Need a new board today!!! HELP

TheBigCheese

TheBigCheese

TheBigCheese

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*Solved* Need a new board today

Sorry to create three threads in two days but I'm having some serious trouble.

My motherboard died yesterday which is an Asus A8N-SLI.

So I thought I'd get either an A8N-SLI Premium or A8N32-SLI Deluxe both passively cooled.

Both seem to have a problem when mounted vertically so that idea is no good, they will be going in a coolermaster stacker case so they will be vertical all the time.

My specs are:
AMD X2 4400+ (cooled with a Freezer 64)
2x 1Gb Corsair TwinX
1x 6800GT graphics card (other one was RMA'd and refunded)
2X DVD-RW
2X IDE HDD
4X SATA HDD


The computer has to work flawlessly in these hot conditions for up to 16 hours a day number crunching with photo editing and video encoding constantly - it's for my business.

I have decided that I will probably ditch SLI as I don't really get the time to play games and one powerful card is enough at the moment (I'm thinking of buying a friends 7800GT).

Can anyone recommend a good, cool, easy to use, reliable, quick board that I can have delivered tomorrow and will fulfil all my requirements?
I really haven't got the time to be hitting all the review sites over many differently specified motherboards...it took me weeks to decide on my spec last time so I am relying on other peoples experience and knowledge.

I'm at my wits end here so any suggestions will be massively appreciated!

Many thanks.
 
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Have you considered Abit boards? There is an Abit AX8 VIA K8T890 (no SATA 2) at £34.08 in clearance, the passive cooler is just a heatsink and the VIA northbridge doesn't run that hot so I don't think it'd matter which way it is installed. You would need to verify the board is version 2 before you buy though (with the updated K8T890 that supports dual cores).

There is also the KN8 SLI £70.27 (again passively cooled) but I expect if the Asus boards cooling doesn't function properly upside down, neither will that ones.

For cheapness the Asrock 939Dual-SATA2 (only 1 SATA 2) is something to consider too, it only costs £43.42 and as it uses the ULI chips, is again passively cooled. There are no heatpipes like the expensive Asus and Abit nForce 4 boards either so hopefully that'd also work upside down.

I think you would need an extra SATA controller card for all of those boards except the KN8 SLI, so I'd also suggest looking at the Asus A8N-VM which although only a Micro-ATX board and using an nForce 4 chip, is cooled just using a heatsink and does have 4x SATA 2 ports. It would be a bit short on PCI slots though, being Micro.
 
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Thanks for the reply, I hadn't thought about the boards not having 4 SATA ports on them...

I'll check out your suggestions, do the abit boards have a good reputation then?
 
They do have a pretty good rep in a general sense yeah.

By the way, I didn't mean they don't have any SATA ports, the Asrock has 2x SATA 1 and 1x SATA 2 ports and the Abit AX8 has 4x SATA 1 but only the Asus A8N-VM and Abit KN8-SLI have 4x SATA 2.
 
I have never liked Gigabyte boards.

I think the DFI is the most 'sorted' board out there, but you are paying a price for something that will overclock well, but is that your priority?

Asus are generally very reliable boards, and should work fine vertically just not upside down in a Lian V case.
 
What he said ^

I'm not too keen on Gigabyte either and DFI boards don't really seem ideal for your needs.

I think your on the right track trying to pick up something reasonably inexpensive without needless features (it is only a replacement board after all ;) ) that'll be quiet, reliable and cool running.

In my opinion any board with an active chipset cooler you can immediately strike reliable from the list and nForce 4 boards tend to be a little toasty anyway. For running at stock VIA K8T890 boards are massively under-rated and the (Asus) A8V-E SE is one of, if not the most stable board I've ever had. The (Abit) AX8 is based on the same gear and at only £35 (providing it is a revision 2) would get my vote from those.

I wouldn't ever try to overclock one though (or if you do, do it carefully :p ).. if that is your game head for the DFI boards :D
 
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split said:
Asus are generally very reliable boards, and should work fine vertically just not upside down in a Lian V case.
Click to expand...

Phew...after much deliberation and you both agreeing with Asus being fine vertically I've opted for the A8N32-SLI...it's certainly not an inexpensive board (ouch!) but it really seems like it does the business.

Also, I reasoned that most cases now are towers so it would be a bit of a daft design if it didn't work vertically.

When Tetras was talking about upside down boards I didn't realise you could get boards that are literally upside down, I thought he meant vertically :D

Still, it should hopefully all be fine! (and put an end to my panicked postings!)

Thanks very much for all your replies! :)
 
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