mobo quesiton

[darkorb]

what is the difference betweeen the a8n32sli deluxe, a8n sli, a8n sli premium and all those? and which one can i oc the most on?

[werty316]

The main difference is features/accessories and onboard stuff like Firewire. The A8N32-SLi is the best out of the bunch but is expensive. The A8N-SLi Premium is also good for a cheaper price.

[markkleb]

werty is right, the premium is the best deal,BUT if ur gonna OC get a DFI...

[zachig]

werty is right, the premium is the best deal, if ur gonna OC get a DFI...

Yeah, I would also go with the DFI mobos...:???:

Get a DFI SLI-DR Expert (for Socket 939) or their new DFI UT NF590 SLI-M2R/G (for AM2 Socket)...:wink:

[werty316]

Yep DFI is king for OC'ing but if you are not familar with BIOS settings you are gonna have alot of headaches.

DFI's AM2 socket boards continue their great OC'ing lineup and so far the Infinity NF UltraII-M2 is the only board you can get from DFI that is AM2 but it did perform as expected and I love the layout; a Zalman NB-47J would fit perfectly.

To our surprised, we managed to boot from BIOS at 440HTT. No, that was not a typo and we are serious that this board booted at 440HTT

http://lp.pcmoddingmy.com/albums/userpics/DFI/NFUltraII-M2/thumb_5.jpg (http://lp.pcmoddingmy.com/albums/userpics/DFI/NFUltraII-M2/5.jpg)

http://www.pcmoddingmy.com/e107_plugins/content/content.php?content.377

[darkorb]

i will stick with asus and their premium i think. cuz i will be getting th ac freezer and iw ant it to blow right out of the exaust fan, the dfi are setup a bit wierd.

also, does windows xp support up to 4gb of ram?

[markkleb]

The Asus is a good board, I almost got the Premium one. DFI needs a little messing with but it ROCKS. Thats the mobo I am using in the CrossFlow comp.

Other good thing about the Premium is you set SLI/No SLI in the bios. No jumper.

[werty316]

i will stick with asus and their premium i think. cuz i will be getting th ac freezer and iw ant it to blow right out of the exaust fan, the dfi are setup a bit wierd.

also, does windows xp support up to 4gb of ram?

Even though the A8N32-SLi board supports two 16x slots in SLi and the A8N-SLi supports two 8x slots in SLi mode there is no noticable performance difference. I would have chosen the cheaper board also.

WinXP supports upto 4GB but even 2GB is enough; 4GB is overkill for XP.

[darkorb]

i have coem to a conclusion, after u answer this last question.

i was thinking of getting the arctic cooler 64 pro, or the thermaltake or zalman cpu cooler, ill look at some cases they have in stock, see which ones are light and have good air flow, and. its gonna be tbetween the a8n-e and the a8n-sli premium or just the a8n-sli. i am not gonna sli, just try and oc my 3500+ to 2.8ghz, maybe even 3.ghz if i have proper cooling.

[markkleb]

Both are good for what they are, I think the AC Freezer is Cheap,Quiet and good for mild OC, the Zalman looks Beautiful, is $$, and works better for more OC.

Both are good cause they can blow air to the back.

Get the Premium(you never know weather ul change ur mind later) Definately no on the A8n-e. If money is a prob look at Newegg Refurb stuff.

This may sound dumb but the Jetway GT4 is a great OC mobo ($78Retail-$45 Refurb) I used it on the RedChrome comp. It has 3 PCIX slots.

http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2506

LOL, probably the best $45 SLI mobo in the world...

[darkorb]

if iw anted to oc, i would have to buy a psu.. so i will proly just get the a8n-sli premium or the one lower. and ill get which ever case/cpu cooler they have in stock

[Mirrim]

I've not used the AC one, but have not been disappointed with any Zalman product I've used thus far. Have the Zalman CNPS8000 running on the P4 D 805 in a Lian Li PC-V300. It was easy to install, runs cool and quiet, with more than enough clearance in the rather small, cramped case.

Heard lots of good things about Arctic Cooling though. Probably can't go wrong with either.

[werty316]

Word of advice the A8N series are picky with memory OC'ing and all of the boards except for the A8N32-SLi and A8N-SLi Premium suffer a 1T bug where you cannot OC memory past 225-230MHz. I have encountered this 1T on an A8N-E with two kits I have used.

[darkorb]

i was thinkin of getting the dfi lanpartyultra -d. i dont no how to oc memory. all i no how to oc, is just go into the settings, and click oc by like 10% or w/e. u guys will have to teach me like how to raise multiplyers or w/e

[GIBSON]

Well, u can't change multipliers on most cpu's. OC'ing isn't really all that complicated, it just comes down to changing a few numbers in your bios.

