Best non SLi 939 motherboard?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Ian R
  • Start date Start date
I

Ian R

Hi

I'm on a tight budget but have the opportunity to upgrade my aging turtle
slow PC.

I dont have a need for SLi so just wondered what the best performing non SLi
939 boards are?

In order to keeps costs down I'll need to use my existing EIDE drives and
upgrade them later. So ideally I'd like built in EIDE as well as ATA-II.
(I have 4 ATA133 Hard Drives and 2 IDE DVDRW Drives).

I plan to get an X2 3800+.

Thanks for any suggestions.

Ian
 
Hi

I'm on a tight budget but have the opportunity to upgrade my aging turtle
slow PC.

I dont have a need for SLi so just wondered what the best performing non SLi
939 boards are?

In order to keeps costs down I'll need to use my existing EIDE drives and
upgrade them later. So ideally I'd like built in EIDE as well as ATA-II.
(I have 4 ATA133 Hard Drives and 2 IDE DVDRW Drives).

I plan to get an X2 3800+.
Click to expand...
Check out the Epox ep9npa+ultra.
 
Ian R said:
Hi

I'm on a tight budget but have the opportunity to upgrade my aging turtle
slow PC.

I dont have a need for SLi so just wondered what the best performing non
SLi
939 boards are?

In order to keeps costs down I'll need to use my existing EIDE drives and
upgrade them later. So ideally I'd like built in EIDE as well as ATA-II.
(I have 4 ATA133 Hard Drives and 2 IDE DVDRW Drives).

I plan to get an X2 3800+.

Thanks for any suggestions.

Ian
Click to expand...

OK, you need to back up and re-think this upgrade. If you insist on SATA2,
asrock (asus) makes a bastard of a mainboard that will give you SATA2 as
well as AGP and PCI-Express X16 support. However, that is like your ONLY
option. SATA2 is very limiting, as it doesn't seem to be supported by many
motherboards currently on the market.

But the good news is, you don't need SATA2, and you likely won't need it for
at least a decade. The reason is simple. Sometime in the next several
years, hard drives MIGHT become fast enough to overwhelm the ATA100
interface, but probably not. SATA2 is therefore a solution waiting for a
problem, and there's going to be a LONG wait for the problem to catch up
with that particular solution.

I'm advising you to forget about SATA2, as you will be much happier with the
selection of mainboards, if you drop the requirement for technology that you
won't need before you've replaced your current motherboard three times over.
At the very worst, if your next motherboard lasts for many years (and
assuming you don't replace it anyway due to another upgrade, which is
somewhat unlikely) then you might want to add an SATA2 controller to that
mainboard sometime down the road. Of course, by that time, a good SATA2
controller will cost you less than you spent on lunch yesterday. :)

Forget about SATA2

Then look at the following:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813128286 (AGP)
or:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813123264
(PCI-Express)

And add:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16815150022
Because you need to support more IDE drives than any current motherboard can
handle, alone

Just my opinion. -Dave
 
Hi

I'm on a tight budget but have the opportunity to upgrade my aging turtle
slow PC.

I dont have a need for SLi so just wondered what the best performing non SLi
939 boards are?

In order to keeps costs down I'll need to use my existing EIDE drives and
upgrade them later. So ideally I'd like built in EIDE as well as ATA-II.
(I have 4 ATA133 Hard Drives and 2 IDE DVDRW Drives).

I plan to get an X2 3800+.

Thanks for any suggestions.

Ian
Click to expand...

I have heard that the Nvidia 6100 chipset boards are pretty
good. The Biostar 6100-M9 is priced at $59.00 at Newegg. Their
cheapest Nforce4 board is priced $10.00 higher.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813138269

It's onboard video is weak, but is the best out there. If your
a gamer, or need DVI, and such outputs, you'll want to use a PCI-E
videocard anyway. It's MicroATX, so it only has 2 PCI, 1 PCI-E 16X,
and 1 PCI-E 1X slot, but it has onboard 10/100 LAN, and sound.
http://www.biostar-usa.com/mbdetails.asp?model=geforce+6100-m9
 
Mike said:
OK, you need to back up and re-think this upgrade. If you insist on SATA2,
asrock (asus) makes a bastard of a mainboard that will give you SATA2 as
well as AGP and PCI-Express X16 support. However, that is like your ONLY
option. SATA2 is very limiting, as it doesn't seem to be supported by many
motherboards currently on the market.
Click to expand...

This mb also has SATA-1 and IDE so it's a very good choice for the
"jack=of-all-trades" mb. I'm running one right now with no issues. Using
AGP currently but will go PCI-E when DX10 cards are out. Asrock has even
built an AM2 daughter card for it. I'm good with this mb for a while yet.
 
You want the Gigabyte GA-K8NF-9. Also, SATA 2 is SATA 300, and
that has been compatible in WinXP for quite a while, but is not
compatible with a BIOS level format command .. or a DOS level
format command. There you must do a quick format, unless you
want to sit there for a very long time. Format command goes
compatible under XP. Another thing to think about ... the X2 3800
is not nearly as fast as the single core 3800 in things like games.
As for multithreading on a home PC, I have a bunch of 3200s in the
K8NF, and I can do two installs at the same time. THAT is a hoot.
I was able to install ALGOR, and while it was unpacking, I uninstalled
MSOffice Pro, and installed MSOffice 2003, and did a gpedit.msc
of security settings on the Disk Image files ... ALL at the same time.
I benched a 4800 X2 , and that is the processor you want if you get
an X2. Holy Cow !!!!

johns
 
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