Socket 939 motherboard suggestions?

[blade]

One of my old socket A motherboards died and I'm thinking of upgrading to something a little more modern. I don't need the latest and greatest and would rather stick with DDR instead of having to upgrade to DDR2 because I have plenty of the old stuff lying around.

I'm thinking a socket 939 Nforce4 with an Athlon 64 3000 would probably be the cheapest upgrade. I want to find one that can handle the 64 x2 processors in case I decide to upgrade later.

I was hoping someone would have some motherboard suggestions. I would like to find a decent quality $50-80 board that would work well if I decided to use it as a Sage server. Video for the board isn't that important to me. I could use onboard or throw in a cheap card. My main concern is cost. I don't want to put a lot of money into upgrades at the moment.

I'm also worried about the powersupply. It's fine with my an XP3200, but I have no idea how much power the newer cpus pull. Do they require more than the XP models?

BTW I wouldn't mind going with Intel, but I believe they went to DDR2 before AMD so I'd be stuck with an even older system in that case. Is this correct?

[cslatt]

You looking for full size ATX or MicroATX?

[blade]

I was thinking full size ATX in case I decide to use it as my Sage server.

I would probably settle for a microATX depending on price. I was looking at the 6100 boards, all of which I've seen are microATX. With onboard video they're a good bit cheaper than most of the other boards I've found that would require an additional video card.

[cslatt]

For Full ATX I like the MSI K8N Neo4-F ($65.00 @ NewEgg)

For microATX I like the Abit NF-95 ($55.00 @ NewEgg) or the ASUS A8N-VM CSM ($77.00 @ NewEgg)

The Abit is cheaper and has another PCI slot, but the Asus has more SATA channels and Gigabit Ethernet.

[Bryann]

Keep in mind that 939 boards have a 24 pin power connector, not the old 20 pin.

[blade]

Originally Posted by Bryann

Keep in mind that 939 boards have a 24 pin power connector, not the old 20 pin.

That's something else I meant to ask about and forgot.

My old power supply has the 20 pin connector and a seperate 4 pin one. I assume that will that work?

[blade]

Originally Posted by cslatt

For Full ATX I like the MSI K8N Neo4-F ($65.00 @ NewEgg)

For microATX I like the Abit NF-95 ($55.00 @ NewEgg) or the ASUS A8N-VM CSM ($77.00 @ NewEgg)

The Abit is cheaper and has another PCI slot, but the Asus has more SATA channels and Gigabit Ethernet.

The MSI board looks like it would fit my needs perfectly. Have you used it with any tuner cards? In particularly the PVR500s? I know some boards have trouble with capture cards, but haven't kept track of whether or not any of the Nvidia boards do. Just want to make sure I get something that will be as stable as my current setup.

[MeInMaui]

Originally Posted by blade

The MSI board looks like it would fit my needs perfectly. Have you used it with any tuner cards? In particularly the PVR500s? I know some boards have trouble with capture cards, but haven't kept track of whether or not any of the Nvidia boards do. Just want to make sure I get something that will be as stable as my current setup.

I have a very similar MSI board. Be aware that the northbridge fan screams like a little banshee. Worse yet, its placement makes it dificult to retrofit with a passive cooler because it will interfere with the video card (especially if it is one that takes up 2 slots). FYI.

Aloha,
Mike

[ke6guj]

Originally Posted by blade

My old power supply has the 20 pin connector and a seperate 4 pin one. I assume that will that work?

It should work, you may need a 20-to-24-pin adapter, http://www.xpcgear.com/20to24pinatx.html , but I thought I heard that some motherboards, you could just plug in then 20-pin power offset to one side and it would work correctly, and that was a supported connection, not mickey moused.

As for the 4 pin connector, I wouldn't try to plug that into the 24-pin spot, unless specifically told to by the motherboard maker.

But yes, you can run a new 24-pin board off of a 20-pin PS.

[Kirby]

Originally Posted by ke6guj

It should work, you may need a 20-to-24-pin adapter, http://www.xpcgear.com/20to24pinatx.html , but I thought I heard that some motherboards, you could just plug in then 20-pin power offset to one side and it would work correctly, and that was a supported connection, not mickey moused.

As for the 4 pin connector, I wouldn't try to plug that into the 24-pin spot, unless specifically told to by the motherboard maker.

But yes, you can run a new 24-pin board off of a 20-pin PS.

That 4 pin connector is not the missing 4 pins from the 24 pin connector. In fact, I dont think it will fit on the 24 ping socket. But either way, dont use it there, just get a 20 to 24 pin adapter.

As for boards, I always use Asus and Abit. Lately all Asus. I would probably opt for something like an SLI board, not to do SLI with, but to utilize those PCI express slots for nice Dual tuner OTA boards and SATA or RAID controllers that come in PCI express flavor. Something like an Asus A8N-sli deluxe, gives you 8 onboard SATA ports, dual gigabit ethernet, 4 DDR slots, lots and lots of goodies there. Plus a nice PCI-express x16 slot for a high end video card if you are going to use it for a viewing PC too.

[MeInMaui]

Originally Posted by Kirby

That 4 pin connector is not the missing 4 pins from the 24 pin connector. In fact, I dont think it will fit on the 24 ping socket. But either way, dont use it there, just get a 20 to 24 pin adapter.

