Help' MSI Neo2 NForce3 or Nforce4

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wclark212

n00b
Joined
Oct 24, 2004
Messages
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My computer is used mainly for Microsoft appliocations, Such as Word processing, Excel,
photo eding; some gaming, etc. I have made a decision to purchase a MSI NForce Motherboard. My question is should I go ahead and purchase the available MSI Neo2 Platinum Nforce3 board now or wait(3-4 weeks) for the MSI Neo2 Platin Nforce4 to come available. I had want to make my purchase by November 5? I would appreciate any help ASAP. :cool:



Asus A7V8X
AMD XP 2400+
512 MB Ram
WD 7200 120GB
WD 7200 80 GB
19" LCD Monitor
 
The Nforce 4 mainly gains you PCI-e, which is worthless at the moment since there aren't really any decent video cards available for PCI-e that aren't insanely expensive. If you aren't big on games anyway, there is no reason to not got with the AGP Nforce 3.
 
yea, I second that.. PCIe vid cards aren't where they need to be yet to warrant the nf4.. besides, do you really want to be the very 1st person on the nf4 bandwagon, and see what kind of crap you have to deal with?

I'm all about waiting a few months after boards to come out to work out the kinks, and see what kind of strange problems they have.
 
I would go with one of the nForce 3 Ultra boards like the Epox 9NDA3+ or MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum and forget about nForce 4. nForce 4 isn't worth upgradeing to unless you got a bunch of money for a SLI setup. PCI-E cards currently aren't any faster then AGP cards and at times they are even slower from what i've seen in past benchmarks.
 
But there's more options to save money and not lose out THAT much in terms of performance. Over here in the UK you can get a 256mb DDR3 X700 Pro cheaper than the equivalent 9800 Pro, ditto for the 6600GT. IMO I went OTT with a 6800GT, seeing as my monitor can't go any higher than 1024 x 768.
 
First off, the NForce4 boards probably won't be available in retail channels until next year. Secondly, even if you got your hands on one the cost and availability of good PCI Express video cards is also a serious issue. You still can't easily get an AGP GF6800 Ultra or ATI X800 XT Platinum based video card. If you have the patience and the $, then wait it out. But there's no evidence that the NForce4 will be all we all want it to be. Personally, are you really gonna spend $600-$1200 on 2 SLI capable PCI Express video cards just to gain 40 extra FPS in your favorite shooter ? Get the MSI K8N Neo2 now move your current AGP8x video card over to the new platform or save for the top X800 or 6800 card of your choice. By the time you're ready, you might even be able to find one.
 
.... PCIe vid card??? agp 8x does fine, and from agp 4x to 8x theres really not even a noticable diffrence between the two, even then theres no softwear that is taking full advantage of the new gfx cards currently, even with doom3 u can still run with a older gfx card and a fast puter, and u wont even notice a diffrence. though there may be a slight fps diffrence but as long as your getting above 30fps its all goood. keep in mind your eyes can only see around 30 fps anyway.
 
I agree. I did a lot of researching on the new upcoming PCI-e boards both for Intel and AMD CPU's. My conclusion was that 1). There were no available PCI-e 6800 GT cards for sale, 2). DRR2 has no real performance gains over DDR, and 3). There was no real-world increase in performace overall. Now don't get me wrong - SLI sounds exciting, but I seriously doubt I am going to drop another $450 on another 6800 GT card for a few extra framerates in games. I can at least wait another year for all that and still have a top-of-the-line system for the games I am going to play until then (D3, EQ2, WoW, HL2, CS:Source, etc.)
 
Abit AX8 the Via chipset seems to have most of its kinks worked out of it, and they just added PCI Express =P good performance equaling Nforce 4 and should be availble very soon ;) and Im sure once AMD gets its boards with PCI-Express into the retail market, we'll start to see more Pci-Express cards :D
 
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