What S939 boards are coming?

H

HybridHB

[H]ard|Gawd
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Dec 15, 2002
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Im getting a S939 setup soon so id like to know whos coming out with what. Id prefer to use an NF3 based mobo and maybe ATI's board assuming they have an AGP solution. I looked around but couldnt find much? Also what determines the hyper transport speed? The mobo or chip?
 
I just picked up the A8V - Deluxe and it's great. Running smooth with my 6800 GT OC.
 
I just put together a K8N Neo2 Platinum. Rock solid performer there. :)
 
I am wanting to jump on teh hammer bandwagon, but i too wish to know when the better boards are coming out. I don't really care about pcix, i'm happy with my 9500and 9800. I'd just like a socket939 board with onboard sound as good as soundstorm, 2 ethernet ports and great overclocking options. With the introduction of affordable 90nm 939 chips i think their should be alot of action in this sector soon.
 
What's coming, as opposed to what's out now (which is not the question asked), is nForce4, with a counter from VIA as well.
Expect PCI-e and DDR2 support, the former definitley. Word on the street is it might also come to socket 754's! Other than that, there won't be much other specialities coming. So if you plan to upgrade, do yourself a favor and go for the next gen chipsets, future-proof yourself :)

Hypertransport is determined by the chipset. I wouldn't worry too much about it, on the abit forums one guy hit 1300mhz on HT and it mostly worsened performance, although marginally.
 
We won't see DDR-2 until a different socket (as the memory controller is on-die, and every memory controller update requires different pin count)
 
Yes, that's why I said "the former definitly"...
It would be nice if they implemented DDR2 support without us knowing it, though...
Not much is known about nForce4, but something worthy enough of a new generation chipset from nVidia is definitly gonna have PCI-E, since they will want to extend their monopoly of SLi-enabled boards to the current AMD A64 market. I don't see how nForce4 can't have PCI-e.
Thus I truly doubt they will have AGP on nForce4. if you want AGP, stick with nForce3.
 
krizzle said:
Yes, that's why I said "the former definitly"...
It would be nice if they implemented DDR2 support without us knowing it, though...
Not much is known about nForce4, but something worthy enough of a new generation chipset from nVidia is definitly gonna have PCI-E, since they will want to extend their monopoly of SLi-enabled boards to the current AMD A64 market. I don't see how nForce4 can't have PCI-e.
Thus I truly doubt they will have AGP on nForce4. if you want AGP, stick with nForce3.
Click to expand...

but there is soundstorm2 on nf4... and thats really what im lookin forward too... i dunno, i think they might put an AGP slot on there that shares bandwidth with the pci-e x16 slot.. i mean, would they want to not allow all the early adoptors(like myself) of the 6800 series the use of their card on their chipset?

then again there is the issue of GART, but wouldnt that be a nonissue with the send and recieve capabilities and massive bandwidth of pci-e?

...at least this is what im hoping...

edit: and i dont give a crap about DDR2... DDR is less expensive, has tigher timings, and is reaching as high as the lowest rated DDR2 now. untill DDR2 is actually being used at speeds that DDR cannot reach, i wont care. i mean, even now, with intels new 1ghz fsb, DDR can be used. no need for DDR2 IMO.
 
lithium726 said:
but there is soundstorm2 on nf4... and thats really what im lookin forward too... i dunno, i think they might put an AGP slot on there that shares bandwidth with the pci-e x16 slot.. i mean, would they want to not allow all the early adoptors(like myself) of the 6800 series the use of their card on their chipset?

then again there is the issue of GART, but wouldnt that be a nonissue with the send and recieve capabilities and massive bandwidth of pci-e?

