Have an NF7-S - going to replace it with ??????

Hey all,

My buddy wants me to build him a new machine. I am going to put my NF7-S
rev 2.0 board in his box.


What should I be looking at as a replacement for mine? Haven't kept up for
the last few months so I dont know whats out there.

AN7 ???

My buddy wants me to build him a new machine. I am going to put my NF7-S
rev 2.0 board in his box.

What should I be looking at as a replacement for mine? Haven't kept up for
the last few months so I dont know whats out there.

I don´t think there´s anything better than the NF7-S, except you want an
Athlon 64

I was thinking about going with an athlon 64, and mobo, but the prices still
seem pretty high for not much of a performance boost.

will the athlon 64 be better for video encoding? i tried making some dvds
of old vhs tapes, and it takes forever on my XP3200

the the athlon 64's still use pc3200 ram?

"Josef Varela" wrote in message
...
My buddy wants me to build him a new machine. I am going to put my
NF7-S
rev 2.0 board in his box.

What should I be looking at as a replacement for mine? Haven't kept up
for
the last few months so I dont know whats out there.

I don´t think there´s anything better than the NF7-S, except you want an
Athlon 64

See within your post:

"ZigZag Master" wrote in message
...
I was thinking about going with an athlon 64, and mobo, but the prices
still
seem pretty high for not much of a performance boost.

Actually, the boost is more than you might think.
http://www.techreport.com/reviews/20...0/index.x?pg=4
(scroll down to the bottom graphic and note that the AMD64 chips even best
the Opteron chips in this category.


will the athlon 64 be better for video encoding? i tried making some dvds
of old vhs tapes, and it takes forever on my XP3200

That is a problem with your HD and not enough RAM. I recommend 2 gigs of
DDRAM minimum for these endeavors.


the the athlon 64's still use pc3200 ram?

Yes, and it can even use PC2700 ram if it is high enough quality. )

"Josef Varela" wrote in message
...
My buddy wants me to build him a new machine. I am going to put my
NF7-S
rev 2.0 board in his box.

What should I be looking at as a replacement for mine? Haven't kept up
for
the last few months so I dont know whats out there.

I don´t think there´s anything better than the NF7-S, except you want an
Athlon 64


The DFI's are good for ultra-high FSB's (265 MHz without raising a sweat)
and get great timings from high (3.3) v-dimm.
They're limited to 2.0v-core - but it doesn't really impact your max clock
by more than 20 - 30 gross MHz.
A64's don't overclock well and die at the drop of a hat - and of course,
cost the Earth.

A64's don't overclock well and die at the drop of a hat - and of course,
cost the Earth.


That is total BULL****

PLONK!

The DFI NF2 Ultra Infinity I had would not go much over 220FSB with any
stability...even using the 'Beta' BIOS's that everyone appears to need to
get decent performance out of the board. I think the problem is memory, I
was using 2 x 512MB of Corsair XMS3500 (BH-5)....but to get real high FSB's
you need to run only 2 x 256MB modules, not much use if you're into video
encoding. Additionally the DFI does not have room for really big heatsinks
and many report problems with the firewire and LAN, also performance is
lower than the NF7 at similar FSB and clock speed.
I also tried two AN7's and they overclock worse than either the NF7 or
DFI....in fact I could not even get 200FSB with the CPU Interface setting
enabled.....definitely keep clear of the AN7 if you want performance &
overclocking.

I went back to my NF7-S....still the best performance/overclocking/all-round
Socket A board on offer...in my opinion...If I were you I'd keep the NF7-S
--
*****Replace 'NOSPAM' with 'btinternet' in the reply address*****
"Scumball" wrote in message
...

"Josef Varela" wrote in message
...
My buddy wants me to build him a new machine. I am going to put my
NF7-S
rev 2.0 board in his box.

What should I be looking at as a replacement for mine? Haven't kept
up
for
the last few months so I dont know whats out there.

I don´t think there´s anything better than the NF7-S, except you want an
Athlon 64


The DFI's are good for ultra-high FSB's (265 MHz without raising a sweat)
and get great timings from high (3.3) v-dimm.
They're limited to 2.0v-core - but it doesn't really impact your max clock
by more than 20 - 30 gross MHz.
A64's don't overclock well and die at the drop of a hat - and of course,
cost the Earth.

Wayne wrote:
That is a problem with your HD and not enough RAM. I
recommend 2 gigs ofDDRAM minimum for these endeavors.

Generally, a modern HDD is not the bottleneck unless it is
fragmented. In my unscientific experiments with an XP2500+
and MPEG-2 encoding with the MainConcept encoder, memory
bandwidth was the limiting factor. That is, raising the FSB at a
lower multiplier showed a decent improvement. A higher
multiplier alone showed almost no improvement. And I believe
a GB of memory will do just fine.

Agree.

I went from an NF7-S to a DFI Ultra Infinity.

- the first was DOA
- the second wouldn't do 200FSB and died when my video card went kapoot
- the third does more like 230FSB, and may be limited by my memory from
doing more

So I think there's an element of potluck involved. A quick search of the
relevant forums shows a lot of problems with the boards manufactured outside
of Taiwan (warped ZIF sockets etc) and issues with SATA performance.
Heatsink clearance due to both CPU socket placement (it's ridiculous) and
compenent clearances can also be an issue. There hasn't been an official
BIOS release since last November and a number of the beta bioses (apart from
invalidating your warranty) seem to kill a large number of boards.

However...

