nForce2 motherboard advice needed

[DaemonJ]

Unfortunately I have not been able to keep up with technology lately but yet find myself needing to update my computer.

Based upon reading these forums for the past two nights, the nForce2 and AMD Barton 2500+ appears to be a popular combination.

Is there any particular nForce2 motherboard that stands out as the best?

If available, I would like one with the better sound chip and other niceties.

Also, I have noticed a few mentions of only using 2 of the memory slots instead of 3. Can someone give me a quick education on this or point me to an article about the subject?

Lastly, is the video good enough to play games part-time? Most settings will be 1024x768 with some (but not all) eye candy on. Mostly playing Quake 3 and Unreal Tournament but hope to update to UT2003 after the system upgrade.

Any additional advice / comments will be warmly accepted.

Thanks in advance for any help. It is truly appreciate by me

 

[high]

DFI Lanparty NF2 Ultra comes with all the toys you could think of. Fast board too

2 sticks over 3 is so you can use dual channel mode with your ram. Not positive if you can use 3 sticks as it won't run in dual chan but don't quote me because I really have no idea if that is true.

 

[stultus]

Post what other niceties (RAID, SATA, 2 x lan, SPDIF, firewire) you want, and maybe people can make a good recommedation.

The fact that you're thinking about using onboard video was missed by the first reply in this thread - the DFI is $140 and does not have onboard video.

There are relatively few nforce2 boards with IGP that people tout on here, mostly because people use "real" video cards. That said, a geforce4 MX will do for very light gaming, but you can always (and should) add a real video card if you get serious (and really, why wouldn't you want everything to look great after upgrading to a beefy CPU speed).

If you simply must go IGP, I've built two systems using MSI's ATX IGP solutions. Make sure you don't accidentally get an mATX board - most IGP boards are mATX.

 

[EeyoreX]

2 sticks over 3 is so you can use dual channel mode with your ram. Not positive if you can use 3 sticks as it won't run in dual chan but don't quote me because I really have no idea if that is true.

You can run dual channel with three sticks of RAM. With both above posts, I'll say dual channel is really worth it if you do decide to go with an IGP version as it will help graphics performance quite a bit. Otherwise, it doesn't matter. The average boost of a couple percentage points is not noticable outside of benchmarks. If you are building a machine to "impress" people with benchmarks, I doubt IGP would be your choice...

Make sure you don't accidentally get an mATX board - most IGP boards are mATX.

I don't see how this matters in the least. The only difference is in the size. mATX will have fewer slots for add-on cards, but if all the "niceties" are onboard how many slots will you really need. I have an MSI K7N2 Delta-ILSR. It has everything but video, so I have only one card, and thats my GPU.

\Dan

 

[stultus]

mATX boards indeed come with less PCI slots, which *could *be an annoyance in the long run. However, they only come with two DIMM slots, so if you're the average IGP user who uses dual channel and picks 512 as a good starting point, you have no upgrade path after 2x256. If you have a full ATX board then you still have another dimm slot to slap a 512 in at a later date. I suppose this is moot if you load your board with 2x512 from the get-go, but, again, that's not what most people do.

 

[Mem]

MSI K7N2G-ILSR is one of the top choices if you need onboard video and MCP-T sound,also has most of the bells and whistles you`ll need.

 

[Ionizer86]

EPoX 8RGA+ is really good if you need the MCP-T (and its firewire, nForce APU, lan, USB2 etc). It also has the IGP northbridge so you get the MX440 video.

If you don't need video, good choices are: ~$105 Abit NF7-S (USB2, Firewire, dual lan, digital sound, SATA), Asus A7N8X Deluxe (USB2, Firewire, dual lan, digital sound, SATA), ~$80 EPoX 8RDA+ (USB2, Firewire, single lan, nForce analog audio).

Note that both EPoX boards are rare now since they've stopped making these excellent products for some reason.

 

[EeyoreX]

mATX boards indeed come with less PCI slots, which *could *be an annoyance in the long run. However, they only come with two DIMM slots, so if you're the average IGP user who uses dual channel and picks 512 as a good starting point, you have no upgrade path after 2x256. If you have a full ATX board then you still have another dimm slot to slap a 512 in at a later date. I suppose this is moot if you load your board with 2x512 from the get-go, but, again, that's not what most people do.

