Best MOBO for XP 3000+?

bdaley

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I'm looking for some opinions.

What's is the best performing MOBO for an XP 3000+?

Also, what's the best cooler for the 3000+? I'm looking for the best noise/performance ratio.

Thanks.

"I'd rather have a bottle in front of me, than have to have a frontal lobotomy."
 

Nights_L

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Most nForce2 based mobo are performing pretty much the same (more or less), however here at THGC, we prefer Abit NF7 or NF7-s v2.0 (correct me if i'm wrong.. )

Best cooler? I personnaly like TT's Silent Boost..pretty good and silent..
 
Just pick a higher-end XP motherboard. Even a really nice motherboard from a local shop, will only be a $100. As mentioned above, the Abit NF-7 are good boards, personally I prefer the Giga-Byte, 7N400Pro2, would be a good choice as well.

I personally have owned the Abit, and the Gigabyte, I have always prefered Gigabyte, so that is the one I kept. I will say that the Abit board scored just sligthly higher RAM scores in benchmarks.

Personally I have always prefered GigaByte boards, I have owned 8 so far, and will continue to purchase them in the furture. Its nothing more than a personal preference though.



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Crashman

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NF7-S has the nForce APU and SATA.

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Tirian

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I've heard many good things about the NF7 series, and a friend of mine is needing to get a new Socket A MB so I thought that it would be a good choice. I'm looking at them at Newegg but I see two different ones and am not sure which is the one everyone here keeps recommending:

NF7-S2 $69
NF7-S2G $89

(The only difference I see is the Gigabit NIC.)

If neither is the one, I'm still inclined to go with the non-Gig version, unless it's not a good board in general.

Is either of these models the NF7-S 2.0?


Edit: I just realized why I couldn't find the NF7-S 2.0. I kept limiting my searches to Ultra 2 400 boards, not the SPP chipset. I've seen a lot about the Ultra 400 boards being the best, but I assume the SPP are just as good if not better since most still recommend the NF7-S 2.0.
<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Tirian on 09/21/04 10:41 AM.</EM></FONT></P>
 

El_Jefe_77

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Abit board or Gigabyte.
As I read more about gigabytes, I see a few things:
Old gigabyte boards have a HUGE amount of features. I think its the only one I have seen that has 150 mhz sdram option and every feature possible for the Tualatin line of pIII's.
They are still for sale in used condition, aka, not refurb burned out suckers, still pound. (I like to make up 1.2 tualatin 512meg setups for people who need a very quick and stable/silent system)
Based upon that and never having seen a bad one in the past, I am a leaning towards one for a new board or Abit. Abit yes has had its problem with the bad transistors I heard, but that was a fluke im noticing. Also, abit boards have many years of shelf life as well.

however, the longest shelf life ever on a board is made by Intel, their higher, pimped out complete boards from old to now. My friend has a p1/166 setup with 128 megs ram still running after many years fine. (he refuses to upgrade the chip to 200 or 233 for nostalgia)

Just my 2 cents about boards. Nf-7 series is a great one. To bad intel wont make a board that runs amd chip :) id buy it oddly enough!
 

Crashman

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From the looks of it the S2 offers the same features as the S but without the MCP-T (nForce APU onboard).

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Crashman

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<A HREF="http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=13-127-166&depa=0" target="_new">http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=13-127-166&depa=0</A> There's your full version NF7-S. That's the one I'd go with.

The problem with finding the details on these boards is that most companies list the original specifications for the Version 1.x boards. The 2.0 uses the Ultra 400 but still list the SPP.

So the NF7-S version 2.0 is actually good for 400 bus AMD XP processors and below. That was updated on Neweggs site, but they still haven't updated the information to also tell you it's DDR400 RAM compatable.

Blame sloppy salemanship, the NF7-S version 2.0 is the board everyone keeps refering to.

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Spitfire_x86

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Get ABIT NF7 v2.0 or NF7-S v2.0

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bdaley

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I've heard good things about the NF7-S, except for the layout. I've heard that it's difficult to work with because of the positioning of certain components.

What's your opinion?

Thanks.

"I'd rather have a bottle in front of me, than have to have a frontal lobotomy."
 
Yeah I ran into that. And actually that board would not mount correctly into my acrylic case, I actually had to return it becuase of this. If you tried to put in any cards, PCI or AGP, once screwed down, it would bend them upwards, and I couldn't use the port cover on the back, as the board wouldn't fit in the case properly. Of course I assume that this was just a problem with that one case, as no one else has complained about it.

I had some gripes about the layout, but nothing that was horrible. (ATX plug, was about as far away from the PSU as possible, RAM is pretty close to optical drives, if they are long.) A few other things, but like I said nothing that is bad enough that you should stay away from it.

Its a good board, and tends to score higher in RAM tests than other compeating boards, making it a pretty good choice.

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bdaley

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Yeah, I'm gonna go with the Abit or the ASUS A7N8X Deluxe.

Thanks.

"I'd rather have a bottle in front of me, than have to have a frontal lobotomy."
 

marneus

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I have the Asus deluxe board, it is quite roomy for my hsf & it ocs well (XP2500 Barton @ 200fsb), no problems for me... so far & i am coming up to a year of ownership...

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blackphoenix77

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NF7-S has worked out great for me.

<font color=blue>AthlonXP-M 2500+(12x200)</font color=blue>|<font color=green>Abit NF7-S</font color=green>|<font color=red>Kingston DDR400 2x256Mb</font color=red>|<font color=purple>NEC Accucync90 19"</font color=purple>|<font color=black>Sapphire 9600XT</font color=black>