Switching to the Dark side, anyone give me some AMD advice?

Inquitus

Going to build an AMD X2 4800+ SLI Rig, whats the best overclocking Nforce 4 SLI Mobo?

Options from komplett

DFI LANPARTY nF4 SLI-DR, Socket 939,SATA , GbLAN, Fw, DDR, PCI-E, VGA Bridge - 215

Abit Fatal1ty AN8 SLI,nForce4 SLI,Socket -939,ATX,S-ATA,GbLAN,Firewire,PCI-Ex16 - 205

MSI K8N Diamond, nForce4 SLI,Socket-939 BT,54g,Dual-GbLAN,Creative Live,PCI-Ex16 - 195

Asus A8N-SLI Premium, nForce4 SLI,Socket -939, Super Cooling pipe, PCI-Ex16 - 189

DFI LANPARTY UT nF4 SLI-D, nForce4 SLI Socket-939, S-ATA, GbLAN, Fw, DDR, PCI-E - 179

Gigabyte GA-K8NXP-SLI, nForce4 SLI,GbLAN Socket-939, 4xSATA, GbLAN,Firewire,PCI-E - 175

Inqui

Col_Loki

Personally id go DFI/ABIT , leaning for DFI ..... fantastic overclocking facilities, very stable board, and looks fantastic.

dubdvd

ill be honest the veiw isnt much better over here compared to the intel side ...i came back over a couple of months ago when i got the FX55 and the DFI SLI NF4 SLI D mobo ...and to be honest i found that the P4 i had clocked to 4. GHZ and above would knock the FX55 off its top spot in a few things ..i do a lot of video encoding "like divx to mpeg" and here is where i miss the P4 .dont get me wrong its more the HT i miss once your encoding its hard to run other apps at the smae time...but i suppose dual core should iron that out for you ..if it had'nt of been for sli i would have never come over .now im getting ready for CROSSFIRE and selling of my sli cards ...and if i got a really good swap for an intel chip for my FX55 i might go back to it ...with an INTEL SLI mobo which ran a crossfire set up a couple of weeks ago ..gaming does be where the FX comes into play but in reality you wont noticed that much of a difference on the eye and the gameplay ...

Sorry if im Putting you in doubt ...as far as the mobo's you picked the DFI is a winner with the right memory and cpu .but for stablity with overclocking i find the asus mobo alot more rock soild i got rid of my DFI and went with the ASUS ..but ive always liked ASUS mobo's so maybe im bias ..if you get the wrong mem with the DFI youll have nothing but trouble ask wizzard ..He will tell you "when the lucky sod is back from spain ":D ....hope it goes well for you but i'd hold of till CROSSFIRE comes at the end of this month or early next month ...at least then youll have a second opion ..thats my tupennce worth

po0k

DFI LANPARTY nF4 SLI-DR, Socket 939,SATA , GbLAN, Fw, DDR, PCI-E, VGA Bridge - 215
That is the best board, imho. I bought one.
It will take a fair bit of reading of a few stickies on www.dfi-street.com to prepare you for it.
I wouldn't recommend this board unless you can read a few of these posts and come out with an idea of what's going on. Take your time. Effort put in will be rewarded.
The DFI boards aren't for the poser who's just looking for a big slider in the bios to go between "Fast" and "stock". They are more akin to a tuned Japanese import car than a Ford Ka. It can be difficult to get things going - but the forums offer the best support I have ever seen for a product. They are unparalleled. I'm not exaggerating or using any hyperbole. They fúcking pwn.
Read the forums, buy some TCCD or BH-5/6 based ram (you're limited to 512Meg sticks really) and you can't go too far wrong on the memory.

Inquitus

I have G.skill LE TCCD RAM which is 2-2-2-5 at PC-3200 and 2.5-3-3-7 at PC-4400, I have heard it's great for AMD's.

Will get reading prior to purchase. I am in two minds whether to wait for crossfire and the much hyped release of the R520, but it looks like it'll be another ATI paper launch and getting them will be impossible like the X850 XT PE was when launched.

Might hold off til the end of the month and see what gives.

