Upgrading system Motherboard suggestion.

[johncastle]

I am planning to upgrade my system soon. My current system is MSI K7N2 DELTA with two unmatched 512 DDR KINGSTON and amd Athlon XP 2500+ processor.

Well I am thinking of "MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum" as the mb. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813130484

and planning to use
CORSAIR ValueSelect 1GB (2 x 512MB) memory with it since it is nicely priced dual.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820145440

What are your suggestions, and is the memory compatible with this board?(I had several compatibility issues with my current board and memory).

 

[johncastle]

No suggestions?

 

[kitchenshark]

That MB and memory will work together and I wouldn't expect any incompatibilities between them. Both are name brand and the memory is a matched pair.

The only thing I could suggest is getting 2x1Gb if you can stretch that far. Other than that, looks great, go for it.

EDIT: I'm assuming you are aware that your XP 2500+ is a socket A and the MB is a socket 939? Your current processor will NOT fit into that MB. Pointing out the obvious though...

 

[johncastle]

That MB and memory will work together and I wouldn't expect any incompatibilities between them. Both are name brand and the memory is a matched pair.

The only thing I could suggest is getting 2x1Gb if you can stretch that far. Other than that, looks great, go for it.

EDIT: I'm assuming you are aware that your XP 2500+ is a socket A and the MB is a socket 939? Your current processor will NOT fit into that MB. Pointing out the obvious though...

Thank a lot for the response, nobody seemed interested.

I was planning to buy a venice 3200+ for that motherboard. Will there be a good performance increase over my previous system?

BTW MSI K7N2 motherboard had some annoying issues before I got it working well(Bios update, trying several drivers, A BAD ide Cable...).
That makes me think if Nforce 4 platinium has troubles too. It seems like one of the best motherboards with that chipset but is it trouble free.

 

[kitchenshark]

You will DEFINITELY experience a performance boost! ^_^

I went from a XP 2500+ Barton core to a 3200+ Winchester core (the core right before Venice) and it definitely was a lot better.

At this point in time the Nforce 4 chipsets are a better and more stable choice than any other chipset, at least in my opinion. Of course, there's always the chance of problems...part of building your own computer, but I would expect you to have less problems from an Nforce 4 chipset than other ones.

 

[PX7800GT]

I Say Go For Neo4 Platinum , Its Good With 3200Venice , Nice Choice :twisted:

 

[johncastle]

Very soon I will get the mainboard, ram and venice 3200+ so I want to once more have suggestions about mainboards.

Below you can see my choices:

ASUS A8N-E ATX AMD Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813131530

MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum ATX AMD
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813130484

ABIT KN8 Ultra ATX AMD Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813127222

Any suggestions? MSI is actually my choice but I can't trust it in the first installation. I had to flash the bios 2 times to get things work in my current MSI. And of course MSI seems to be a little bit overpriced.

 

[baracuda73]

I have that MSI board and it is great. Can't go wrong with it. But like kitchenshark said if you can afford 2x1gb stick it is a better solution long term. Should be no compatibility issues as I run 2x1gb stick corsair xms pc3200

 

[raven_87]

Neither

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813123258

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813135175

Personal favorite...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813136152

 

[Stevemeister]

Its a great MB for the price. My old computer has an MSI motherboard with a P4 48 Northwood and I was impressed with the availability of on-line utilities and updates. I'm now running an MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum with an AMD64 4000+, 2GB OCZ EL Platinum Dual Channel PC3200 and an eVGA 7800GT. It runs like a dream and has scored over 8000 on 3DMark05 with a bit of overclocking. The MB is great and really has far more stuff than most folks will need - it can accomodate up to 8 SATA drives but has only has one PCI-E slot which is not an issue unless you want to run dual graphics cards in SLI mode - I didn't intend to go SLI so not an issue. This MB gets a good write up in a THG review which influenced my choice - which would have been either MSI or ASUS. MSI utilities like Live BIOS, Corecell and Digicell make updating and overclocking a cinch. My only comment is that Live Bios will not yet work with the 64 bit version of windows which I'm running but everything else does though. Good Luck whatever you decide

 

[happymadcat]

I am also upgrading my 2nd pc and was considering
AMD Athlon 64 3200 + Socket939 , Venice Core, 2.0GHz , 512KB Cache,
MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum ATX AMD Mobo
2GB (2X1GB) Corsair TwinXPro DDR2 PC5400 (667) , 240 Pin Non-ECC Unbuffered CAS 4-4-4-12

Now being a useless rookie I'm not sure if they will all work together,
help..

