Spare CPU / Now I need a mobo

Mt_GoatMt_Goat Head Cheezy KnobPflugerville (north of Austin) Icrontian
edited February 2006 in Hardware
I just gave away my buisness rig (DFI LP nF4 Ultra=D w/ A64 3500). My wife also got me a new 3500 Venice core as a present as I gave the other rig to her son. Now I need to put together a new rig for my buisness but need to keep it cheap. I am looking at the EPoX EP-9NDA3+ and the ASRock 939Dual-SATA2 for possible boards. I will likely do a moderate OC on it as it will fold also. ;) Right now I am leaning toward the Epox and really wish the DFI board of the same was still available. It will have an AGP vid card as I don't want or need to spend the cash for a new PCIe x16 card and I will be using some TCCD memory I have. I am open to suggestions and ideas. I am also considering selling the 3500 (box still has the seal intact) and getting a 165 Opty but not sure If I should spend the extra cash.

Comments

  • Straight_ManStraight_Man Geeky, in my own way Naples, FL Icrontian
    edited February 2006
    Of the two brands I would prefer Epox to AsRock. Epox has cleaned up their QC some.
  • Mt_GoatMt_Goat Head Cheezy Knob Pflugerville (north of Austin) Icrontian
    edited February 2006
    Straight_Man wrote:
    Of the two brands I would prefer Epox to AsRock. Epox has cleaned up their QC some.
    Both have gotten great reviews not only on the bench but from quite a few folks who own them. I do like and am more familiar with Epox though. I am still open to new sugestions.
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited February 2006
    Both have gotten great reviews
    Disclaimer - I've not used or owned either brand. I've seen a number of 'OMG...this Asrock is a disaster...won't POST...died after two hours...'. In the last few months, I've heard very little about new Epox board problems. Were it me making a purchase, I'd probably go for Epox. The potential for better high performance, I believe is with Asrock; but the downside potential for defective board is also with Asrock.
  • jradminjradmin North Kackalaki
    edited February 2006
    I've been putting Asrocks in budget systems for clients over the last 2 years as well as in my full time job's stores. We've had no problems out of them ever. One thing about Asrocks is that if your using SATA drives, sometimes they require you to have a jumper on pin 5 and 6 on the drive or the comp will never see them. This is especially true with WD drives. However, Asrock's site is much more simple to navagate then their parent company ASUS. They have a nice FAQ with alot of useful information.
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited February 2006
    I've been putting Asrocks in budget systems for clients over the last 2 years as well as in my full time job's stores. We've had no problems out of them ever.
    Obviously more knowledgeable about Asrock than I am. That's why these forums rock - first hand experience from someone on almost any computer topic.

    Thanks, JrAdmin.
  • muddocktormuddocktor
    edited February 2006
    Larry, I actually have both boards and of the 2, I prefer the EPoX better. It is much more tunable in bios and has quite a few memory timing options with the latest bios. The only real problem I ever had with it (and it was a real headscratcher too and almost made me dump the board) was strange reboots happening for no reason, especially when overclocking to high htt numbers (>275). I finally ran across a post or 2 over at Extreme saying that the nf3 chipset had a bug that would cause this to happen with some Nvidia video cards (go figure ;D ). Sure enough, I had an old GeForce2 GTS64 in it and as soon as I swapped it with an ATI card from another machine all my rebooting problems went away.

    BTW, neither board is good for running BH5 in them as they don't natively support high vdimm. The EPoX also can't run a DDR Booster either, but the Asrock can. The EPoX is easy to vdimm mod though; I've done that with mine and it adds .3v vdimm to whatever I set in bios, which is more than enough volts for TCC5 or TCCD or the 2GB kit of Mushkin Redline 4000 (what I'm presently running).
  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited February 2006
    Best Buy stopped carrying Asrock boards due to return frequency. Just a thought. :)
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited February 2006
    Best Buy stopped carrying Asrock boards due to return frequency. Just a thought.
    Obviously more knowledgeable about Asrock than I am. That's why these forums rock - first hand experience from someone on almost any computer topic.