That's true, and not something I thought about too much and I was a little confused as to why you seemed not to like mATX. Your reason is clear and makes sense. However, I feel if someone is going to do a full board and cpu upgrade, they more likely than not have to buy new RAM. And RAM is cheap enough to get 1GB right off the bat. I also took into consideration the original post, and it didn't seem like 1GB of RAM was going to be needed. I almost think that at this point, by the time someone needs to go from the kind of system that seems to be desired to one that needs 1GB of RAM, the next generation hardware would be inexpensive enough to warrant the complete replacement of an nForce2 setup. That's just my opinion though.

\Dan

 

[TheBoyBlunder]

For dual channel memory and three sticks of ram, two sticks need to be the same size and the third stick needs to be the sum of the first two.
Basically, that means you need 2 256mb sticks and 1 512mb stick, or 2 512mb sticks and 1 1gb stick and so on.

 

[randumb]

$50 for a Shuttle AN35 Ultra. Can't beat that price.

 

[slpavman]

1GB of ram inexpensive? Damn! I paid more for 1GB of Corsair XMS PC3200-LL then I paid for my Epox 8RDA3+ and XP2500+ combined! NEVER stint on the ram! This is the best bang-for-the-buck upgrade you can do for your system!

Onboard video reeks! I don't care what mobo you use! Spend the extra money now ... or later - it's up to you! At least buy a Ti4200 or 9500pro to go with your new CPU/MOBO!

 

[Cygni]

Originally posted by: randumb
$50 for a Shuttle AN35 Ultra. Can't beat that price.

I agree. Go with the Shuttle and add anything else you want with PCI cards... you will end up with a solid MB, all the features you want, and money left over in your pocket.

 

[EeyoreX]

1GB of ram inexpensive? Damn! I paid more for 1GB of Corsair XMS PC3200-LL then I paid for my Epox 8RDA3+ and XP2500+ combined! NEVER stint on the ram! This is the best bang-for-the-buck upgrade you can do for your system!

Well, you could have saved money by buying what you needed vs what you wanted. A 2500+ Barton is perfectly happy with PC2700 RAM, as the CPU and RAM run in synch at 333MHz. There is no need for PC3200. Unless you are overclocking. Chcances are, if one is going to use onboard video, overclocking won't be done. I agree RAM is a bit more expensve than it was a few months ago (last I checked about $100 for a 512MB stick of Corsair XMS) it's still much cheaper than it used to be. And don't go cheapie by buying less than PC2700. As far as buying up, this is not necessary unless you are buying an nForce board with a 400MHz FSB and you plan on buying a 400MHz FSB CPU.

Onboard video reeks! I don't care what mobo you use! Spend the extra money now ... or later - it's up to you! At least buy a Ti4200 or 9500pro to go with your new CPU/MOBO!

Seems to me, if he spends the extra money for the video adapter later, he'll still need the onboard video now, right? And it "reeks" depending on what he's doing. I would think a well configured system should do alright with the games he mentions, with possible exception of UT2003 as I have no experience with it. And, as you said, if he finds the onboard video doesn't agree with him, he can get an AGP GPU later if he so desires.

\Dan

 

[magomago]

Originally posted by: Ionizer86
EPoX 8RGA+ is really good if you need the MCP-T (and its firewire, nForce APU, lan, USB2 etc). It also has the IGP northbridge so you get the MX440 video.

If you don't need video, good choices are: ~$105 Abit NF7-S (USB2, Firewire, dual lan, digital sound, SATA), Asus A7N8X Deluxe (USB2, Firewire, dual lan, digital sound, SATA), ~$80 EPoX 8RDA+ (USB2, Firewire, single lan, nForce analog audio).

Note that both EPoX boards are rare now since they've stopped making these excellent products for some reason.

nope the epox boards are digital too- only reasontheydon't have the nforce2 soundstorm "logo" is because to get the S/PDIF out you need a bracket

 

[Snoop]

nope the epox boards are digital too- only reasontheydon't have the nforce2 soundstorm "logo" is because to get the S/PDIF out you need a bracket

Not the newest epox nforce boards, the 8rda3+ uses C-Media CMI9739, which is NOT a codec, but a standalone sound chip. I have NO clue why epox did this, probably saves a couple bucs or something.