Motherboards advices

[Kapak]

Since a couple days, I've been looking in the wonderful world of building a new rig. I'm trying to figure out which motherboard to go with.

Here are the components I plan to buy:
processor: AMD ATHLON64 3700+ 2.20G/1M cache/S939 90NM
case: ANTEC TX1050B(500W)
video card: GF6800XT PCI-E

I already have 2 sticks of Kingston 512mb of RAM, a DVD drive, a combo DVD-RW/CR-RW, a 160gig Maxtor drive(ATA) and a floppy drive
I plan to use this for a gaming, and a CAD rig.


What I want is reliability and an affordable price. I was looking for the following mobo's, but cant make my mind on which one to choose:

ASUS A8N-E NF4 ULTRA
I havent been able to find any reviews on this mobo
DFI LANPARTY UT NF4 ULTRA-D
I'm really hesitating with this one since the CPU emplacement is different. If you look for the casing I chose, I think that the CPU chassis air guide on the case wont fit with the CPU emplacement
MSI K8N NEO4 PLATINUM NF4
It seems like that the chipset fan makes a bit of noise on this board.
ABIT AN8 NF4
For me, that mobo looks the same as the Fatal1ty AN8 reviewed here, except for the nF4 chip and the ram fans. Also, I was hesitating because of the distance the ATA cables would have to do from the very bottom of the mobo to the very top of the case to plug my dvd drives.

Other suggestions are welcomed.


As a side note, what's the big difference(s) between nF4 and nF4 Ultra? The only 2 differences I can see, is that the nF4 Ultra supports 3Gb/s SATA instead of 1.5 and that it has that ActiveArmor Secure Networking Engine.



*EDIT*

I forgot about the Gigabyte boards too. I found the GA-K8NF-9 and the GA-K8N Ultra-9
The thing is that I'm not too confident with only an heatsink for the chipset.

 

[pwnage]

You picked some good parts.

you might want to consider a Lian Li case insted of an Antec you will have to buy a PSU but Lian Li is the best case manufacture that I have worked with.

I would say either one of the Abit, Asus, or DFI boards would be fine. if you plan on OCing you may want to go DFI or Abit.

As for chipset differences, I can't see anyothers. although, the ultra is newer but I doubt that has any effect on proformance.

 

[Kapak]

Thanks for the advice.

I decided to go with the DFI Lanparty nF4 Ultra-D board because I changed of case and took a P-180 with the SP-500 PSU, both from Antec. I stick with Antec because Lian Li seems too expensive from where I looked for.

Now my biggest problem is which HFS to choose as seen here

 

[pwnage]

Lian Li isn't too bad $80 for a case, well I guess that can be steap in some peoples minds.

Are you trying to water cool you rig? i didn't understand that other post and what does HFS stand for not sure of the abriviation.

 

[Kapak]

The thing is the shops near me that have Lian Li cases sells them for around 170$, and I dont have the option of ordering online like on newegg or ebay. I agree with you that 80$ isnt much for a case though.

For the HeatSink Fan (a.k.a. HSF, sorry for my typo), what I tried to say is that the Big Typhoon seems too heavy for the CPU compared to a SI-120 or XP-120. The Thermalright heatsink(without a ~220g fan) are like half the Big Typhoon's weight.
This is the thread they were worried about the weight of the Big Typhoon, look at post #18 and down. Hope this all make more sense.

 

[pwnage]

My experiance has taken me down the road of thermaltake. they are good HSF but, they can be very loud.

preferably i would go with Zalman. they have a lot of really nice quiet HSF that provide great cooling. or you could just water cool for about $150 - $200 : )

your right about the mounting materials the heavier the HSF the greater posibility for mobo damage. I'm fairly sure that Zalman includes a reinforced mounting bracket for their HSF. but you still dont want to be moving the machine too much. if you are going to goto LAN partys you might want to consider water cooling. if not then a HSF would be fine. DON'T USE THE THERMAL PASTE THAT ZALMAN GIVES YOU. use Artic silver 5 or a higher end thermal paste.