 

[frostys]

DDR2 memory won't work on 939 board man

well as far as i know sk939 only use DDR ram 184 pins

 

[happymadcat]

Thanx Frostys, what Corsiar Ram works with 939 boards?

 

[Hawkeye22]

I'll 2nd or 3rd the MSI. I built this rig (in sig) in December. It's been trouble free since day one. The onboard sound is pretty decent compared to some others and it's got plenty of sata and usb ports.

 

[Stevemeister]

The MSI K8N only supports DDR400 ie PC3200 RAM - not DDR2

 

[Stevemeister]

Thanx Frostys, what Corsiar Ram works with 939 boards?

take your pick . . . this is from Tigerdirect - Canadian website - they have the same things on the US website in US$

http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/category/category_slc.asp?MfrId=1499&Nav=|c:1075|c:1082|c:1833|&Sort=3&Recs=10

 

[happymadcat]

Thanks Steve for taking the time to replying.. The link helped!

 

[Stevemeister]

No problem - Tiger's website is one of the best organized and easiest to drill down in that I've ever encountered. Even if you don;t buy fromthem its good for finding stuff.

The link was not perfect but if you went into Memory / RAM the Overclocking Dual Channel the PC3200 and then select PC3200 and the amoun toof RANM you get all manufacturers and you can thin limit to particular brands. I put 2 GB of the OCZ EL Plat 2-3-2-5 on my MSI K8N Neo 4 and it works great but high end Corsair or any other brand is probably just as good - just depends what you like to look of.

Good luck

 

[kais]

if thats ur budget id go for a asus a8n-e with some nuce crucial or ocz memory. i beg you not to get corsair. its not comparable to either of those brands

 

[joefriday]

Better count on a new power supply to go along with that new motherboard.

 

[happymadcat]

Had a look and I do like the look and price of the OCZ EL Plat 2-3-2-5, didnt
realise I needed only PC3200 RAM before and saved me a $300 mistake.
Thanks Steve...

 

[Stevemeister]

Happy to help - spend the money you saved on a better CPU (suggest at least 3700+ or 4000+) or a really good graphics card (7900GT or higher) - the latter willl make the biggest difference if you intend to use your rig for gaming. The 3700+ works well and overclocks well according all reviews I've read. My 4000+ will overclock to about 2.6 GHz without too much problem but a decent graohics card makes the biggest difference to gaming performance.

 

[happymadcat]

Good point Steve, can get a AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200 Manchester core, I'll
be using the pc for 3D rendering and gaming when there is no 3d work.

Any other alternatives to the 7900GT Graphics Card? Its hard to find
good hardware internet suppliers who ship to Greece. It was so easy
back home in England

 

[Stevemeister]

Dual Core is probably the way to go for 3D rendering. THG has CPU performance charts that give you an idea of the relative performance of different processors in different applications. I built my rig for gaming so single core still outperforms dual core in 9/10 cases - certainly if you're comparing CPU's at the same price point - but that's because most games currently out or used as benchmarks were designed to run on single core CPU's.

Graphics cards - you'll get a massive difference of opinions depending on who you ask - just look at some of the forum threads.

I used to be an ATI fan but I currently run a 7800GT which at the time I bought it (just 3 months ago) I figured offered the best performance for the $. The highest end card at that time was the 7800GTX which cost about 50% more but is <10% better in terms of performance. If a card gives frames rates of >100fps a 10% increase is academic - your eye won't detect the difference. The 7800GT overclocks to higher than 7800GTX reference performance. At the moment I think the 7900GT can be bought for less than I paid for my 7800GT and the performance is quite a bit better. On the ATI side the 1900XTX is probably about the best card out a the moment but that changes almost monthly. In terms of brand you can probably choose for yourself but I'd pick one from ethe level just underneath the really top end cards (cards in the ~ $350-$400 price range). With top end cards you only get and incremental difference in performance for a substantial cost premium. I look for value rather than absolute performance so if I were buying today I'd probably go for a 7900GT. The brand I have is eVGA and I'd buy that brand again.