- there's no doubt that a good one, with the right BIOS and components, goes
like a scalded cat
- there's clearance enough for my Maze 4 block on the CPU socket
- there are 4 SATA sockets compared to NF7-S' 2
- it's inexpensive (board #3 was £48)
- it doesn't need a socket wire mod to hit high FSBs with an XP-M like the
NF7 does.
- it doesn't appear to have the SATA corruption issues that some NF7's did
- it doesn't have the 10x and 10.5 multiplier issue with 1T memory timings
that NF7's did/do.

Your money, your vote.

FWIW, if board #3 dies I'll probably go back to an NF7-S. At least Abit
update the bios occasionally.

HTH



"BigBadger" wrote in message
...
The DFI NF2 Ultra Infinity I had would not go much over 220FSB with any
stability...even using the 'Beta' BIOS's that everyone appears to need to
get decent performance out of the board. I think the problem is memory, I
was using 2 x 512MB of Corsair XMS3500 (BH-5)....but to get real high
FSB's
you need to run only 2 x 256MB modules, not much use if you're into video
encoding. Additionally the DFI does not have room for really big heatsinks
and many report problems with the firewire and LAN, also performance is
lower than the NF7 at similar FSB and clock speed.
I also tried two AN7's and they overclock worse than either the NF7 or
DFI....in fact I could not even get 200FSB with the CPU Interface setting
enabled.....definitely keep clear of the AN7 if you want performance &
overclocking.

I went back to my NF7-S....still the best
performance/overclocking/all-round
Socket A board on offer...in my opinion...If I were you I'd keep the NF7-S
--
*****Replace 'NOSPAM' with 'btinternet' in the reply address*****
"Scumball" wrote in message
...

"Josef Varela" wrote in message
...
My buddy wants me to build him a new machine. I am going to put my
NF7-S
rev 2.0 board in his box.

What should I be looking at as a replacement for mine? Haven't kept
up
for
the last few months so I dont know whats out there.

I don´t think there´s anything better than the NF7-S, except you want
an
Athlon 64


The DFI's are good for ultra-high FSB's (265 MHz without raising a
sweat)
and get great timings from high (3.3) v-dimm.
They're limited to 2.0v-core - but it doesn't really impact your max
clock
by more than 20 - 30 gross MHz.
A64's don't overclock well and die at the drop of a hat - and of course,
cost the Earth.

I've had 3 DFI's - and they all cracked 250 FSB with ease.
Yes, there's an element of sudden cot-death risk with DFI - but high FSB's
are guaranteed with 12/31 BIOS and turning off CPC (loses around 0.5-1%
bandwidth).

"anthonyi" wrote in message
news:w%Zqc.19$wm4.16@newsfe3-gui...
Agree.

I went from an NF7-S to a DFI Ultra Infinity.

- the first was DOA
- the second wouldn't do 200FSB and died when my video card went kapoot
- the third does more like 230FSB, and may be limited by my memory from
doing more

So I think there's an element of potluck involved. A quick search of the
relevant forums shows a lot of problems with the boards manufactured
outside
of Taiwan (warped ZIF sockets etc) and issues with SATA performance.
Heatsink clearance due to both CPU socket placement (it's ridiculous) and
compenent clearances can also be an issue. There hasn't been an official
BIOS release since last November and a number of the beta bioses (apart
from
invalidating your warranty) seem to kill a large number of boards.

However...

- there's no doubt that a good one, with the right BIOS and components,
goes
like a scalded cat
- there's clearance enough for my Maze 4 block on the CPU socket
- there are 4 SATA sockets compared to NF7-S' 2
- it's inexpensive (board #3 was £48)
- it doesn't need a socket wire mod to hit high FSBs with an XP-M like the
NF7 does.
- it doesn't appear to have the SATA corruption issues that some NF7's did
- it doesn't have the 10x and 10.5 multiplier issue with 1T memory timings
that NF7's did/do.

Your money, your vote.

FWIW, if board #3 dies I'll probably go back to an NF7-S. At least Abit
update the bios occasionally.

HTH



"BigBadger" wrote in message
...
The DFI NF2 Ultra Infinity I had would not go much over 220FSB with any
stability...even using the 'Beta' BIOS's that everyone appears to need
to
get decent performance out of the board. I think the problem is memory,
I
was using 2 x 512MB of Corsair XMS3500 (BH-5)....but to get real high
FSB's
you need to run only 2 x 256MB modules, not much use if you're into
video
encoding. Additionally the DFI does not have room for really big
heatsinks
and many report problems with the firewire and LAN, also performance is
lower than the NF7 at similar FSB and clock speed.
I also tried two AN7's and they overclock worse than either the NF7 or
DFI....in fact I could not even get 200FSB with the CPU Interface
setting
enabled.....definitely keep clear of the AN7 if you want performance &
overclocking.

I went back to my NF7-S....still the best
performance/overclocking/all-round
Socket A board on offer...in my opinion...If I were you I'd keep the
NF7-S
--
*****Replace 'NOSPAM' with 'btinternet' in the reply address*****
"Scumball" wrote in message
...

"Josef Varela" wrote in message
...
My buddy wants me to build him a new machine. I am going to put
my
NF7-S
rev 2.0 board in his box.

What should I be looking at as a replacement for mine? Haven't
kept
up
for
the last few months so I dont know whats out there.

I don´t think there´s anything better than the NF7-S, except you
want
an
Athlon 64


The DFI's are good for ultra-high FSB's (265 MHz without raising a
sweat)
and get great timings from high (3.3) v-dimm.
They're limited to 2.0v-core - but it doesn't really impact your max
clock
by more than 20 - 30 gross MHz.
A64's don't overclock well and die at the drop of a hat - and of
course,
cost the Earth.