Inqui

gline

yeh, i have my doubts we will see the crossfire boards and cards this month , MAYBE next month, but even then id be surprised. Im waiting myself for the gear to come out so i can go either X2 or fx57, hard choice

dubdvd

[/QUOTE] The DFI boards aren't for the poser who's just looking for a big slider in the bios to go between "Fast" and "stock". They are more akin to a tuned Japanese import car than a Ford Ka. It can be difficult to get things going - [/QUOTE]

A lot with this mobo falls down to the twining of your cpu and memory ..i dont deny that they"DFI" dont give good results ...but in my veiw after having both boards I found the asus to be much more soild at higher clock speeds ...there is simple overclocking made into the bios as in "low high and fast" ,but as you said its for those "POSERS "who would'nt have a clue how to tweak a bios , and then you get the normal settings that most overclocks would want from a good mobo .but as i said im more at home with ASUS than DFI maybe its because ive fried a couple of the older dfi boards than i have ASUS ones .:rolleyes: .as far as posing is concerned a lot of DFI's selling power was down to its UV mobo layout ...but everybodys different in what they look for in hardware and thank god its that way at least we have a good choice to pick from ...i hope it works out for you and you get the results you want ...

Jammer

gline wrote:

yeh, i have my doubts we will see the crossfire boards and cards this month , MAYBE next month, but even then id be surprised. Im waiting myself for the gear to come out so i can go either X2 or fx57, hard choice

Crossfire could be sooooon. Theres a new technology brief for european press on monday 12th of sept in London, so my guess is they'll be showing it off and giving out (almost) retail review samples.

gline

Jammer wrote:

Crossfire could be sooooon. Theres a new technology brief for european press on monday 12th of sept in London, so my guess is they'll be showing it off and distrubting review samples.

doubtful it will get released to suppliers for AT LEAST another month or maybe 2
We wont be able to get it over here for a good while. Your only bet is to order it from the states or something along those lines.

Jammer

I've been talking to ATi Engineer John Bruno, and he says it'll be a strong european launch. They will ship, and tell places not to sell it untill a certain date so there will be immediate stock to ship out to end users. Halloween at the latest i'd say.

gline

Jammer wrote:

I've been talking to ATi Engineer John Bruno, and he says it'll be a strong european launch. They will ship, and tell places not to sell it untill a certain date so there will be immediate stock to ship out to end users. Halloween at the latest i'd say.

of course he "said" that. he works for ATI, LOL

DemonOfTheFall

ATI's ability to deliver cards is seriously crap. They're just making themselves seem like a joke of a company by failing to deliver on EVERY SINGLE good piece of silicon they design. what happened to the X700XT and apparently the x800gt is gonna be limited edition? I thought nvidia were bad too but then they delivered the 7800 with plenty of quantity to spare and I trust them again now.

g5hn710m4xpdwy

true you are switching to the dark side!
(I belive it is so that AMD chips are made by children in sweat shops in third world country!!!)

K.O.Kiki

Flunked wrote:

true you are switching to the dark side!
(I belive it is so that AMD chips are made by children in sweat shops in third world country!!!)

And Intel chips are made by soulless drones, outfitted with special fire-suits so they can withstand the immense heat generated by each chip they laboriously produce by hand

Go AMD :cool:

gline

K.O.Kiki wrote:

And Intel chips are made by soulless drones, outfitted with special fire-suits so they can withstand the immense heat generated by each chip they laboriously produce by hand

Go AMD :cool:

go AMD ... everyone knows the darkside is the best.

duridian

I am kinda amused by the interpretaion of 'The Dark Side' that most people are taking here. I always thought of Intel as the Dark Side, since they are the big corporate 'empire', and of AMD as the Light side cos they are like the Jedi, leading the rebellion against this 'empire'.
I also think of the current situation with Intel having hot running Prescott based cpus, as being quite metaphorical to the fact that the biggest philosophical difference between the Sith and the Jedi is that the Sith do not try to keep their passion under control, 'hot' and 'passionate' being similar in a certain context.
I also tend to think of Nvidia as the Dark Side in the graphics department but I cannot really explain why as I am not sure myself.... if I play pool on a table with red & yellow balls rather than solids & stripes, I think of the reds as the solids and the yellows as the stripes...err... I don't really know why this is either.

gline

duridian wrote:

I am kinda amused by the interpretaion of 'The Dark Side' that most people are taking here. I always thought of Intel as the Dark Side, since they are the big corporate 'empire', and of AMD as the Light side cos they are like the Jedi, leading the rebellion against this 'empire'.
.

i always thought of it like that too, amd always seemed the underdog and intel the dominating company. Always good to see the smaller company delivering better products then the "big dog" Microsoft syndrome i suppose. errrrr those big corporations :mad: LOL