£100 Max, which One?

loltim · 21 Feb 2006 at 01:16

BoomAM said:
Are you mad?
A Zalman would prevent a video card being inserted, and unplugging the fan would cause the NB to overheat and possibly cause damage.

Good board.

Its not hard to modify and make it fit and with decent case cooling the chipset would be fine with no fan directly on the chipset heatsink.

I have an Abit AX8 v2.0 FWIW and it isn't particularly great.

BoomAM · 21 Feb 2006 at 01:29

Tim said:
Its not hard to modify and make it fit and with decent case cooling the chipset would be fine with no fan directly on the chipset heatsink.

I have an Abit AX8 v2.0 FWIW and it isn't particularly great.

It cant be modified AND cool well.
The NB sits right under the PCI-Ex16 slot on most board. You'd have to cut away 90% of the heatsink just to get it to fit.
Even modified, it cant be guaranteed to cool the board properly. Even with good ventiliation. Which isnt a given at the moment. Plus, with most of the air flow to the NB being blocked by RAM slots and/or the video card, you'd need a fan pointing right at the NB. Which isnt exactely a guaranteed to give the NB airflow in itself.
So why not just buy a board outright thats passive, for the extra few £ that it'll cost? Rarther than invalidating his warrenty with methods that wont work?

The AX8's are good boards. Basic boards. Dont expect good OCs out of them, but they are good for a no-frills board.

Big.Wayne · 21 Feb 2006 at 01:29

ACPCUP said:
I have £100 to spend on a new AMD PCI-E 939 Mobo. Which one should i go for and why? I am open to ideas but it must have a passive Chipset cooler. Ta

ACPCUP · 21 Feb 2006 at 08:12

Yea, ordered the Premium!! Cheers guys.

Big.Wayne · 21 Feb 2006 at 19:09

No Problem and no you don't have to connect the molex plug near the PCI express slot (unless you are using two cards in SLI).

Behemoth · 21 Feb 2006 at 22:52

the Gigabyte K8N Pro SLi nForce4 SLi (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-038-GI) is a good board. I bought one this week, no over heating problems here at all.

Asus is a good board for stability though so good choice mate, the number 2 machine has an Asus board.

Bookime Wood · 22 Feb 2006 at 01:18

epox, cheap, stable, realiable , clocks like trooper, stick a 3 quid zalman on, bingo

ACPCUP · 22 Feb 2006 at 07:53

Thanks for all the replies guys. Got the Premium now, cheers.

megatron · 22 Feb 2006 at 11:53

That Asus design is kind of crafty since the NB is cooled by the mosfet heatsink with indirect cpu fan airflow.

kona ryan · 22 Feb 2006 at 17:26

whats so crafty about that? good idea if you ask me :S

megatron · 22 Feb 2006 at 20:35

kona ryan said:
whats so crafty about that? good idea if you ask me :S

Crafty because no third party manufacturer would be able to copy the design, since the placement of the mosfets is not standard.

cavemanoc · 24 Feb 2006 at 00:31

Yep - Asus definitely took a long hard look at 939 boards and finally gave it the ultimate test - give it to a 6 year old - he spots the obvious flaws (Tiny/noisy nb cooler, Pci-e slots so close you couldn't fit a flattened plaice between them etc...), then fix them!

About time someone built a board that just makes sense!

cavemanoc · 24 Feb 2006 at 00:33

And it's got 3 PCI slots! (just realised - been cursing my DFI for weeks) - I want one of those boards!

Hyper · 24 Feb 2006 at 03:08

DFI Lanparty, OCUK sometimes have them on B-Grade for just under £100.

BoomAM · 24 Feb 2006 at 16:30

He's already ordered a board now guys.

kona ryan · 24 Feb 2006 at 20:46

megatron said:
Crafty because no third party manufacturer would be able to copy the design, since the placement of the mosfets is not standard.

im still lost, why would that be of any concern to asus?

megatron · 24 Feb 2006 at 21:30

kona ryan said:
im still lost, why would that be of any concern to asus?

Where are u lost? Dont u have a mobile phone, or you could ask a police officer for directions.

megatron · 24 Feb 2006 at 21:37

kona ryan said:
whats so crafty about that? good idea if you ask me :S

In the context I used it crafty = good idea, so what is the beef?

kona ryan · 25 Feb 2006 at 01:04

listen mate, my question wasnt meant to sound funny, i was genuinely interested in why you thought it was crafty,

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craft·y ( P ) Pronunciation Key (krft)
adj. craft·i·er, craft·i·est
Skilled in or marked by underhandedness, deviousness, or deception

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im doing well to hold back and play by the forum rules here, if it wasnt on a forum my response would have been VERY different bud.

BoomAM · 25 Feb 2006 at 01:09

I think his point of 'crafty' is that Asus have used a non standard design for their mosfet cooling. Meaning that nothing but 1st Party Cooling will work.
Although i dont see that as 'crafy' myself considering every manufacturer cools the mosfets differentely, and that theres no definitive specification on how they are cooled/where they are to be located on the board.