Motherboard recommendation for AMD X2

I am looking for a motherboard recommendation for a system based on an AMD
X2 3800. Basically I am after a quality board 'stripped down' but don't
want to pay for SLI, onboard sound, RAID and other features I won't use.

I plan to overclock the processor and am looking for board which will
support this, feature set is important (Firewire, LAN, USB, SATA etc) other
than I do not need SLI (I will have a single gfx card, probably a 7800 GT),
onboard sound is unimportant as I will probably buy an Creative X-Fi card, I
won't use RAID but want latest SATA.

Would be good if the board layout suits water cooling as I am tempted by the
possibilities.

Any opinions on a suitable board? Have been looking at Asus A8N-E but have
read its not a great overclocker.

If such a beastie does not exist I may be forced to go out and buy a DFI SLI
board or similar - money not a big issue just don't like wasting it!

Cheers

M

On 30/03/2006 Marie wrote:

> If such a beastie does not exist I may be forced to go out and buy a
> DFI SLI board or similar - money not a big issue just don't like
> wasting it!

I still rate my DFI Lan Party Ultra, it's been rock solid. I have
discovered in the last few days that it won't stream music to my
Pinnacle Show Center but that's the only issue I've had with it. I've
not over-clocked it, FreeCell seems to run OK as it is :-)

--
Jeff Gaines - Damerham Hampshire UK
Using XanaNews 1.18.1.2

Marie wrote:
>
> I am looking for a motherboard recommendation for a system based on an AMD
> X2 3800. Basically I am after a quality board 'stripped down' but don't
> want to pay for SLI, onboard sound, RAID and other features I won't use.
>
> I plan to overclock the processor and am looking for board which will
> support this, feature set is important (Firewire, LAN, USB, SATA etc) other
> than I do not need SLI (I will have a single gfx card, probably a 7800 GT),
> onboard sound is unimportant as I will probably buy an Creative X-Fi card, I
> won't use RAID but want latest SATA.
>
> Would be good if the board layout suits water cooling as I am tempted by the
> possibilities.
>
> Any opinions on a suitable board? Have been looking at Asus A8N-E but have
> read its not a great overclocker.
>
> If such a beastie does not exist I may be forced to go out and buy a DFI SLI
> board or similar - money not a big issue just don't like wasting it!
>
> Cheers
>
> M

I have to agree about the lan party board recommended by jeff gaines.

The other one to consider is an ASUS A8N SLi Deluxe - but avoid the
Premium because, although it's supposedly the same in everything apart
from chipset cooling, I had issues with one and got shot of it.


Odie
--
Retrodata
www.retrodata.co.uk
Globally Local Data Recovery Experts

Marie wrote:
> I am looking for a motherboard recommendation for a system based on an AMD
> X2 3800. Basically I am after a quality board 'stripped down' but don't
> want to pay for SLI, onboard sound, RAID and other features I won't use.


tough, all highend boards come with those features

DFI nf4 SLI-DR Expert. awesome board. i use it in my current rig.

i have the older nf4 Ultra as well and don't like the bios fan controls.

"Odie" <> wrote in message
news:

[...]

> The other one to consider is an ASUS A8N SLi Deluxe - but avoid the
> Premium because, although it's supposedly the same in everything apart
> from chipset cooling, I had issues with one and got shot of it.

My A8N-SLI Premium is going great guns. But the A8N-SLI32 Deluxe (that's
SLI32 not SLI) is the current motherboard of choice for many of the top
magazines and reviewers (like Tom's Hardware Guide). Both overclock well.

Marie wrote:

>I am looking for a motherboard recommendation for a system based on an AMD
>X2 3800. Basically I am after a quality board 'stripped down' but don't
>want to pay for SLI, onboard sound, RAID and other features I won't use.
>
>I plan to overclock the processor and am looking for board which will
>support this, feature set is important (Firewire, LAN, USB, SATA etc) other
>than I do not need SLI (I will have a single gfx card, probably a 7800 GT),
>onboard sound is unimportant as I will probably buy an Creative X-Fi card, I
>won't use RAID but want latest SATA.

Unfortunately most boards that have those features also have RAID,
sound, and lots of other goodies as well.

But a good board that lacks SLI might be the Asus A8N-E you mentioned. I
have one and it works great. I'm overclocking my x2 3800+ by 25%
(2.5GHz) and it's rock solid with Prime95 run on both cores.

>Would be good if the board layout suits water cooling as I am tempted by the
>possibilities.

Water cooling tends to be over-rated, unless you buy a really good
system. I would look at a getting a good cooler like the Thermaltake Big
Typhoon, Zalman 9500 (which I use), or the Arctic Cooling Freezer 64
Pro.

All three will drop your CPU temps over the stock cooler and allow you
to overclock quite high.

>Any opinions on a suitable board? Have been looking at Asus A8N-E but have
>read its not a great overclocker.

It works great. Clock generator runs from 200 all the way up to 300MHz,
which is twice the headroom I need to get my x2 up to 2.5GHz.

>If such a beastie does not exist I may be forced to go out and buy a DFI SLI
>board or similar - money not a big issue just don't like wasting it!

If you have a preference, get what you want. SLI may be an option down
the road instead of upgrading your video card again - just drop in
another matching card and you improve video performance dramatically.

>
> tough, all highend boards come with those features

Yes, I have a feeling you may be right about that and I will end up buying a
high end board with lots features I don't want

M

DRS wrote:
>
> "Odie" <> wrote in message
> news:
>
> [...]
>
> > The other one to consider is an ASUS A8N SLi Deluxe - but avoid the
> > Premium because, although it's supposedly the same in everything apart
> > from chipset cooling, I had issues with one and got shot of it.
>
> My A8N-SLI Premium is going great guns. But the A8N-SLI32 Deluxe (that's
> SLI32 not SLI) is the current motherboard of choice for many of the top
> magazines and reviewers (like Tom's Hardware Guide). Both overclock well.

I haven't tried that one, but probably will in the near future.

If it weren't for DFI's ridiculous returns policy I would purchase one.


Odie
--
Retrodata
www.retrodata.co.uk
Globally Local Data Recovery Experts

Marie wrote:
>
> I am looking for a motherboard recommendation for a system based on an AMD
> X2 3800. Basically I am after a quality board 'stripped down' but don't
> want to pay for SLI, onboard sound, RAID and other features I won't use.
>
> I plan to overclock the processor and am looking for board which will
> support this, feature set is important (Firewire, LAN, USB, SATA etc) other
> than I do not need SLI (I will have a single gfx card, probably a 7800 GT),
> onboard sound is unimportant as I will probably buy an Creative X-Fi card, I
> won't use RAID but want latest SATA.
>
> Would be good if the board layout suits water cooling as I am tempted by the
> possibilities.

Marie,


You mention water cooling. This is very expensive (relative to the cost
of the motherboard.)

Not only that, but with many modern PCs the bottleneck is with the hard
drive system.

Unless you have applications that can be run totally within memory
(unlikely) you'd be better off running a RAID0 hard drive system than
implementing water cooling and (I imagine) overclocking.

All the negative issues of RAID-0 aside (and they are numerous) it will
give you more chance of your storage being able to match the speed of
your CPU.

In my mind, a RAID setup would be far preferable to a water-cooled and
overclocked system. By miles.



Odie

> It works great. Clock generator runs from 200 all the way up to 300MHz,
> which is twice the headroom I need to get my x2 up to 2.5GHz.

I've got an A8N-E with bios v1011 and the base clock runs from 200 - 400 Mhz.



(*>