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Vrock
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The Best Damn Socket A board, Period?

Sat Jul 23, 2005 1:47 am

Don't laugh, and please don't tell me to get a 939 or 754 board! I need a new socket A board. This board has to be the mack-daddy of Socket A boards, as it is going to reside in my computer for at least a year or two. Here's what I'm looking at right now:

http://www.newegg.com/OldVersion/app/Vi ... 234&depa=1

http://www.newegg.com/OldVersion/app/Vi ... 237&depa=1

http://www.newegg.com/OldVersion/app/Vi ... 221&depa=1

I'm leaning toward the second one....any comments? I haven't owned an Epox since the KT266A days when I had an 8kha+, but that was the best damn board I ever owned.
 
Usacomp2k3
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Sat Jul 23, 2005 1:59 am

Of those 3, I'd say the 2nd as well.
 
liar
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Sat Jul 23, 2005 3:11 am

What I've got http://www.newegg.com/OldVersion/app/vi ... 01R&depa=1 I like the agp lock, it makes the overclocking nicer.
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Vrock
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Sat Jul 23, 2005 3:32 am

liar wrote:
What I've got http://www.newegg.com/OldVersion/app/vi ... 01R&depa=1 I like the agp lock, it makes the overclocking nicer.


I could go KT880, but not Asus. I've got an Asus board now and I'll never buy another one. It's a flaky board, and Asus is overrated in my opinion. I used to swear by Abit before caps starting busting all over the place. MSI doesn't impress me, and I'm wary of bios support for the "off" brands like Chaintech, DFI, Albatron, and Soltek.
 
Zenith
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Sat Jul 23, 2005 3:42 am

I'd say anything but Epox. I had two Socket A Epox boards (One nForce2, the other KT600) burn up on their first boot, each with different PSUs. (One an Antec, the other off brand).

I'd say...uhhhh...nForce2 something...maybe...MSI, Asus, or ... Maybe Gigabyte. :\

I'd be screaming DFI! DFI!, but DFI doesn't really have any really nice Socket A boards IIRC.
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Usacomp2k3
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Sat Jul 23, 2005 3:59 am

http://techreport.com/reviews/2003q2/df ... ex.x?pg=12
Geoff liked the DFI Lanparty 2 Ultra
You probably don't want to spend $154 on it though:
http://www.topmicrousa.com/nfiiultrab.html
 
Vrock
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Sat Jul 23, 2005 4:18 am

Wow. Yeah, $154 is a bit much, but damn that's a sweet board!
 
Coran Fixx
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Sat Jul 23, 2005 6:17 am

This is my old board:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813127166

never gave a lick of trouble and one of the easiest overclockers.
 
FubbHead
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Sat Jul 23, 2005 6:20 am

Actually, I found ASUS Socket A boards to be great quality. But.. they are sure as hell picky with the RAM, although it seems most nForce boards seem to be to some extent. I've been running their A7N8X Deluxe v2 a good 2-3 years. Bitching as hell at first with the Twinmos/Winbond memory (not BH5 chips though, CH5 I think) I bought with it, but bought a couple of Kingmax later on and the problems went away completely.

If you want a real solid setup, go with an ASRock. I found them to be the Kalashnikov of motherboards, but not the best performers :). You'll probably get better performance with either a nForce2 or KT880 board though. Not tried any KT880 personally, but if they're less picky than the nForce2, I'd look for those first.
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Wiseblood007
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Sat Jul 23, 2005 6:34 am

Had an EPOX 8rda+ and it has died a premature death due to bursting capacitors. Great board....tho it died too soon. :cry:
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LicketySplit
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Sat Jul 23, 2005 6:57 am

Still running a 8RDA+..great boards...but i think the NF7S v2 is a better one..everything under the sun for your lil hands to tweak with. You said you wanted the best nf2 board..thats it..that epox one (2nd) is a nice one too.
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Nullvoid
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Sat Jul 23, 2005 7:35 am

And please don't make the mistake of buying a nf7-s2/nf7-s2g, they aren't a patch on the nf7-s version 2(the best socket a board there is). It's a mistake I made so I speak from experience. :oops:
 
Vrock
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Sun Jul 24, 2005 12:19 am

FubbHead wrote:
Actually, I found ASUS Socket A boards to be great quality. But.. they are sure as hell picky with the RAM, although it seems most nForce boards seem to be to some extent. I've been running their A7N8X Deluxe v2 a good 2-3 years. Bitching as hell at first with the Twinmos/Winbond memory (not BH5 chips though, CH5 I think) I bought with it, but bought a couple of Kingmax later on and the problems went away completely.

If you want a real solid setup, go with an ASRock. I found them to be the Kalashnikov of motherboards, but not the best performers :). You'll probably get better performance with either a nForce2 or KT880 board though. Not tried any KT880 personally, but if they're less picky than the nForce2, I'd look for those first.


