one more advice...nforce2 mobo

[silence]

i started another thread bout ddr...and i found twinmos ddr333, Bartons cominf in 3 days...all i need now is mobo.

i am going for nforce2 offcourse, but what to choose?

asus deluxe?
abit?
msi?
epox?

offcourse no integrated gfx and mcp-t southbridge.....

[stncttr908]

To pick two, I'd say the Asus A7N8X Deluxe or the Abit NF7-S for peak performance. They're commonly 1 & 2 in all nforce2 roundup articles.

[PenguinJim]

I concur

[netviper13]

I've got the NF7-S and it's been an impeccable board so far. Overclocking has been great and no stability issues.

[Red Dog]

Ive owned 2 Asus A7N8X Deluxe rev 1.04's and an Abit NF7-S rev 2.0

the first a7n did 204 fsb max and I killed it. The second a7n did 202 fsb and it just died.

same equipment installed in my NF7-S rev 2.0 is happy at 216x10.5=2270mhz

the a7n has a coax spdif and the nf7 has optical spdif, both onboard. Im using the nf7-s's optical spdif.

imo the nf7-s rev 2 audio sounds more robust and cleaner. my nf7-s downmixes the line-in to 5.1 or whatever config you are running, my a7n8x del's didnt downmix the line in and only offered 2 channel stereo. I use the line if for my tv tuner card.

the nf7 has higher voltage options and more advanced bios options.

both of my a7n8x del's southbridge put out alot of heat, alot. as in burn your finger. my nf7-s sb doesnt get anywhere near that hot.

the atx power connectors on the nf7 are in a more electricaly desireable location and it uses the extra 12v atx accessory connector.

the a7n8x's atx connector is placed in a location which is convienient but less desirable when considering electrical circuit design. furthermore it doesnt make use of the 12v atx accessory connector.

neither of my a7n8x dels's responded well to volt mods so I discontinued using the mods.

the nf7-s rev2 is a kick azz product.

unless you already have an audigy or audigy 2 its hard to beat the nf7-s soundstorm using optical spdif out. perfect combo with z-680's like I have. awesome support for dolby formats, especially in dvd playback.

good luck whatever you do, Silence.

[silence]

heh...tought choices :)

gonna check some reviews of both ASUS and ABIT......but soundstorm is one of things i want.

[Chicane-UK]

Well... just this week I upgraded to the Abit NF7-S v2.0, from the Abit KR7A-133.

So far, I am mighty impressed with the board.

After first installing it, the board kept locking up and all kinds of stuff... a quick BIOS flash to the latest version, and it now runs perfectly. I got an Athlon XP2600+ teamed with 2 x 256MB Crucial PC2100 DDR sticks (yeah, I need PC2700 but that'll have to wait for a while) running in dual channel DDR.

It seems very nice, very stable, and very quick :)

Soundstorm isnt bad either :p

[netviper13]

Both the Abit and Asus boards have soundstorm (although Asus lost the certification from nVidia it still has all the hardware/drivers), the only basic difference is the Abit uses optical in/outputs for its digital-audio while the Asus board uses coaxial in/outputs for its digital-audio.