...at least this is what im hoping...

edit: and i dont give a crap about DDR2... DDR is less expensive, has tigher timings, and is reaching as high as the lowest rated DDR2 now. untill DDR2 is actually being used at speeds that DDR cannot reach, i wont care. i mean, even now, with intels new 1ghz fsb, DDR can be used. no need for DDR2 IMO.
Click to expand...
Indeed, DDR2 actually performs slower in most benchmarks I've seen...
What is this Soundstorm2?
And yes, it would be wonderful if they had AGP and PCI-e on the same board... "drool"
I guess we will all see soon.
 
I would rather see AGP die and PCI express as the only way to go.

Not so much for performance, but to standardize the graphics world.
 
krizzle said:
Indeed, DDR2 actually performs slower in most benchmarks I've seen...
What is this Soundstorm2?
And yes, it would be wonderful if they had AGP and PCI-e on the same board... "drool"
I guess we will all see soon.
Click to expand...

soundstorm was first seen on nForce2, its nvidias onboard hardware sound solution. it takes no cycles from the CPU since its hardware based, and it is hte only chip currently that can encode dolby digital 5.1 to be sent to a reciver/decoder. i LOVE my soundstorm, and is one of the main reasons i have not jumped to a64... that and money :p

and yeah, i really want my AGP!
 
WOW lithium you are the first gut in history to probably put off a upgrade because of the sound on a mobo, im still scratching my head lol.
 
Marcdaddy said:
WOW lithium you are the first gut in history to probably put off a upgrade because of the sound on a mobo, im still scratching my head lol.
Click to expand...
i said it was one of the main reasons... and it can encode DD... i love my sound and the soundstorm is just about the best sound solution ive ever had... i was pissed when they didnt include it in NF3, and i dont quite have the money for an a64 right now.

Far Cry and Doom3 are ABSOLUTLY stunning when i plug the coax into my 5.1 reciever, and i dont wanna give this up
 
InSurGeNcE said:
ever hear of audigy2 ?
Click to expand...

i refuse to use creative. ever since that damn kt133/sb live thing i have had a sour distaste in my mouth for both VIA and Creative.

The beef i have with VIA extends further than that, but this is neither the here or now for that.

oh, and audigy 2 does NOT encode DD5.1
 
soundstorm is dead, get over it. It's not like anything really took advantage of its ability to endode DD anyway.. That and the amount of problems it had was a pain in the ass anyways..

nVidia has already said no soundstorm for NF4 or a standalone card.. the audigy 2 is probably one of the best sound cards I've ever had, and there's no reason not to buy one.. creative actually made it right this time around, and the drivers aren't nearly as bloated as they once were..

If you're waiting for a new socket 939 board, the only one worth looking out for would be DFI's solution... if it's anything like the 754 version promises to be, then it could be the one to own.. past that, I have to give the hat to the MSI Neo Platinum 2.. It makes full use of the NF3 250 Ultra chipset, is very fast, stable, and oc's well.. plus it looks pretty slick in a windowed box.. ;)
 
Where has nvidia said that nforce 4 won't have sound storm? The last I heard it was coming with sound storm 2. I contacted Asus and they plan on selling the boards in either november or december.
 
Marcdaddy said:
WOW lithium you are the first gut in history to probably put off a upgrade because of the sound on a mobo, im still scratching my head lol.
Click to expand...

It's not that weird when you think about it. This is why I break out in a sweat sometimes trying to keep track of all the variables to consider. Think about how much more money people pay sometimes for one jump in clock speed on a cpu product line. The difference between a 3200+ claw and a 3400+ is at most the 10% increase in clockrates. Joe blow may go through all this trouble and throw in a cheapy sound card that uses almost 15% of your cpu cycles. God I wish A64 gets a good soundstorm2 as nforce 2 was untouchable in this respect, like <5%.
 
