Recommend $90 AMD board for OCing?

[GrefMofovich]

I'm looking for a mobo, preferably nForce2, to overclock a mobile athlon xp with. Adjustable vcore would be the key thing. Otherwise most important feature is stability. (I'm not looking to raise fsb above 200 or anything like that.) And I want to spend no more than $80-90 on it. Firewire or onboard video is not needed, but would like sata raid and dual ddr controllers. Any ideas? If you know more than one candidate let's have em!

-GM

[RamonGTP]

I believe newegg has the NF7-S for right around your price range. This is one of the best NF2 boards you can get and has very nice overclocking features as well as SATA/Firewire/soundstorm audio.

[Izdaari]

Also look at the Epox EP-8RDA3+. Like the Abit, it's good for NF2 overclocking and not too expensive. $87 @ New Egg.

[Yoshi]

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...127-166&depa=1

Best OC'ing AMDXP board

[GrefMofovich]

Come to think of it, I've heard of this NF7-S! The epox board looked pretty nice too. I liked what was going on with the fans. My last epox had no staying power though. Gonna give these abit people a try. Board is already on its way, same day I ordered. Sweet!

Oh yeah, question - does the SATA on the nf7-s support command queueing?

[RamonGTP]

You made a good choice, the EP-8RDA3+ isn't bad, but I don't think its quite as good as the NF7-S. I did use to have an 8RDA+ once and that was a very good board. I ruined it trying to do a vdimm mod and replaced it with the NF7-S. Later I went back to repair the damage I had done and now i'm using it in another system

[dajogejr]

Originally posted by GrefMofovich


Oh yeah, question - does the SATA on the nf7-s support command queueing?

Got that 74GB Raptor...did ya?


No motherboard...as of a month ago anyways, supported the command queing on SATA...

I'm sure it won't be long, though...

[causticVapor]

Both the NF7-S and EP-8RDA3+ have similar qualities. They are direct competitors, and both excellent motherboards. I personally own the latter, and also its predecessor, and must say that they have worked flawlessly for me (runnign barton 2500+ @ 2.33GHz for months and months on end wihtout any issues).

I recently installed two raptors in RAID 0 on the integrated silicon image controller. Performance is impressive.

Anyway, some similarities and differences between the two boards:


DIFFERENCES:
- Abit comes with integrated soundstorm and two COM ports on the motherboard; epox uses ALC650, slightly lower audio fidelity than soundstorm.
- Abit has two com ports on the backplate, epox has only one COM port on a riser.
- Abit has a cheap variant of the iceberg as a northbridge heatsink; epox one is beefier and more reliable.
- Epox has two nics onboard, Abit only one.
- Epox has four integrated USB ports; Abit only two.
- total usb ports with riser will be higher on epox than abit.

SIMILARITIES:
- Both Highly overclockable.
- Both have high signal integrity and draw CPU power from 12v lines.
- Both have similar layout issues on all connectors (except for IDE - the epox placement is better).
- Both are a good purchase.


Overall, the epox has more when it comes to numbers of ports, while the abit has more built-in audio capability. Either way it's difficult to go wrong.

[GrefMofovich]

that's a lot of 411, caustic! I decided to go Abit because I'd heard so much about it here. But the heat sink does look kinda flimsy. In fact I'm surprised such a design works, there's barely any sink! Well I don't know too much about these things.

I was a bit (hehe) surprised at the lack of a midi port on the NF7-S though. Causes a difficulty seeing how the one on my sb live had decided to stop working one day for no reason I could see, and the thought of playing GTA without a control pad turns my stomach.

One other thing struck me, which was that my mouse was glowing red even with the pc power off! Is that a new thing with USB 2 or something? I noticed the same thing with a Shuttle board the other day.

[Bat25]

That's the 5V standby. You can mouse power on your system from the bios (a setting) with either PS/2 or USB. Nice feature. Good pick for a mainboard too. Tried and true.

[GrefMofovich]

Ok, now I'm VERY distressed at the lack of a midi port on this board. From a Creative FAQ about midi ports: "If you have a nVidia nForce 2 chipset based computer system, it is recommended that you disable the gameport on the Sound Blaster audio card, and use the gameport built on the motherboard."

The Epox board DOES appear to have this important port, on a separate panel that takes up a case slot, but the point is it's there. But what caused me actual trouble were the 2 useless serial ports on the NF7-S! WHYYYYY? When I disabled one of them in bios, thus freeing an IRQ, that solved a massive resource problem I was having. Again, I cry, WHYYYYY serial??? Ah well, I didn't even notice the lack of midi and certainly didn't envision its necessity. C'est la vie...