Time for an upgrade. Suggestions?

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XLShadow

Weaksauce
Joined
Aug 14, 2001
Messages
107
I'm over due for a motherboard upgrade: I'm finally sick of my gigabyte GA-7DXR. Despite its age, its a great board. I have it running at 150MHz FSB stable, and it won't let me go faster. I have the multiplier maxed at 12.5 so my Athlon XP 1.4GHz is at 1.8GHz. I have a feeling that she can break 2GHz and I finally got sick of wondering. Now, I'm not a big spender (or else I'd have an Intel system... lol ) but the nForce2 motherboards are quite affordable right now and I'm seriously considering treating myself.

what I got right now:
GA-7DXR, two Intel NICs, Audigy 2 ZS, two WD 120GB SE hard drives, my fossil Plextor 12x (the oldest component of my system :D ), a Hitachi DVD-ROM, Radeon 8500 AIW, 1x 512MB Kingston HyperX PC2700 (DDR333), Athlon XP 1700+, Alpha PAL8045
(I know my entire computer is rather dated, but I figure the motherboard is holding me back the most. Once I get something newer, I'll go from there.)

Now, I've done my homework...
I can go for the value and vanilla Shuttle AN35N-Ultra. Yea, it doesn't have a lot of features, but I have that covered with my add-in cards. I like the most about this board is how simple it is, and to me that says less problems. Also it has the mounting holes and quite a lot of space around the CPU socket so my alpha pal8045 will fit nicely on it. The price is great too. Leaves me with more money for a second stick of ram. I've checked out everything I can about this motherboard. I'm sure the overclocking features are there. I've run across some forums where people claim to have this thing up to 250MHz FSB but that was only once. Because of its price I feel that this is more of a budget board and not that many people are overclocking them. And the few that do aren't really telling about it. If anyone has this board, lemme hear its life story.

Or I could shoot the balls of this thing and get the Abit NF7-S v2.0
Now I know a lot of you are going to say go with the Abit before even reading further (if you haven't alread) but you have to see why it's not such an easy choice for me. I don't need the digital out on board... I have my Audigy 2 ZS, which has been pretty good to me all things considered. (I think it'll be even better without a VIA 686B southbridge :( ) Then there is the firewire issue... I have that covered on my soundcard so its a bit redundant. I don't have any firewire or SATA devices yet. Then there is the cpu clearance. The [H]ardOCP review of this board mentions some chips that are really close to the mounting holes... I guess my alpha wouldn't be a great idea. Fortunetly I have a Thermalright SLK-700 for the non-hole CPU cooling. If i get a new mobo, I can swap my alpha with the slk-700 no prob. (but if I get what I want for my bday, I'll graduate to water cooling :D ) Naturally I would attempt to overclock it as far as I can and everyone in this forum that has one seems to swear by it. I know my RAM will probably not handle a 500MHZ clock, even with slack timings, but I'm not at that point yet. I've also heard accounts that the active cooling on the northbridge is kinda poopy too. So yea, testimonials on either board will be great. I figure the best thing to do is to just sit on it and let it sit for a bit.

Start stirring... :)
 
The shuttle is the perfect budget choice imho. Its probably good for around 205-220fsb depending on hard you push the cpu. What it is lacking is extreme voltage options. This may hamper your memory oc, but you can always keep the frontside bus a little lower and ramp up the cpu multiplier instead. Make sure to run ram and cpu in sync because you'll experience a performance loss (nf2 anomoly).

Examples you can try:
11 x 200fsb = 2.2 ghz <-- your ram or lack of extreme vdimm voltage may hold you back here

11.5 x 190 = 2.185 ghz

11.5 x 185 = 2.12 ghz

12 x 180 = 2.16 ghz

The limiting factors will be your pc2700 ram (maybe) and the lack of 'extreme' vdimm ram voltage in the bios. If this concerns you in any way then you may want to look into a different mobo (or ram). The NF7-S is capable of a lot more voltage, and my chipset fan hasn't skipped a beat for a long time now (such a minor concern anyway). Check out our [H] deal forum for some current deals on ram or other hardware btw.
 
Oops, I goofed on the Shuttle model number: AN35N Ultra. I fixed my previous post.

Seems the volt mods for the Shuttle don't help it much. (I stand corrected, the volt mods really make this baby sing. RAM seems to be the common limiting factor) I'm leaning towards the ABIT but I need to free up the cash. I'm going to decide and order on Friday if I can. I'll need that pick me up after the week. :)
 
Because this was such a difficult decision, I let my wallet decide and I bought the Shuttle.
The ABIT NF7-S wasn't quite the "no-brainer" I had hoped for. I really love ABIT's support for us enthusiasts but the NF7-S just doesn't sit right with me. A lot of people love their NF7-S to death, but a lot of people seem to have problems with them too.
Well, now I have more money for a 2nd stick of RAM. If I get some kind of stellar OC you all will be the first to know. :) I doubt anyone will really care since the Athlon 64 is THE Doom 3 chip. Heh, I'm still playing Quake 3 and Half-Life. I'll build something crazy when I'm done college.

Thank you to the few people that did post. I'm really suprised at the LACK of posts on my thread. I figured eveyone would be livid about this topic. From the look of it, eveyone only talks about the A64s now. :rolleyes:
 
The shuttle board is a good performer overall, I hope you checked out the links to the RHCF, those guys know there stuff with these boards...

They'll set you up.

Later

MD
 
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