Hmm, maybe I got a flaky one then. Mine's a A7N8X Standard (no official 400fsb support) and it acts weird when I try to flash the bios, and sometimes I'll boot up and the bios just goes blank and I lose all my settings.

I'll steer clear of Asrock, though I don't doubt they're functional, they're not what I'm looking for in this case.
 
Vrock
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Sun Jul 24, 2005 12:26 am

LicketySplit wrote:
Still running a 8RDA+..great boards...but i think the NF7S v2 is a better one..everything under the sun for your lil hands to tweak with. You said you wanted the best nf2 board..thats it..that epox one (2nd) is a nice one too.


I was thinking about the NF7S v2....but shied away because of cap worries. I guess the problems have been worked out though. Hmmm.
 
Convert
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Sun Jul 24, 2005 12:46 am

http://www.topmicrousa.com/nf2ultra-infinity.html

Best damn board I have ever owned period. I have had both the nf7-s and the a7n8xe (still have the asus) and you couldn’t even pay me to give up my infinity. It is the little brother to the lanparty B, same layout and everything. I had better oc’s every time with the infinity, but I imagine an abit would be better with the volt mod crowd. Which I doubt you are into.

Never had a single problem with it, other than the fact it is red.

“but DFI doesn't really have any really nice Socket A boards IIRC.”

Review sites would disagree. At the height of socket A (when these dfi boards came out) there wasn’t a single review site that didn’t crown the ultra b the king of socket A after they reviewed it. In fact it was rare not to find a Ultra B review in the shortbread for a while there.

*Ah screw the little brother, get the real deal: http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications ... 68&CatId=0
Last edited by Convert on Sun Jul 24, 2005 1:05 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Ghede
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Sun Jul 24, 2005 12:51 am

I have to to say that I have bought two Abit NF7S v2's and they are still happilly running with no issues so far. Excellent overclockers too.
 
SpotTheCat
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Sun Jul 24, 2005 4:36 am

That's tough, but I really love my Asus A7N8X deluxe rev 1.4
it has the official soundstorm spec with DD encoding (convenient for home theater setups or high end speakers with digital decoding.
I wouldn't listen to music through dolby digital, but it's still very nice for accelerated sound on a dead platform.
 
flip-mode
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Sun Jul 24, 2005 5:26 am

I once got a DFI Ultra Infinity because I heard it was the best OCin socket A board bar none. I was utterly dissapointed. I couldn't OC past 204 fsb, so I took the mem and cpu out of the Ultra Infinity, stuck them in my A7N8X, and went straight to 215. I would've called it a dud, but I gave the board to my mom, and went and got another, and exact same story. Now, I could've been doing something wrong because the whole experience seemed too bad to be true, but if I threw in another board I get wiz bang overclocks on the first try. Anyway, I decided not to touch DFI any more, although I've yet to here a bad thing about their 939 boards (not that I've looked). Honestly, the A7N8X 2.0 was my favorite socket A. It's still running after 2-1/2 years. I sold it to a fella, and go figure that's when the IDE controller takes a shat. So I put an IDE card in there and all is well. It has the four mounting holes if your savy to that. Sorry for rambling.
 
tsoulier
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Sun Jul 24, 2005 5:44 am

I agree the ASUS board rocks , i dont think people give them enough credit
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Phenom II 940 @ 3.6 | Gigabyte MA78G-DS3HP | 2x2 gig G-Skill dr2 800 | 500 W Seasonic | WD 640 HDD | EVGA GTX 570
 
LicketySplit
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Sun Jul 24, 2005 7:21 am

Vrock wrote:

I was thinking about the NF7S v2....but shied away because of cap worries. I guess the problems have been worked out though. Hmmm.


Yup..problems with the caps have been addressed. Ive had the Asus xn8x as well..not near the board as the nf7s.
Just an old sheepdog waiting for some nasty wolves to show...ive got more than enough teeth left.
 
tsoulier
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Sun Jul 24, 2005 7:24 am

I never heard of ASUS having cap problems either
Core I7 2600K @ 4.6 | Asrock P67 Extreme 4 | 16 gig Corsair | EVGA Superclocked GTX 780 | Samsung 840 Pro SSD | Seasonic X-850 W

Phenom II 940 @ 3.6 | Gigabyte MA78G-DS3HP | 2x2 gig G-Skill dr2 800 | 500 W Seasonic | WD 640 HDD | EVGA GTX 570
 
Convert
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Sun Jul 24, 2005 10:44 am

flip-mode wrote:
.....


You couldn’t get another 11mhz fsb out of the board so it was a "dud" and you won't touch DFI again, wtf.

I got better oc's with my dfi than a nf7s and a7n8xe deluxe (and consequently the ultra B I bought for a friend beat the abit and asus too).

