Need motherboard advice

January 2nd, 2006, 04:26 AM

I'm going to buy a new AMD Athlon 64 X2-based system but I need help choosing a motherboard. Money is not an issue for me at the moment and I think I want SLI technology to make the system future-proof... at least for a little while. Anyway, I think I've narrowed it down to the ASUS A8N32-SLI Deluxe, but what do you guys think? Will this board run the Geil ONE PC3200 DDR memory NGO recently reviewed? If not, what are your recommendations?

Thanks for reading.

**Regeneration** · January 2nd, 2006, 08:15 PM

You should go with DFI because of their great overclocking ability.

Cool Barn · January 3rd, 2006, 01:02 AM

If you're a power user then go with the DFI as Regen suggested, but if you tend to stick with default settings then the ASUS board you mention is also a very good option.

As for the GEIL memory I see no reason why it wouldn't run in the A8N. But if money is not an issue as you say then why not spend a little extra on something like Corsair or OCZ? I personally have had very good experiences with Corsair (plus Asus test and recommend Corsair memory with their boards) so that is what I would lean towards myself.

Good luck

January 3rd, 2006, 03:30 AM

Thank you very much for the input, guys. I don't stick with default settings, but I don't overclock either. I'm sort of smack in the middle, so they say. I guess I chose the Geil memory because of the extremely low latencies and the enuthiasts' favor towards BH5 chips for their speed and reliability. Nevertheless, this is my first major system upgrade that I'm doing myself, so there might be a few shopping mistakes here and there until I can finalize my selections.

EDIT: I've looked into the DFI Ultra-D board and it seems like a very tasty board indeed. However, I couldn't find out whether or not the board boasts dual PCI-E x16 slots. If this board does indeed feature them, I'll probably switch to it instead of the ASUS since you guys seem to think it's superior. ;-)

jbruneau · January 3rd, 2006, 08:27 PM

You would have to look at the DFI boards, and make sure that SLI is in the name of the board..

Here are the 2 boards that DFI product that boast SLI (2x PCI-Express slots):
http://us.dfi.com.tw/Product/xx_prod...P%20UT&SITE=US
http://us.dfi.com.tw/Product/xx_prod...FINITY&SITE=US

Please note that these boards run at 16x / 1x or 8x / 8x (though, you won't notice that loss unless you are running two 7800GTX video cards in SLI

). This is compared to the 16x / 1x or 16x / 16x that your ASUS A8N-32 board that you mentioned in your first post.

EDIT: Another reason to go with the DFI board over the ASUS board is because your BH-5 memory (like my OCZ EL Gold Dual Channel PC3200) is very very power hungry. The more power you can give it, the better! DFI generally allows alot more voltage to go through the DDR slots than other manufacturers (my MSI board maxes at 2.85V and ASUS is usually around 3.0V or 3.2V ~~ where DFI can go up to 4.0V+).

January 3rd, 2006, 10:31 PM

As a matter of fact, I will be using dual 7800GTX cards. I know my memory is very power intensive, but I thought buying an SLI-capable PSU would be sufficient enough to power it. Maybe not +4v that is required to operate the memory at 1.5t, but ample enough to run at least 2t. Since I'm not much of an overclocker, I'll probably end up going with the ASUS board.

jbruneau · January 4th, 2006, 12:16 AM

The power supply is generally not a problem, if the motherboard supports the voltage, than you are going to be fine. I know my memory needs 2.8V (which maxes my board) to run at timings of 2-2-2-5 at 1T. At these settings, they are running perfectly fine, but are stock 200 htt/mhz (DDR400).

You can purchase a DDR Booster from OCZ which provides steady power directly from the 20 pin connector. You can then boost the power to 3.9V maximum (which is a huge improvement over my 2.85V, lol!).

The ASUS board sounds really nice, and they also overclock well (despite what people say). They include good dynamic overclocking applications that work really well but also allow 1mhz HTT increases (etc). Not as well as DFI but better than most others

..

jbruneau · January 4th, 2006, 07:29 PM

Hey lurid, you may want to check out this article on the ASUS A8N32-SLI, it partains to overclocking and how the board handles.. I found it while posting the news:

Quote:

ASUS A8N32-SLI Overclocking with Corsair and OCZ @ TweakTown

The chances are you own one of these motherboards if you’re into getting the absolute most out of your Athlon processor. Today we will be having a closer look at the A8N32-SLI Deluxe - the latest bad boy to hit the ASUS motherboard line up - and what it is capable of when it comes to overclocking. VGA performance was a bit all over the shop when we looked at the board last time but this time our emphasis will be more concentrated on low resolution benchmarking along with programs that concentrate more on the motherboard/chipset side of things. Last time we didn’t get a chance to look into overclocking because we only had the motherboard in our labs for 24 hours but now it’s a resident in the labs and we’ve had plenty of time to get down and dirty with it.