Ok, with green on my gills here's my issue
I understand a majority wants to overclock and thats great but I do rely on Toms Hardware Guide to show me what is the best of motherboards that you can buy, take out the box, slap it to the case and have it run better than most of the other motherboards ouyt there without tweaking a bunch of stuff. Maybe I'm behind the times, but thats my preference.
Anyways I looked onto THG about the testing and benchmarks on Athlon Hit Parade: 10 mobos with the nForce2 Ultra400 Updated on August 6th (Yes I know its November).
The test was based on these 11 boards:
Abit NF7-S
AOpen AK79D-400Max
Asus A7N8X 2.0 Deluxe
DFI LanParty NFII Ultra
Epox EP-8RDA3+
Gigabyte GA-7NNXP
Leadtek K7NCR18D Pro 2
MSI K7N2 Delta (Updated)
Shuttle Spacewalker AN35N-Ultra
Shuttle Spacewalker XPC-SN45G
Soltek SL75-FRN2 (Updated)
After all the tests I was not convinced of THG assumption that:
"Conclusion: DFI and Gigabyte Are the All-Around Winners"
especially after the first sentence after that title:
"It is extremely difficult to choose one winner from nine motherboards. Most of the boards in the test met the requirements extremely well, as not one of them displayed any significant weaknesses. "
So I decided to take it upon myself to use THG data and rank each one accordingly then total the rankings please note that if there was a tie, they recieved the same ranking and then the next was placed the next number as opposed to the next number (in other words 1rst 1rst 2nd 3rd as opposed to 1rst 1rst 3rd 4th).
Thus my results were as follows:
AOpen 38
Shuttle XPC 50
Gigabyte 50
Asus 62
Shuttle AN 71
DFI 85
Abit 86
MSI 91
EPoX 105
SolTek 111
LeadTek 123
As you can see, if DFI is considered one of the best, it wasnt because of performance.
I was thrilled to see that AOpen was the obvious leader in this and that only the DX9 3DMark 2003 was below a rank of 5 (was 7, 8 was lowest rank)
And Shuttles XPC lowest rank was 6 out of 11 on Quake 3
I was finally shocked to read the following:
"AOpen is the only manufacturer that would not quite stick to the rules: 2230 MHz for our Athlon XP 3200+ is definitely too high, which explains the slightly higher benchmark results. In fact, it has no effect on system stability, but it does impact the benchmark results. At 2205 MHz, all the competitors are still above AMD's designated 2200 MHz, but within a tight tolerance band."
and then in the Features Table:
AOpen
Clock (CPU/Bus) 2230 / 202.73
All others
Clock (CPU/Bus) 2204.99-2205.0 / 400.5
So needless to say... I'm very confused as to what to take as the best of the bunch...
Gigabyte ranked third and seems nice enough and I'm sure everyone ran out and bought an Asus when they came out.. so if anyone can help out with one thing...
Which one(s) are the good ones to get?
Thanks
FYI, I'm looking to run about 1GB of memory but will most likely be PC2700 since the FBS of the athlon will be 333 either a 2500 barton or a 2700 and I'm assuming that the statement of the FSB and memory if different can actually slow things than improve (cajt remember where i read this)
plus if anyone can recommend the minimum wattage my case needs to be id appreciate it!
Thanks!
I understand a majority wants to overclock and thats great but I do rely on Toms Hardware Guide to show me what is the best of motherboards that you can buy, take out the box, slap it to the case and have it run better than most of the other motherboards ouyt there without tweaking a bunch of stuff. Maybe I'm behind the times, but thats my preference.
Anyways I looked onto THG about the testing and benchmarks on Athlon Hit Parade: 10 mobos with the nForce2 Ultra400 Updated on August 6th (Yes I know its November).
The test was based on these 11 boards:
Abit NF7-S
AOpen AK79D-400Max
Asus A7N8X 2.0 Deluxe
DFI LanParty NFII Ultra
Epox EP-8RDA3+
Gigabyte GA-7NNXP
Leadtek K7NCR18D Pro 2
MSI K7N2 Delta (Updated)
Shuttle Spacewalker AN35N-Ultra
Shuttle Spacewalker XPC-SN45G
Soltek SL75-FRN2 (Updated)
After all the tests I was not convinced of THG assumption that:
"Conclusion: DFI and Gigabyte Are the All-Around Winners"
especially after the first sentence after that title:
"It is extremely difficult to choose one winner from nine motherboards. Most of the boards in the test met the requirements extremely well, as not one of them displayed any significant weaknesses. "
So I decided to take it upon myself to use THG data and rank each one accordingly then total the rankings please note that if there was a tie, they recieved the same ranking and then the next was placed the next number as opposed to the next number (in other words 1rst 1rst 2nd 3rd as opposed to 1rst 1rst 3rd 4th).
Thus my results were as follows:
AOpen 38
Shuttle XPC 50
Gigabyte 50
Asus 62
Shuttle AN 71
DFI 85
Abit 86
MSI 91
EPoX 105
SolTek 111
LeadTek 123
As you can see, if DFI is considered one of the best, it wasnt because of performance.
I was thrilled to see that AOpen was the obvious leader in this and that only the DX9 3DMark 2003 was below a rank of 5 (was 7, 8 was lowest rank)
And Shuttles XPC lowest rank was 6 out of 11 on Quake 3
I was finally shocked to read the following:
"AOpen is the only manufacturer that would not quite stick to the rules: 2230 MHz for our Athlon XP 3200+ is definitely too high, which explains the slightly higher benchmark results. In fact, it has no effect on system stability, but it does impact the benchmark results. At 2205 MHz, all the competitors are still above AMD's designated 2200 MHz, but within a tight tolerance band."
and then in the Features Table:
AOpen
Clock (CPU/Bus) 2230 / 202.73
All others
Clock (CPU/Bus) 2204.99-2205.0 / 400.5
So needless to say... I'm very confused as to what to take as the best of the bunch...
Gigabyte ranked third and seems nice enough and I'm sure everyone ran out and bought an Asus when they came out.. so if anyone can help out with one thing...
Which one(s) are the good ones to get?
Thanks
FYI, I'm looking to run about 1GB of memory but will most likely be PC2700 since the FBS of the athlon will be 333 either a 2500 barton or a 2700 and I'm assuming that the statement of the FSB and memory if different can actually slow things than improve (cajt remember where i read this)
plus if anyone can recommend the minimum wattage my case needs to be id appreciate it!
Thanks!
)
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