Which means squat. It doesn’t mean abit and asus suck. I just had other problems with them not related to OC.
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PRIME1
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Sun Jul 24, 2005 11:43 am

I have the ASUS A7N8X-E Deluxe & I recommend it as the best.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813131478
Image
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Usacomp2k3
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Sun Jul 24, 2005 12:36 pm

PRIME1 wrote:
I have the ASUS A7N8X-E Deluxe & I recommend it as the best.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813131478


I have it as well and won't buy Asus again. I'm on the 3rd board, as the first 2 died within the first year (one was the memory controller busted, and I forget what the 2nd was from). But, as always, YMMV
 
flip-mode
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Sun Jul 24, 2005 3:06 pm

Convert wrote:
flip-mode wrote:
.....


You couldn’t get another 11mhz fsb out of the board so it was a "dud" and you won't touch DFI again, wtf.

I got better oc's with my dfi than a nf7s and a7n8xe deluxe (and consequently the ultra B I bought for a friend beat the abit and asus too).

Which means squat. It doesn’t mean abit and asus suck. I just had other problems with them not related to OC.


Convert man, don't take is personal, I just didn't have a good experience with two boards in a row, all other hardware used was constant across all boards used. Like I said, I could have been doing something consistantly wrong, but I don't think so. The board didn't leave me with a good impression. And btw, that board's southbridge got hotter than any other I've seen - many nforce2 boards don't even have a heatsink on the southbridge, the DFI does, and it gets WAY hotter than those without - now that's worth asking WTF. YMMV, but the DFI was the worst overclocker of any nforce2 I've ever used, which has only been about 8 or 10 different boards.
 
Convert
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Sun Jul 24, 2005 3:34 pm

No reason to take it personal, it has been shown on numerous occasions that dfi boards are one of the best ocing boards out there outside of vmods. It just seemed really silly to call it the worst nf2 ocing board and to never consider a dfi board again over 11mhz.

Every single nf2 400ultra has a heatsink on newegg. Mine is warm to the touch, the same temp as the one on the a7n8xe which coincidentally they are basically the same heatsink. I have had my hands on a large number of nf2 boards and they all run about the same, except for some of the low profile (read: the same heatsinks that were on motherboards 4 years ago) which can run a little hot.
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flip-mode
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Mon Jul 25, 2005 3:41 am

Convert wrote:
Every single nf2 400ultra has a heatsink on newegg.


I hope you're talking about the southbridge heatsink, cause that's what I'm talking about. The A7N8X dlx 2.0 didn't have a SB heatsink. I'm not positive, but I don't think the NF7-S has a SB heatsink, nor the Shuttle AN35N, nore the Biostar I've got downstairs - I'll check the model and get back to you.

And the reason I decided against getting another DFI was because the good DFI boards back then - the Infinity and the Lan Party, were overclocking boards. Why would I buy an overclocking board, with the intention of overclocking, that I'd had bad experience with - twice in a row -. Now if I only got that same crappy overclock on some PC Chips board then I'd have said, "well, you get what you pay for."

Anyway Vrock, get a DFI if you want, I'm sure they're fine despite my experience. Tons of people love the DFI boards, I read up on them in a couple forums and it seemed like there were as many stories of frustration as there were stories of elation. Their A64 boards seem to have the QC issues ironed out. And, for what its worth, the Lan Party boards, as I recall, didn't seem to have as many issues as the Infinity boards. Then again, the NF7-S is hard to beat for overclocking and stability, but the A7N8X has a better layout (IMO), passive chipset cooling, adequate overclocking, heatsink mounting holes that would accept an ALCU 7000 without Dremeling, and either more usb or more firewire - I can't remember which. In the end, there are probably about 5 contendors for best Socket A board, and which one wins is going to depend a lot on your tastes.
 
LicketySplit
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Mon Jul 25, 2005 7:53 am

flip-mode wrote:
In the end, there are probably about 5 contendors for best Socket A board, and which one wins is going to depend a lot on your tastes.


No Phlaims here...it isnt even close :lol:
Just an old sheepdog waiting for some nasty wolves to show...ive got more than enough teeth left.
 
newtrip
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Mon Jul 25, 2005 8:09 am

Another vote here for Abit NF7S V2. I have had that board for a long time now and it still rocks!
 
steelcity_ballin
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Mon Jul 25, 2005 8:10 am

Ghede wrote:
I have to to say that I have bought two Abit NF7S v2's and they are still happilly running with no issues so far. Excellent overclockers too.


Yep, nf7-m (didn't need the soundstorm, and Didn't have a graphics card at the time) and this board overclocks quite nicely. Hasn't given me trouble and I've had some bad practices in the past regarding volts etc. Nice overclocker.

SoftIII in the bios makes tweaking a dream. Still running it in my primary rig with a mobile 2500 @ 2.3ghz and 1.6v volts. Does everything I ask it. :wink:

Abit for me.

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