Motherboard Advice

gcstader

Ok, I'm choosing between two motherboards for my new system:

the Abit NF7-S for $100.00

or

A7N8X-E Deluxe for around 116.00
http://usa.asus.com/prog/spec.asp?m=A7N8X-E%20Deluxe&langs=09

The Asus board has gigabit LAN which would be a plus because I intend to network it to my other computer (IC7-MAX3), that also has a gigabit ethernet jack.

I'm looking for opinions on which board is better and why.

Thanks
Greg

mmonnin

Depends on what you will be using it for. It you want to OC to the extreme, then the NF7 all the way. If its for day to day use then its either will do. Pick the one fits your needs and price.

Geeky1

The NF7 probably overclocks better than the A7N8X-E does, but beyond that, you can't go wrong with either board.

Komete

If you plan on Not overclocking the asus is the way to go. Benching My A7N8X DL vs my nf7s I got slightly higher performance from the asus at the same speeds. If you are overclocking the NF7s will go much higher.

IPv6

Komete wrote:

If you plan on Not overclocking the asus is the way to go. Benching My A7N8X DL vs my nf7s I got slightly higher performance from the asus at the same speeds. If you are overclocking the NF7s will go much higher.

The asus deluxe is also a great board for overclocking.
The nf7-s wins over the an78x-e , but the an78x-e is still tops with overclocking performance. It won a bunch of awards through toms hardwares readers choice awards.
http://www4.tomshardware.com/column/20031204/index.html

I just got the board like last friday, and i adore it. I still got alot of head room to clock the athlon xp 1700+, im at 1.60ghz from 1.46 145x11 and ima go higher when i get a better heatsink. Multi is automatically unlocked, and so many great overclocking settings in the bios to play with. from mem vcore settings, cpu vcore, and i can even oc my agp frequency to if i wanted.
Not to forget by default the agp and pci slots are locked.

I really love this board.


you cant go wrong either way you go.
you wont need a seperate pci sound card either cause the soundstorm is its own apu, and its almost is as good as the audigy 2, and better than the audigy 1.

Komete

IPv6 wrote:

The asus deluxe is also a great board for overclocking.
The nf7-s wins over the an78x-e , but the an78x-e is still tops with overclocking performance. It won a bunch of awards through toms hardwares readers choice awards.
http://www4.tomshardware.com/column/20031204/index.html

I just got the board like last friday, and i adore it. I still got alot of head room to clock the athlon xp 1700+, im at 1.60ghz from 1.46 145x11 and ima go higher when i get a better heatsink. Multi is automatically unlocked, and so many great overclocking settings in the bios to play with. from mem vcore settings, cpu vcore, and i can even oc my agp frequency to if i wanted.
Not to forget by default the agp and pci slots are locked.

I really love this board.


you cant go wrong either way you go.
you wont need a seperate pci sound card either cause the soundstorm is its own apu, and its almost is as good as the audigy 2, and better than the audigy 1.

She is a sweet board.

When I talk about over clocking I mean over 415fsb. If you search some forums you will see most poeple running at 430fsb and beyound are using either abits nf7s2.0 or dfi lanboys. It's my guess the reason people get higher over clocks on the abit is becouse it's chipset is a little more relaxed in performance. like I said mghz vs mghz camparison asus wins hands down but the abits just scale a good bit higher so in the end it takes the performance crown.

IMO you kinda have to take things from uncletom hardware with a grain of salt even with things like viewer awards.. I sometimes think that Saddams chief information officer tells a little more truth.