I'm starting to look around for a new motherboard, probably AMD Socket
939 I can't find any good reviews, comparisons, etc of current
models... Anandtech has a six-month old article, Toms doesn't have
anything newer... Basically, i even need to be comparing chipsets at
this point, as it's been some time since I've looked into this stuff.
Please, no "Get this one!" without a well-explained reason why... I'm
looking for information to make my own choice based on my requirements.
How umm, urgent is this? What kind of system are you looking at - a full
ATX or a micro-ATX mbrd based? I'd suggest waiting a bit for the new
PCI-Express chipset mbrds to appear and maybe give them a few weeks to get
to the 2nd BIOS rev. The Gigabyte nForce4 mbrd is now showing as available
at newEgg:
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=13-128-268&depa=0
(note the description is wrong with the nForce3 in it but the details are
correct and mbrd pic looks right for PCI-Express) and I expect the MSI,
Epox and Asus versions to appear very soon; Gigabyte is not my favorite
mbrd but that dates back to an old grudge I have... when their U.S.A.
wallah told me to "**** off" on the 'phone..
Note also that a review of
one of their K8 mbrds observed that the DIMM slots were awful close
together, such that DIMMs with heat spreaders would get splayed apart
slightly.
My current favored mbrd brand is MSI and they have two nForce4 and two ATI
Xpress 200 chipset mbrds just announced - there are links to reviews at
their global Web site:
http://www.msi.com.tw/index.htm. Here's one of them
which compares the nForce3, nForce4, ATI RX200P and K8TPro, apparently from
a Web site in U.A.E.
I recently built a new system based on their K8N Neo2 Platinum mbrd which
is nForce3 AGP-based of course; I decided PCI-Express didn't sway me that
much and I didn't want to wait any longer. I do notice though, that
mid-range AGP cards are becoming less available compared with PCI-Express
ones... and for recent GPUs, like the 6600GT, more expensive. So far I'm
happy with the system - rock solid apart from a minor issue with an old USB
joystick, a Logitech Wingman Extreme Digital 3D, which is not always
detected on startup. I almost never play games so I'm not that bothered -
probably a BIOS or driver issue.
Another reason to wait is that the supply of 90nm Athlon64s has
mysteriously dried up, with the retail 3500+ no longer mentioned at NewEgg
and the OEM sporadically available at higher price than I paid for the
retail. I dunno what's going on here: a big order from China?... or
Dell?<chuckle>... the IBM plant was batched for some other chip for a
month?... trouble with the process? I got mine at the end of November and
the mbrd and CPU went out of stock within hours... and availability of both
has always seemed patchy. I also have a 130nm 3500+ in the office and the
90nm version *does* run significantly cooler: low 50sC vs. low 60sC under
high load... better for a home environment I think, where A/C is not so
consistent... in our house anyway.
Final note on memory: I went with two Crucial 8-chip 512MB DIMMs
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=20-146-541&depa=0
and am very happy with the choice: it's SPD is 3-3-3-8 and will not run at
tighter timings *but* it *does* run at 1T on command rate, which some other
stuff, including some of the high-priced "fashion" DIMMs, won't. While I'm
not into bragging, and certainly not about Sandra benchmarks, it scores a
buffered bandwidth of ~5.8GB/s. - there isn't much faster on standard
clocking.
Rgds, George Macdonald
"Just because they're paranoid doesn't mean you're not psychotic" - Who, me??