Fast & Cheap Nforce2?

[ratha]

Well im in the market to look for a motherboard that works with my radeon 9500 (so i can boot after i shut my computer off without pressing the restart button for 3 hours (seriously)) but i do not need all the fancy features..

What i am hoping to do is dump my 1800+ and 768 megs ram into it, and upgrade from there. I saw that the MSI K7N2G-ILSR took first place as far as benchmarks against most other systems go, but i can get an MSI K7N2-L for $50.. and thats quite a bit of money right now for features i already have/dont need lower grade versions of.

One of my questions was, how does the K7N2 stack up against the fully loaded version as far as preformance goes, and/or what would you recommend getting in the $80-$100?

Also, i may wish to do some overclocking with it, are there any that unlock the processor without modifying it? I believe i have a Palimino.

I am in the market for a raid card too, i think i have one picked out that looked decent in the reviews, or would atleast do what i wanted, as Nforce2 boards dont seem to have IDE raid.. and i plan on getting two new 6Y120P0's to mirror.

Anyway, any suggestions you guys would have would be great, i have been looking and changing my mind for almost two months now. Any help you could provide would be great.


Ratha

Current specs:

Win98se
EPoX 8KHA+
XP 1800+
3x256 Crucial PC2100 (2.5-3-3)
Radeon 9500 (black)
SB-Live X-Gamer
Antec 350 watt power supply

 

[AMD_me]

A very nice board is the Chaintech 7NJL1, which uses the SPP+MCP (not MCP-T) but it is a bit pricey at around $107. The Abit NF7-S revision 2.0 is a very full featured and highly overclockable board for around $105 shipped on newegg. I would not recommend any MSI boards since they lack HS/Water block mounting holes and seem to die after about 10 months. for some reason.

eBay, kick ass!

My 3DMark2001 Score: <A HREF="http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k1=6288493" target="_new">http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k1=6288493</A>
-
I bought from Best Buy once. Once.

 

[hineigger]

Go MSI. $87 at newegg. Very fast, great price.

 

[kmiller]

Soltek SL-75FRN2-L

 

[Spitfire_x86]

Buy MSI K7N2-L. It's the fastest and cheapest nForce2

----------------
<b><A HREF="http://geocities.com/spitfire_x86" target="_new"> My Website</A></b>

<b><A HREF="http://geocities.com/spitfire_x86/myrig.html" target="_new"> My Rig</A></b>

 

[TKH]

Chaintech is among the slowest nForce2 mobo. Abit would be fine... And I want to say something about your words on MSI, none of the MSI has exist in the market more than 7 months, so how do they die about 10 months?

You never know how stupid you are until you have done something stupid enough for you to realize it.
<A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/mysystemrig.html?id=22996" target="_new">My System Rig</A>

 

[NeoBlademun]

Personally, after looking at lots of Nforce2 Mobo's, I like the Aopen and the Abit boards. MSI boards are well made, but do not come with the MCP-T. Chaintech boards have the MSP-T but don't actually use it. (stupid bastards) Leadtek markets their MCP-T usage alot because thier board is crap. Asus boards are great but..dang, unless your building a server or something you realllly don't need all that shtuff. FIC..dunno, Reallly cheap and has MCP-T, same with Biostar. At any rate, you can see my bias, which is founded. getting the equivalent of a Audigy2 Free is..just nice.

 

[Prof133]

* Also look at Epox 8RDA+. Excellent overclocker and uses the nVidia APU (great audio). Cost $96 at newEgg.

* The CPU mutiplier of TBreds is unlocked on nforce2 boards but not Palomino. You'll have to modify a bridge on the Palomino in order to change the multiplier.

 

[ratha]

I have been trying to weigh the options. Its amazingly hard to do sometimes. Currently i have an issue with epox boards, that is that my radeon 9500np (black) will NOT post on a cold boot. And i dont think its good for any of the drives in my system to have to go through 1-3 hours worth of pressing the reset button every 5 seconds hoping that this next time it will boot up. I have a feeling that is what lead to my harddrive failure recently, which is why i now would like a raid setup so that i dont lose 6 years worth of important information again. Or have to chance spending $2000 to recover that data.

I am trying to avoid that issue, and get something i can grow into, that has some features i need, (raid) yet is also a good board.

Well, i can get two serial 120 gig drives for $410, or i can get 2 120 ata133 drives (diamondmax for both) for around $286 (with raid controller) and a cheap nforce2 motherboard (+80-100) and i have less than $400 spent on a partial upgrade. Or i can spend over $530 on 2 drives and a motherboard that supports serial raid.

