does 939 suck?

[getho]

I've spent the last couple of months looking into my next board - which was to be a 939 board. Every board available has some issue or other. I was hanging out for the most recent EPOX 939 board but a visit to athlonmb put me straight there. Soltek board has memory issues, NEO2Platinum has quality issues, gigabyte is crappy...

I read one post saying the problem was with the Nforce3 chipset, but then several other posts relating to memory issues on the via K8T800 chipset - so is the problem with the memory controller on the chip?

Can anyone give me some advice to stability and reliabilty of the VIA chipset against the nforce chipset (which after looking at all the options comes down to choosing between the MSI NEO2Platinum and the K8T Neo2 boards).

Getho

 

[effee]

939 does not suck per se... but i would not advise to get it now, for me i'd wait for the chip to mature in about a years time before i get it

 

[uOpt]

I ordered a 754 Friday.

In addition to the mainboard itself, I was shocked how much more expensive an Athlon 64 2.4 GHz with 512 KB Cache is for skt939. I payed $260. I know that my applications do not really improve when moving from 400MHz RAM to 800 MHz dual-channel (tried on my Intel board).

As fo the mainboard, I would never get a Via-equipped part again and then the 939 air gets thin. With 754 I could get a board with NVidia's non-PCI gigabit Ethernet very cheap.

The only issue is that these board are documented to only take 2 RAM modules at 400MHz. But I can live with that for now and there are reports that 3 modules still work with 400MHz.

 

[RearAdmiral]

I use an ASUS A8V Deluxe 939 board and I love it. Its even an older revision of the board. Its also the VIA chipset. Its stable and solid as a rock and extremely quick. I can get huge overclocks with everything. Im running at ddr490, zero memory isuues with it. Even most of the older boards, like mine have a working agp/pci lock.

 

[amdguy]

no you suck

 

[SneakyStuff]

if by suck you mean can overclock like none other, and is more future-proof, then yes, it sucks

 

[Markfw]

939 is great ! And either chipset is fine. The only problems are the quality of MSI boards, some of them are just bad. ASUS is my mfg of choice.

 

[Machine350]

Originally posted by: Markfw900
939 is great ! And either chipset is fine. The only problems are the quality of MSI boards, some of them are just bad. ASUS is my mfg of choice.

I agree. I don't know what it is about MSI, but everyone I know that's dealt with their motherboards has had problems. I don't know THAT many people, but it's still interesting.

I think 939 has a bright future, but for now I agree with effee. But that's just me, I like to go mature chipsets that have had most of the bugs worked out already.

 

[getho]

Originally posted by: Markfw900
939 is great ! And either chipset is fine. The only problems are the quality of MSI boards, some of them are just bad. ASUS is my mfg of choice.

And yet I've heard bad things about the reliabilty of Asus boards too, recently.

BTW: this is not a value judgement of 939, I'm just trying to find a robust system to replace an ageing unreliable one, but I guess nearly everyone figured that already.

 

[darkwaffle]

A lot of people are holding out for nf4 boards which are supposed to be released in the coming month I think. You may want to wait it out and see how they are received.

 

[Mik3y]

Originally posted by: getho
I've spent the last couple of months looking into my next board - which was to be a 939 board. Every board available has some issue or other. I was hanging out for the most recent EPOX 939 board but a visit to athlonmb put me straight there. Soltek board has memory issues, NEO2Platinum has quality issues, gigabyte is crappy...

I read one post saying the problem was with the Nforce3 chipset, but then several other posts relating to memory issues on the via K8T800 chipset - so is the problem with the memory controller on the chip?

Can anyone give me some advice to stability and reliabilty of the VIA chipset against the nforce chipset (which after looking at all the options comes down to choosing between the MSI NEO2Platinum and the K8T Neo2 boards).

Getho

why blame the socket or chipset because the motherboard manufcacturer screwed up?

 

[Ardan]

You will always hear about someone having an issue with some manufacturer. Come on, every company has at least a few bad apples, none of them are absolutely perfect. For instance, if you go and lookup safety recalls on BMW, you'll find that they and other top makers of them have recalled vehicles before.

You can't base your decision on someone's bad experience. Think about it: if Socket 939 motherboards were terrible, and the socket design sucked, then why would the A64 still be wildly popular?

I'm sure the boards are just fine, and will be when I upgrade in January.

My 2 cents.

 

[iwantanewcomputer]

Originally posted by: Ardan
You will always hear about someone having an issue with some manufacturer. Come on, every company has at least a few bad apples, none of them are absolutely perfect. For instance, if you go and lookup safety recalls on BMW, you'll find that they and other top makers of them have recalled vehicles before.

