the hot seller right now, the best socket 939 board I believe (unless
you need SLI features, but this is for regular home users). Since it's
still new, it's not available at all stores yet.

"Capman" wrote in message
...
I am looking into building a PC for our daughter and wanted to get
some suggestions on a good Asus or Abit motherboard for an AMD 64
3200+ cpu.

If I went the socket 754 way, several people have suggested the ASUS
K8N-E Deluxe.

What motherboard would be recommended in Socket 939?
I am looking for stability above all else and would like the extras
such as firewire if at all possible.