Which Sockets A boards are reliable and fast?

MikeHunt79

MikeHunt79

MikeHunt79

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I've just about had it with my DFI boards... I have 3 of them, and due to having crappy Teapo caps they no longer work. :( They were fine when new tho, but I have tons of socket A stuff that I need to work!

If anyone can suggest another board (nforce2 preferably), then that would be good. Needs to be good quality and reliable, unlike the DFI!
 
Cob said:
That if you're overclocking.



That if you're not overclocking. Or aren't intending to clock the **** off your CPU.
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False, had one at 500+FSB (yes 250x2) and 2.8GHZ+, only aspect that made it harder to OC FSB than on a DFI or Abit was lack of Chipset Voltage adjustment.

Took me to 480mhz DDR FSB (1.6v) and then after slight pencil mod to 500+mhz FSB.

The E Deluxe Rev 1.01 clocked far better then the non E Deluxe Rev 2.0 (owned 2 of each) + 1x 2500M 1.45v(Crap) and 2x 2600M's 1.45v (Great).

DFI BTW were better than Abit, Abit lost their Chief Scientist who basically started/or wnet to work for DFI AFAIK.
 
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helmutcheese said:
False, had one at 500+FSB (yes 250x2) and 2.8GHZ+, only aspect that made it harder to OC FSB than on a DFI or Abit was lack of Chipset Voltage adjustment.

Took me to 480mhz DDR FSB (1.6v) and then after slight pencil mod to 500+mhz FSB.

The Deluxe E clocked far better then the non E.

DFI BTW were better than Abit, Abit lost their Chief Scientist who basically started/or wnet to work for DFI AFAIK.
Click to expand...

Oskar Wu helped design the NF7 before going to DFI.
 
helmutcheese said:
False, had one at 500+FSB (yes 250x2) and 2.8GHZ+, only aspect that made it harder to OC FSB than on a DFI or Abit was lack of Chipset Voltage adjustment.

Took me to 480mhz DDR FSB (1.6v) and then after slight pencil mod to 500+mhz FSB.

The E Deluxe Rev 1.01 clocked far better then the non E Deluxe Rev 2.0 (owned 2 of each) + 1x 2500M 1.45v(Crap) and 2x 2600M's 1.45v (Great).

DFI BTW were better than Abit, Abit lost their Chief Scientist who basically started/or wnet to work for DFI AFAIK.
Click to expand...

Dude, a 250mhz FSB and 500mhz memory speed was a piece of **** to get on an NF7-S.

Now the ASUS was a grand board, but the Abit was better. Hence why i made my recommendations.
 
No one said the Abit was not good I only contested part you made claim on about lack of OC on Asus.

Not everyone got 500+ on DFI or Abit, many thought 450FSB was good and it was back then.

You seem to haver missed the part about lack of Chipset Voltage adjustment on the Asus (only reason it didnt out the box OC so well.

You have adjustments all the way to 1.9v I think where as default was 1.6v.

DFI's went higher than any others I seen TBH.

You can read any number of reviews that showed the Asus was the best/fastest out the box Mobo.

NF2 was king, NF3 was good, NF4 on 939 was good, then it got bit downhill on NF4 AM2 and NF5/6/780 are crap, but 790 seems good.
 
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I'm not really claiming that the ASUS is lacking in overclocking. I was merely stating that if he was intending to clock the nuts off his CPU then the Abit would be a better choice, without the need for volt mods. I'd rather go from a DFI to an Abit, than to an ASUS.
 
Another vote for the NF7-s v2 here. Absolutely cracking board.

DFI's are THE clockers, but take a lot of love and knowledge, and tend to self destruct (as you have found)

Asus played a blinder with the A7N8X-E Deluxe, but you need to make sure you get the right revision, the earlier ones often struggled to reach 200FSB as they were originally designed as 166FSB boards. I was lucky as my 1.3 board was 200 capable without hassle - I was in the minority though - most had to vmod them to up the north bridge voltage enough to play ball.

Make sure you DO NOT get the Abit NF7-S2, it was a later revision than the NF7-s v2 and came with a crippled chipset.

Best bet is to track down the board and post back here with the details (without competitor details obv.) and we can all travel down memory lane together - what chip you running on it?

Only thing that I really prefered about the Asus was the spoken boot sequence - that lady telling me that the boot was 'good' was music to my ears and worth many gold stars! Sod the 'diagnostic LEDs' - bring back the techno-girly ;)
 
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helmutcheese said:
DFI BTW were better than Abit, Abit lost their Chief Scientist who basically started/or wnet to work for DFI AFAIK.
Click to expand...
Having had several NF7-S V2.0s, 2 types of DFI, an A7N8X Deluxe,a Soltek, a Leadtek & an MSI imo the best was the abit.
The DFI would ultimately clock higher but was always very finicky & you wondered whether they would boot this time whereas the abits were always ultra reliable & user friendly (best I ever got on an NF7-S V2.0 was 265fsb on air).
 
@ cavemanoc, there is only 1 Asus A7N8X E Deluxe, its a Rev 1.01

Your thinking about the Asus A7N8X Deluxe Rev 1.XX's that started life as 333FSB (mobo makers talk in DDR FSB) and later Rev 2.0 + Bios update were 400FSB, then even later Rev 2.0's (blue ram slots) were offically out the box 400FSB.
 
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cavemanoc said:
DFI's are THE clockers, but take a lot of love and knowledge, and tend to self destruct (as you have found)
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Yep, It's a shame that I had to take "pot luck" with my DFI boards... 3 ultra infinities, all of them with the crap Teapo caps, all now won't boot. :(

Some people have switched out the caps for good ones, and have had the boards working really smoothly with good caps, but this is a lot of hassle, and I could pick up another board for less than the cost of the new caps... So I'm gonna pick up a working board that's known to work. I remember someone once saying "a good motherboard is a motherboard that works". :D

So, I think I've pretty much decided on the Abit - I probably won't go crazy on the overclocking, but I have 3 x Barton XP-M chips, so the tweakability would be good... Basically this will be a backup rig and all it needs to do really is play music and run firefox. :)

If I do see the Asus board around tho, I may pick up one also as I have so many chips, and also I have around 6 or 7 sticks of DDR and you can never have too many working rigs!

Also, whats the difference between nforce2 and nforce2 ultra?
 
Cob said:
That if you're overclocking.



That if you're not overclocking. Or aren't intending to clock the **** off your CPU.
Click to expand...

i agree too, had both boards.

asus = out of every socket a board this was by far the fastest at stock but wouldn't go over 200fsb at all. google searches and much reading on forums said this was normal for that board.

abit got me a far past 200fsb and got my 2800xp up to 2.67ghz at 2.1v :D
 
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