Asus K8N-E Deluxe (s754 NF3 250GB)
 

When I came home from vacation last week I noticed my old chaintech nf2 broke down. No harm, no I'm working I've got money for new toys. :)

I already decided which processor: the A64 3000+ just dropped to an all time low of 175 euro, and can probably be overclocked to 2.3~2.4Ghz.

It's harder to choose a motherboard, but the Asus K8N-E Deluxe seems to be a very good buy at 140 euro:
* NF3 250GB chipset
* sil3114 sata (4 ports) with raid 5!
* 8 channel sound ...


Are there better s754 motherboards available at the moment? And more importantly, will 2* TwinMos 512Mb CH-5 cause any incompatability with the a64/nf3?

ive heard good thing's about the Epox.
review

that twinmos won't be compatible with A64 boards.

Epox rules for OC'ing:)

Are you sure? I know mtec/twinmos labeled chips (50B/50D) cause troubles on A64 boards, but Twinmos with winbond chips too? :(

Epox is not an option.

well, i'm not sure.

wause i have an twinmos with mtex chips that' works fin but only 1 bar ;)

you can alway's test it @ piotke's or someone who has an a64 and live's close to you :)

that would be the best ;)

I've read the MSI NF3 250GB supports 2*512Mb winbond ch-5 well, but i'd rather buy the asus. :)

Time to annoy jmke/piotke. :D

The quoute, which motherboard / chipset is it referring to?

gotta point there ;p

Albatron k8x800 pro

so i geus that's k8t800PRo chipset with AGP lock ?

yup, that's the main difference.

The Abit K8V Pro is another very interesting motherboard in my humble opinion, but i can't find it in .be for a decent price.

i would go for the epox if i had the money :)

Cranox did 280fsb with his and it's easy to do some mod's on it if you have killer ramm.

you could try the Gigabyte K8NNXP but i read that's only going untill 250FSB but a biosflash would do the trick :)

and it has power supply module to have better voltline's

review

look's good @ performing

I made up my mind and bought an MSI nforce3 motherboard. Cheap, stable, fully featured and easy to get. :)

It also got a good reputation to work well with 1GB CH-5, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed for my 2*512MB twinmos ch-5.

I just got my MSI from Piotke back, seems we have the same mainboard:)

Any experience running 1 gig ram or ch-5? : )

[H] managed to run their sample at 300fsb, very impressive!

I dont have time to install it now, building AXP test bench now with DFI Infinity

I had two sticks of 256MB Ch-5 mem, they worked great on my K8V (Via chipset), if you would plan on getting the Abit mobo....

van XR geplukt...

MSI only has 2.85v DDR :-/

I like motherboards which offer 3v+

I'm using CH-5 which doesn't need/like high voltage so I don't really care. : )

I haven't had time to test overclocking abilities yet, but the MSI K8N seems to have no problem running 2*512MB Twinmos CH-5. :)

The MSI board reports extremely high temperatures with stock cooling though: 68 degrees average. Must be a bug, because it's installed correctly.

Any NF3 mobo should do 300 MHz w/o any problems, my €110 K8N Pro did 340 MHz out of the box.

The motherboard will never be the limiting factor with A64 overclocking.

*edit*
It's a known problem that the MSI reports temps that are way off.

yea I can verify this, the readout is absurdly high.

shall I fix that ? :)

that would be cool, but after LANwars please:)

Latest bios fixes the problem. It went from 60 idle, 69 stressed to 40 idle, 60 stressed. :)

okay I'm impressed and happy.

Sata drive that I used for Chaintech I875 Intel install hooked up to SATA port on MSI nForce3 board. Boots straight into Windows...

that's just awesome :)

It's always nice without reinstalling Windows.;)
Now, I thought you were going for Aopen instead of MSI.

huh? where did I say that? bough this MSI back in June :)

okay.. my system drive shows up as removable.. ? :)

onboard firewall is nice:)

msi's k8n neo plat is a very good board

only problems with that asus is that it looks like it shafts you out of the native sata conns, which are alot faster than the add-on chip ports

it also denys you the use of a windowed case

the Southbridge on this motherboard is passive cooled, temps go up in the 50-60°C region in a 25-30°C env.

adding a fan drops the temp to 45°C and less

anybody know how hot the SB temp can get for it too cause problems?

http://www.sidewindercomputers.com/miso.html

Don't know how true this is.

well, seeing as it gets up to 60°C with a heatsink over here... :)

NB or SB?

does the A64 have a NB? :)

eum,

yes?




Via has one, Nforce chipsets don't have one.

ah, thanks for that, /me A64 n00b and proud of it :)

MSI K8N Neo does not have NB, so it's my SB that comes close to 60°C

don't you just love this, install the system into a case and it doesn't POST, install it on the box outside a case and it works flawlessly. yippie :/