    Thanks, Thrax.
  • Mt_GoatMt_Goat Head Cheezy Knob Pflugerville (north of Austin) Icrontian
    edited February 2006
    Thank You guys. It looks like the Epox is the winner and where I was leaning from the start. I'm not going to sell this CPU just yet as I need to keep it as cheap as possible for now.
  • Omega65Omega65 Philadelphia, Pa
    edited February 2006
    Caveat on the Epox, I've had 4 and 3 of them wouldnt even Post with a Venice core CPU (no fans spinning or anything).

    They were all perfectly fine with a Clawhammer, Winchester and Dual Core CPUs (with the upto date BIOS).

    Other than that they're Wonderful boards
  • Mt_GoatMt_Goat Head Cheezy Knob Pflugerville (north of Austin) Icrontian
    edited February 2006
    Omega65 wrote:
    Caveat on the Epox, I've had 4 and 3 of them wouldnt even Post with a Venice core CPU (no fans spinning or anything).

    They were all perfectly fine with a Clawhammer, Winchester and Dual Core CPUs (with the upto date BIOS).

    Other than that they're Wonderful boards
    Now that sounds rather odd! I wonder what is up with that???:scratch: Did you ever try the "No Post" trick like some of the DFI boards need? Or are you just wanting a good deal on my new unopened box 3500??? ;D
  • Omega65Omega65 Philadelphia, Pa
    edited February 2006
    Sorry - I'm a DualCore snob now! :D
  • edcentricedcentric near Milwaukee, Wisconsin Icrontian
    edited February 2006
    I have seen great reviews on the Jetway GT4 mobo.
    Yes, I know that it is pcie.
    But, is anyone running this mobo? Does it really cook? and last?
    Hey, $100 for a full featured SLI mobo, it is worth asking.
  • Omega65Omega65 Philadelphia, Pa
    edited February 2006
    edcentric wrote:
    I have seen great reviews on the Jetway GT4 mobo.
    Yes, I know that it is pcie.
    But, is anyone running this mobo? Does it really cook? and last?
    Hey, $100 for a full featured SLI mobo, it is worth asking.


    Not a bad looking motherboard and the 3 PCIe 16x slots is nice. But I'll let you be the guinea pig :)

    Anandtech review
    Anandtech wrote:
    Jetway is not a huge motherboard company, and we often see the worst selection and range of BIOS adjustments from the smaller companies in the market. You can throw that notion out the window with the Jetway because it has an extremely complete and broad range of adjustments available in the Phoenix-Award BIOS. The 200-400 CPU Clock Speed adjustment range is extremely wide, and it is supplemented by a useful range of vCore adjustments to 1.90V and Memory Voltage adjustments to 3.25V.

    Hmmm - I have to give Kudos for the Postcode block, onboard Reset and Power-On switches AND the Mosfet Heatsinks (which my beloved Epox's lack)
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited February 2006
    Lot's of features for a low price. Please, be a guinea pig and test the board for us.
  • muddocktormuddocktor
    edited February 2006
    That is a good looking mobo. I haven't messed with a Jetway board since the Pentium 1 days, but the boards I used then weren't bad by any means. Back then I was using mostly Shuttle boards but I built a few machines with Jetway TX chipset boards and they were actually better built than the Shuttles back then. Of course that is ancient history but my impression of Jetway boards from then was generally positive.

    How adventurous do you feel, Ed? :D
  • Mt_GoatMt_Goat Head Cheezy Knob Pflugerville (north of Austin) Icrontian
    edited February 2006
    Jetway also makes the EVGA boards that were bundled with their vid cards for a while. So I know some folks on here do have some experience with them.

    Back to my spare CPU. I am now selling it and going to get a 165 so I can be a dual core snob like Omega. :p
  • Omega65Omega65 Philadelphia, Pa
    edited February 2006
    mtgoat wrote:
    Back to my spare CPU. I am now selling it and going to get a 165 so I can be a dual core snob like Omega. :p
    I knew you had it in you. :vimp:
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