As for boards, I always use Asus and Abit. Lately all Asus. I would probably opt for something like an SLI board, not to do SLI with, but to utilize those PCI express slots for nice Dual tuner OTA boards and SATA or RAID controllers that come in PCI express flavor. Something like an Asus A8N-sli deluxe, gives you 8 onboard SATA ports, dual gigabit ethernet, 4 DDR slots, lots and lots of goodies there. Plus a nice PCI-express x16 slot for a high end video card if you are going to use it for a viewing PC too.

LOL I have the A8N-SLI Deluxe also. The northbridge fan on that one crapped out after a few months, but retrofitting with passive cooling was easy on that board. I think its big brother, the A8N-SLI Premium, has passive cooling out of the box. I also just got an Abit AT8 32x board with passive cooling and dolby digital encoding in the on-board sound for my new client. I haven't installed it yet, so I can't comment on how well it works.

Aloha,
Mike

[Kirby]

Yeah I have the Premium board Love it.

[wheelrandolph]

Hi,
I have had this Foxconn for over a year and am happy with it:

Foxconn NF4UK8AA-8EKRS Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 Ultra ATX AMD Motherboard

Went down in price ($56 after rebate at NewEgg), has FOUR pci, sata II (300mb/sec), and pci-e. Real nice for the price. Only bad point is chipset (fan) is right next to pci-e/16 video card --video card hangs OVER it so you can't use any after-market cooler.


Randy

[paulbeers]

Something I am going to point out:

Any Nforce4 mother boards are going to be PCI-E for vid card and not have as many PCI slots.

I use an Nforce3 motherboard w/ a 939 socket so that I still have AGP graphics (it is for my server so I could juse use an older AGP card I had: Nvidia mx440 anyone?) and 5 PCI slots (I need 4 just to cover all my tuners!). The unfortunate part is that these are becoming harder to find, but I thought I would throw my 2 cents out there!

[blade]

Thanks, you guys have given me a lot more to think about.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by Kirby

That 4 pin connector is not the missing 4 pins from the 24 pin connector. In fact, I dont think it will fit on the 24 ping socket. But either way, dont use it there, just get a 20 to 24 pin adapter.

WRT the power supply, just get a new one, they aren't expensive:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817104953

I've got one very similar to this in my desktop. Very happy with it.

As for boards, I always use Asus and Abit. Lately all Asus. I would probably opt for something like an SLI board, not to do SLI with,

OK, somebody has to explain this to me, why would you ever get an SLI board if you have no intention of running SLI?

but to utilize those PCI express slots for nice Dual tuner OTA boards and SATA or RAID controllers that come in PCI express flavor.

Non-SLI boards have PCIe slots as well.

Something like an Asus A8N-sli deluxe, gives you 8 onboard SATA ports, dual gigabit ethernet, 4 DDR slots, lots and lots of goodies there.

IMO, lots of onboard SATA/IDE slots are a waste, if you need that many ports, you're better off just getting a good RAID controller. Gig-E is nice, but not sure why you'd need two.

Plus a nice PCI-express x16 slot for a high end video card if you are going to use it for a viewing PC too.

Personally if I were buying today, I'd probably get one of these two boards:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813127010
or if you can find it, an AN8-Ultra, which is what I've got in my desktop.

What's great about both of those, is NO FANS! Yippie!

[MeInMaui]

Originally Posted by stanger89

OK, somebody has to explain this to me, why would you ever get an SLI board if you have no intention of running SLI?

In my case I ended up with SLI and/or crossfire boards because they were the only ones that happened to meet all of my requirements. It really had nothing to do with wanting SLI. I just didn't want to limit my options by ruling out a large segment of the boards that are available today. I figure if the board meets all my requirements, who cares if it has SLI or not. Although all things being equal, I'd choose a non-SLI board as well.

Mike

[GKusnick]

Originally Posted by stanger89

OK, somebody has to explain this to me, why would you ever get an SLI board if you have no intention of running SLI?

I recently built three machines around the Asus A8N-SLI (non-Deluxe, non-Premium). I also looked at the A8N-E, which does not do SLI, but for $10 more the A8N-SLI includes onboard 1394, which the the A8N-E does not. So even if I never use the SLI feature, the SLI board still offered more bang per buck than the non-SLI board.

However it looks like the plain old A8N-SLI is no longer offered by Asus. But you still might be able to find one somewhere.

[geogecko]

I have the A8N-SLI Premium as well (Kirby, every try and use all 4 Nvidia SATA ports? #4 crapped out on me, and I kept thinking my new drives were going bad, until I switched to two of the SI3114 SATA ports, then everything was fine...) and if I were buying a replacement, would probably go with this one.

http://usa.asus.com/products4.aspx?l...44&modelmenu=1

The reason I went with the SLI board, were the same reasons as Mike. I wanted the most PCI slots I could get, plus some of the features that were not found on boards without the SLI capability.

It's getting harder and harder to find boards with at least 4 regular PCI slots on them. Now most are only made with 3.

The original system, as you posted it, is almost identical to mine. A8N-SLI Premium, 3000+ Athlon 64, even a dual core 939 won't draw a significantly more amount of power from the supply, something like 110W or so, IIRC, for a dual core 4600 or 4800. Leaves lots of room.

Getting a cheap Seasonic would be a good idea though...

[Kirby]

I really dont recall any issues with my Premium and using all 4 NV sata ports, unless I had an optical sata drive on one, then all bets are off. But that MB has since been moved to my htpc, and only has a single drive installed.