[werty316]

OC'ing can seem like its hard to a user who have never tried it before and it sounds like you are in that boat so a DFI Ultra-D would not be a smart board to choose as a beginner as probably will only give you stress.

Read this article for everything you need to know about A64 OC'ing:
Overclocking on the 754/939 Platform (http://www.short-media.com/review.php?r=300)

For A64 CPUs the FX CPUs are the only chips you can raise and lower the CPU multiplier. All other CPUs you can lower the CPU muiltipier only.

[markkleb]

We would be happy to help you out. The Ultra mobo is just as easy to set up as any other mobo. Leave the bios alone (auto).

But when you want to mess around there is a LOT to play with. I had that mobo and I suck at oc. But it worked fine and was able to get my 3700+ to 2910mhz and my mem to 602mhz.

[Bio-Hazard]

The biggest problem with the default (Auto) memory timings is that they are way to loose, they are basice set that way so that just about and memory moduals will boot.
There's big memory performance gains to be had just by tweaking the setting to fit the ram that you have. It's not all that hard though, just read through this thread and follow the simple instructions.

http://www.dfi-street.com/forum/showpost.php?p=203179&postcount=4

[GIBSON]

The biggest problem with the default (Auto) memory timings is that they are way to loose, they are basice set that way so that just about and memory moduals will boot.
There's big memory performance gains to be had just by tweaking the setting to fit the ram that you have. It's not all that hard though, just read through this thread and follow the simple instructions.

http://www.dfi-street.com/forum/showpost.php?p=203179&postcount=4
I don't think the mobo is that much involved in that. Doesn't the SPD tell the motherboard what timings it should run at auto?

[Bio-Hazard]

Nope, it's got more to do with how the bios is programed and if you look at what the SPD is programmed to vers what the ram is able to run at, you see something differant most of the time. If you read the manual on most mother boards, you'll also notice that they tell you that if you're running high speed LL ram, you'll need to set those timings manually in the system bios.
A good example is my OCZ ram that I'm running in my system, if you set it to auto you only get 3-3-2-8 at stock speeds, but the ram will run at 2-3-2-5 at stock CPU speeds, you're losing all sorts of bandwidth and performance for no reason. You're best performance is always going to come from tweaking the memory setting yourself.

[GIBSON]

Well, I knew that the SPD doesn't push your memory to its limits. Though are you sure the motherboard won't always run the memory at SPD when it's in auto-mode? Or are the SPD's of the high-performance rated sticks that far off?

[Bio-Hazard]

Some of them are programmed correctly, most are not. The only ones I have that are programmed correctly is a set from Ultra, my PQI, OCZ and Mushkin were all set higher (slower) than what they are rated to by the manufacture. The biggest problem is when you by ram rated higher than DDR400, that type of ram has their SPD's programmed to their rated speed and timings ie: DDR500 2.5-3-3-7, which doesn't do you much good if you're running auto at DDR400 speeds, you might as well buy some value stuff.

[werty316]

Think of SPD as this:

A DDR500 kit is programmed with timings of 3-4-4-10 as so:

http://xs105.xs.to/xs105/06331/Clipboard03243243242342341.jpg

If I use "Auto" setting the timings will be set to that but the frequency won't be set to that unless I OC the memory or increase the memory divider to 250MHz (500MHz effective).

Its always best to manually set a memory's timings rather than use the "SPD" setting.

[darkorb]

well, my parents just gave me $100, cuz i was going away for a few days to montreal, so im just gonna buy a case and some more ram this week. so the stock mobo is gonna stay, i think thats what im gonna do. can ushow me some good ram tat u think will be good and willwork with my existing ram?
canadacomputers.com plz and im looking for a 1337 case with a good amount of airflow, specially good intake over the hd. i dont care about noise. heavy sleeper

[markkleb]

too bad u cant get the $9 Wizzard case.

I saw this one in Canada though
http://www.canadacomputers.com/index.php?do=ShowProduct&cmd=pd&pid=008617&cid=CS.664

here is one of my favorites(try to get it without the PS though)
http://www.canadacomputers.com/index.php?do=ShowProduct&cmd=pd&pid=008005&cid=CS.664

can you go Tigerdirect?(here is my RedChrome in Blue)
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1647299&CatId=1842

[darkorb]

how is the airflow on those?i want really cool temps, good airflow

[markkleb]

I like the open fans in front (nothing blocking them)

The idea is air in the front and out the back. Simple.

I realy like the Coolermaster Centurion, The whole front is mesh and has filters, Great airflow. And it looks a lit nicer in person than in picts, I just bought a Coolermaster 541 Micro for the Coolermaster Mod contest.

[BigD]

get a DFI Expert Board (refurb if you can)



for a case, get a Lian Li pc-60b and mod it to this http://www.xoxide.com/ll-warrior-special-edition-black.html

or get a lian li v-1000 and mod it like i did here
http://www.techpowerup.com/gallery/260