Best AM2 motherboard for about £70?

Hi

I'm not all that clued up on AM2 stuff at the moment so if anyone could suggest a board for this price I'd be rather grateful!

I'm not interested in SLI/Crossfire and I don't mind who makes the chipset so long as it isn't SiS (had too many problems with them in the past!). nVidia always seem to make decent chipsets so perhaps I should go for one based on the nForce 570Ultra? My current board has a Via chipset and it's fine so I really don't mind.

I'm planning to use the HIS IceQ X1900XT graphics card

I had my eye on the Asus M2N-E (Socket AM2) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (MB-147-AS) simply as it's ASUS (had no problems with them before), it's decently priced and it's got the nForce 570 Ultra chipset.

Oh, I'd also like the board to be passively cooled

Stability is key. I will be overclocking but not by a huge amount

Any ideas on memory for £200? I was looking at the Corsair 2GB DDR2 XMS2-6400C4 TwinX (2x1GB) (MY-108-CS) as I've always like Corsair ram and this stuff seems to work in the board. This last comment should probably be in the memory section but to save having two threads I put it in with this post


Many thanks

Ive got the M2N-E mobo mate and its a decent board. Not had any issues with it as yet.

Thanks for your reply - sounds good!

I would check what ram you have as the M2N-E is very tempermental with certain ram, for example my G.Skill LA 5300 would only run at 533 speeds instead of 667, and the max you can put the ddr2 ram is 1.95v in the bios which a lot are finding is too low for some ddr2 ram.

I'd recommend the Geil, works fine here.

Jabbs said:

I would check what ram you have as the M2N-E is very tempermental with certain ram, for example my G.Skill LA 5300 would only run at 533 speeds instead of 667, and the max you can put the ddr2 ram is 1.95v in the bios which a lot are finding is too low for some ddr2 ram.

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Thanks - that's my only real concern as I've read about a few problems with memory and this board. I've heard that it doesn't like GSkill but Corsair should be OK, but I'm not sure (neither are on the certified memory list). I read somewhere on the net after a google search that that particular Corsair (the CAS4 800MHz stuff) does work. I can't find that site again at the moment unfortunately

The qualified vendors list lists Kingston, Infeon, Hnix, Micron and A-Data chips. The only qualified 1GB chips are Kingston chips (for DDR2-800). Perhaps I should get some Kingston ram?

The Corsair website states that the TWIN2X2048-6400C4 is compatible with the ASUS M2N-E, but then it's rated at 2.1V (link). Awkward.

For £30 extra I can get some stuff that's guaranteed to work direct from Crucial but it's only CAS5 - bit pricey. It's rated at 1.8V though

Perhaps I should look at a different motherboard? What DDR2-800 ram would you recommend?

Thanks for all your help!

MeatLoaf said:

I'd recommend the Geil, works fine here.

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Had a look at that - great price! Unfortunately it's DDR2-667 and I rather wanted DDR2-800



EDIT: According to Crucial, their Ballistix 2GB DDR2-800 kit will work, rated at CAS4. It's getting expensive at £255 direct though and it's rated at 2.2V

Just got the MSI K9N Platinum for a friend, built the rig over the weekend. Superb board so far, NO ISSUES whatsoever

Thanks for your reply

Unfortunately I've ordered the ASUS board - hopefully I won't have any issues with it. After looking on the ASUS forums, it seems that the lack of voltage to the memory is a problem. The CAS5 Corsair stuff is said to work as it's rated at 1.9V

If I do have any problems though I'll replace it with the MSI

You can put the ram voltage too 1.95 as i recall from mine before it knackerd up.

Jabbs said:

You can put the ram voltage to 1.95 as i recall from mine before it knackerd up.

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Yep - most faster DDR2 memory seems to require 2.2V+ though

What went wrong with yours?

Bios update, it rebooted itself as it was doing it now it won't boot up for more than 3-5 secs then turns the pc off. I have tried resetting cmos etc but no joy so i imagine its had it.

Although it has asus crash free bios 3 it says this in the manual, Asus crash free bios is an auto recovery tool thats allows you to restore the bios file when it fails or gets corrupted during the updating process. You can update a corrupted bios file using the motherboard support cd.