Spending $130 more on things that are not really going to improve my computing experience by any noticable ammount does not seem much like a good deal.

So thats where i stand on the whole thing currently. Not to mention that stepping up and getting new/faster ram, would not only end me up 256 megs shorter, if i wanted to remain in dual channel.. but also cost me stability issues. Or that is what is said of some of the MSI and possibly other boards are having.

So i keep hopping from board to board, looking at the price, and features, and wishing board A had feature X and cost price L, but did not have every problem listed in the "3025 Page Book of Problems"

Perhaps im asking too much of the current industry, and being too cheap to spend all the money i have ever saved up on a component upgrade thats not going to improve my setup much from what it is right now without spending additional money on.

So, im still searching.


Ratha

 

[tombance]

I think he was talking about the board physically malfunctionning, not dying in terms of support.

<A HREF="http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k1=5467618 " target="_new">Almost Breaking 12k!!</A>

 

[TKH]

This is exactly what I meant. My word is this mobo not even exist more then 7 months so how would he knows it's going to malfunction at 10 months? ...hmmm, may be he can see the future, I'll ask him what would be the coming lotto number...

You never know how stupid you are until you have done something stupid enough for you to realize it.
<A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/mysystemrig.html?id=22996" target="_new">My System Rig</A>

 

[Maverick494]

Ratha here is my reccomendation to you:

(1)ASUS A7N8X Deluxe 135.00
(2)Maxtor 80GB ATA133 174.00
(2)SOYO Serial ATA Convertor 40.00
(2)GEIL 512MB PC-2700 120.00

This way you have 1GB of ram (256 MB more) and you get serial ATA that will do raid 1 and 0 or 1+0 just like you want with no extra card. The extra cost of the ASUS is justified because it has all the bells and whistles. It will overclock, but not like the EPOX or ABIT. This upgrade costs 469.00 before shipping and taxes from Newegg.com

If you must have the 120GB drives it will be 513.

Now for the other option on motherboards:

FIC AU13 85.00 (total 419.00 with other upgrades)
ABIT NF7S 125.00 (total 459.00 with other upgrades)

Also if you can stand to have 512MB of mem:

(2)All Components. 32X64 256MB PC-2700 DDR333 Memory module. 8-chip. 184-pin -OEM (SAMSUNG MODULE) 72.00 (total $413.00)

Just a computer junky

 

[ratha]

Aye, i have played some options. It does make me wonder how well having a gig of ram would do for me in w98 platforms. I will take your advice and play with some numbers. I do not *need* the ram currently, but one of my concerns was that for the price of converter cards/raid cards Why not just spend the extra and go and play the serial game.

Im not sure what i am going to be able to do to tell the truth, currently the options just arnt the best, not at the cost current. There are so many other issues i am contending with, i find myself in a bind for cash, however i also know the art of upgrading computer components in the terms of "you get what you pay for"

So, i do appreciate your advice very much, i will as i say, mill over your thoughts and see what will come to fit my needs, it is likely that i may put this project off for another month, while i sort out connectivity with my broadband isp who is giving me the run around.


Ratha

 

[tombance]

He was also talking about MSI boards in general, not the nForce2 board. So in this respect, there are many MSI boards that are more than 10 months old.

<A HREF="http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k1=5467618 " target="_new">Almost Breaking 12k!!</A>

 

[TKH]

He was also talking about MSI boards in general, not the nForce2 board.

This is even more ridiculous, so now all MSI mobo will die at about 10 months old. There goes my fellow MSI users, you have just bought the crappiest mobo ever which will die about 10 months guaranteed.

You never know how stupid you are until you have done something stupid enough for you to realize it.
<A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/mysystemrig.html?id=22996" target="_new">My System Rig</A>

 

[NEUTRALITY]

Not so sure you need a gig of ram right now, just start off with 512 and get the rest when you need it. And $120??? I found pc3500 512mb for cheaper than that. I game about as much as the next guy, and the only game I've had that uses over 512 is the Planetside beta, I have a gig and windows asked me to increase my virtual mem! The second most RAM intensive game I have are the Morrowind expansions which use 256 of my physical and still can't get smooth frame rate on my 9700 pro with settings turned up. Just some friendly advice that might help.

_________
<font color=blue>"That you, saucy crab?"</font color=blue>

 

[sturm]

I ve been using an MSI kt266 (6380) MB now for over 2 years and never had a problem. So the 10 months "opinon" is total bullsh*t. I hardly ever see problems with MSI boards on this forum. I even asked a question about it awhile back. I see more problems with the Asus boards than any other MB expect maybe ECS or FIC.
For AMD me: By the way where is your proof that MSI boards die at 10 months?