You can't base your decision on someone's bad experience. Think about it: if Socket 939 motherboards were terrible, and the socket design sucked, then why would the A64 still be wildly popular?

I'm sure the boards are just fine, and will be when I upgrade in January.

My 2 cents.

that makes no sense, if half of the complaints about faulty motherboards in the motherboard section are about msi boards, i think it fairly reasonable to assume that tjey have more problems with quality control than others

 

[ApacheChief]

Did you read what he said?

EVERY company has a COUPLE bad apples including THE BIG TRUSTED ONES.

 

[Ardan]

Originally posted by: iwantanewcomputer
that makes no sense, if half of the complaints about faulty motherboards in the motherboard section are about msi boards, i think it fairly reasonable to assume that tjey have more problems with quality control than others

Yes it does. I am referring to that he was talking about hearing about bad experiences various manufacturers, and that the question is if the 939 sucked. I don't really care about MSI's problems, I was responding to this discussion about if inherent problems with a motherboard chipset (or just some motherboards of a manufacturer) meant the CPU socket wasn't very good.

That is JUST that forum section, and just this site. Just because some people say they've had problems doesn't mean the company has quality control issues. Perhaps it is the chipset at fault, and not the maker. We also can't rule out a possible user error (no matter how much someone says they are ALL THAT with PCs) as well. Okay lets say people have a lot of problems with MSI's Athlon 64 boards. What about the intel ones? What if nobody has complaints about them? Then it clearly is not MSI's quality control division if all of their other boards are okay. I wasn't going to go for the K8T800, I was waiting for the latest ones to come out.

I was also referring to the matter of ASUS' quality coming into question. I totally agree with Markfw900 that they're all just fine. You can't just assume a manufacturer is totally horrible just because someone has had troubles with that board before. That makes sense.

 

[Gerbil333]

Originally posted by: getho
I've spent the last couple of months looking into my next board - which was to be a 939 board. Every board available has some issue or other. I was hanging out for the most recent EPOX 939 board but a visit to athlonmb put me straight there. Soltek board has memory issues, NEO2Platinum has quality issues, gigabyte is crappy...

I read one post saying the problem was with the Nforce3 chipset, but then several other posts relating to memory issues on the via K8T800 chipset - so is the problem with the memory controller on the chip?

Can anyone give me some advice to stability and reliabilty of the VIA chipset against the nforce chipset (which after looking at all the options comes down to choosing between the MSI NEO2Platinum and the K8T Neo2 boards).

Getho

Socket 939 is still quite new, and most companies are still selling their first revision mobos. I follow this general rule: Never buy a first generation motherboard. They almost always have problems like you've discovered. Socket A went through the same growing pains back in its first few chipsets and board revisions. The KT133A was the first stable SDR chipset in my opinion (although it had its share of bugs), and the KT266A was probably the first reliable DDR chipset (which also had bugs).

Socket 939 looks to be a promising platform, but right now you're stuck with the first generation chipsets and mobos. The nForce 4 and upcoming VIA chipsets may or may not be better. They're just around the corner, so you should probably wait and see.

 

[getho]

Socket 939 is still quite new, and most companies are still selling their first revision mobos. I follow this general rule: Never buy a first generation motherboard. They almost always have problems like you've discovered. Socket A went through the same growing pains back in its first few chipsets and board revisions. The KT133A was the first stable SDR chipset in my opinion (although it had its share of bugs), and the KT266A was probably the first reliable DDR chipset (which also had bugs).

Socket 939 looks to be a promising platform, but right now you're stuck with the first generation chipsets and mobos. The nForce 4 and upcoming VIA chipsets may or may not be better. They're just around the corner, so you should probably wait and see.

Sound advice, yet in reality I'd be waiting at least 6 months until the 1st revision boards get revised, I dont think I can wait that long. I guess I can update my motherboard later, and still use the RAM CPU etc...

The reason I questioned the 939 platform is that so many 939 motherboard manufacturers - including quality respected brands like EPOX - are having huge problems producing boards that dont have problems. My reasoning was: If EPOX can make standout boards with every other CPU/Chipset but fail so badly with 939 - are there inherant problems with 939.

Getho

 

[thirdlegstump]

Not it does not, but it is a multiplier of 3...which is great.

 

[Chris2wire]

Im just going to comment on the original question...

My 939 setup has been running for over a week now. Winchester cpu overclocks GREAT on the 939 (VIA chipset. 2.0ghz --> 2.5ghz) , and I LOVE the dual-DDR, feels like Im getting more for my money. Im very glad I chose 939 over 754.