I would say mine surely falls into that as failed during update but i get no joy with it.

Thanks for letting me know

That's really unfortunate - sorry to hear that. That's why I always hate updating the BIOS. As you say, it should be able to restore itself using the crash free BIOS.

The last board I lost to a BIOS update didn't have a feature like this so I'm afraid I can't really help. Perhaps you can buy a replacement BIOS chip?

tbh its not been a pleasant experience with this board so just going to take the plunge and get another, just want a cheaper one for now so had me eye on the MSI K9N Neo-F nForce 550

Yeah sometimes that's the thing to do. I hope that your luck turns around and that the MSI board is better

:/ i just ordered this board , im building a budget am2 x2 4200 rig for my friend. Geil 667 ram I hope it works !

Should do - Meatloaf said that it works fine in his M2N-E

Just built my PC last night and it turns out that it doesn't like the Corsiar DDR2-800 CAS5 stuff, despite what the thread on the ASUS forum says (see my memory thread about it here). At 5-5-5-12 1T it BSODed at the start of the windows install. At 5-5-5-18 2T it lasted through the formatting stage, but BSODed at the copying files stage. This is with the memory set to 1.95V - at 1.8V it wouldn't boot full stop. The memory is officially rated at 1.9V 5-5-5-12 1T @ DDR2-800. It works flawlessy at DDR2-667, 5-5-5-18 2T @ 1.95V. I'm hoping a BIOS update might fix it

It's far less picky with DDR2-667 stuff though, and the Geil runs at 1.8V which should be fine

Yeah its deffo fine mate. Im now running 4 of them to give 2 gig. Running at 4-4-4-12 on 1.8v. Had to run at 2T tho as it wouldnt boot at 1T. Was fine at 1T with 2 sticks tho.

EDIT : Veti, when you get your board id be interested to hear what asus probe reads your volts as. Mines reporting them to be very low although the system seems very stable and the BIOS reports much better volts.

I could run the ram on the asus board in 533 fine with 3.3.3.9 1T just never would go upto 667 with 4.4.4.12 as it said it should.

MeatLoaf said:

EDIT : Veti, when you get your board id be interested to hear what asus probe reads your volts as. Mines reporting them to be very low although the system seems very stable and the BIOS reports much better volts.

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Not Veti, but I've just built a PC around the same board

ASUS probe reads my vCore as 1.40V:



CPU-Z, however, reads it as 1.216V:



It's set to auto in the BIOS - that should be 1.35V surely? I don't like the +12V, +5V and +3.3V readings either. They were far better in the BIOS (using an Antec Neo HE 550W PSU)

Jabbs said:

I could run the ram on the asus board in 533 fine with 3.3.3.9 1T just never would go upto 667 with 4.4.4.12 as it said it should.

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Yeah - the ram seems to work at one step below it's rated value. I always thought that this was a voltage issue, but my ram is rated at 1.9V. I tried increasing it to 1.95V which made it a little better, but not much. I bought the ram on the recommendation made by Tomlin on the ASUS forums here

Tomlin said:

Boots up as DDR800 with my 3500 Orleans. No problems through windows install, driver installs, and service pack updates.

All good, running at stock settings.
Brand CORSAIR
Series XMS2
Model TWIN2X2048-6400
Type 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM
Tech Spec
Capacity 2GB (2 x 1GB)
Speed DDR2 800 (PC2 6400)
Cas Latency 5
Timing 5-5-5-12
Voltage 1.9V
ECC No
Buffered/Registered Unbuffered
Heat Spreader Yes
Features matched pair, with Heat Spreader

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Looks like I'm running a rather old BIOS - Revision 0103 according to ASUS Probe II. The latest is 0203 - I'll update either tomorrow or Saturday (when I get a chance after work!) and update this thread

Looks like youre getting the same readings as me. CPU-Z also reads my volts on the cpu as 1.2v, even when running overclocked at 2.7v and the vcore manually set at 1.4v in the BIOS. Im on 0103 also.