texuspete00 said:
It's not that weird when you think about it. This is why I break out in a sweat sometimes trying to keep track of all the variables to consider. Think about how much more money people pay sometimes for one jump in clock speed on a cpu product line. The difference between a 3200+ claw and a 3400+ is at most the 10% increase in clockrates. Joe blow may go through all this trouble and throw in a cheapy sound card that uses almost 15% of your cpu cycles. God I wish A64 gets a good soundstorm2 as nforce 2 was untouchable in this respect, like <5%.
Click to expand...
Not true..
The whole point of soundcards (besides the features) is that they take away the load off the CPU... and put it on themselves.
Kinda like saying Graphics cards use %15 of the CPU to do their renderings...
If you ever had a soundcard use %15 of your CPU, either you were running a p75 or you were tripping when you read the CPU utilization.
My SoundBlaster Audigy LS (i know, not s2, i didn't have the money) takes nothing. I run iTunes, and my CPU usage bar goes up to max %5 with other programs running when I just listen to music. + Itunes is the most CPU-intensive music jukebox there is...
 
5% on a a64 is diff then 5% on a athlon-xp..... a64's are way more efficient/faster
 
Wow, AMD is getting bad about changing sockets on us. DDR2 isnt worth diddlypoo right now, but eventually it will be good. Although, you prolly wont want your other Mobo whenever they move to a different socket.
 
i think some smart engineer will figure out how to get ddr2 to run on s939... but either way it will jus tbe a getting on the bandwagon situation since even the fx-53 tops out at 240(?) mhtz for memory controller

everyone has been saying the diffs are negligable for ddr2 anyhow... its actually more profitable for the memory makers then the end user... they get to use chips that are twice as slow for speeds that are faster if i remember correctly
 
240MHZ, ive been at 244Mhz but it craps out is that why, i didnt know that the memory controller did that on the 939s
 
krizzle said:
Not true..
The whole point of soundcards (besides the features) is that they take away the load off the CPU... and put it on themselves.
Kinda like saying Graphics cards use %15 of the CPU to do their renderings...
If you ever had a soundcard use %15 of your CPU, either you were running a p75 or you were tripping when you read the CPU utilization.
My SoundBlaster Audigy LS (i know, not s2, i didn't have the money) takes nothing. I run iTunes, and my CPU usage bar goes up to max %5 with other programs running when I just listen to music. + Itunes is the most CPU-intensive music jukebox there is...
Click to expand...

He means EAX, dipshit.
 
lithium726 said:
soundstorm was first seen on nForce2, its nvidias onboard hardware sound solution. it takes no cycles from the CPU since its hardware based, and it is hte only chip currently that can encode dolby digital 5.1 to be sent to a reciver/decoder. i LOVE my soundstorm, and is one of the main reasons i have not jumped to a64... that and money :p

and yeah, i really want my AGP!
Click to expand...

Get an Audigy 2 or Audigy 2 ZS, it'll blow SoundStorm away! I made that change with my old 2500 xp system and the difference in SQ is night and day.
 
ryuji said:
i think some smart engineer will figure out how to get ddr2 to run on s939... but either way it will jus tbe a getting on the bandwagon situation since even the fx-53 tops out at 240(?) mhtz for memory controller

everyone has been saying the diffs are negligable for ddr2 anyhow... its actually more profitable for the memory makers then the end user... they get to use chips that are twice as slow for speeds that are faster if i remember correctly
Click to expand...


The A64 will work fine with DDR2 when it needs to.. There just isn't a point to it right now though. AMD does not need nearly as much memory bandwidth as Intel rigs due to architecture differences.. This is best shown with the 754's only lagging about 5% to their 939 counterparts.. DDR2 would give WORSE performance at this point, due to the massive latencies it has right now.. Maybe when they have it over 667 we might see a need for it, but even then I doubt it.. DDR1 still have life in it, since modules nowadays are almost at the DDR600 mark.. I wouldn't be surprised to see a new DDR standard come out @ 550 or something..

Plus DDR2 is expensive, and not as available as DDR1 is.. It makes no sense for AMD to do it from a performance standpoint.. Marketing however, is a different story, and they'll probably switch to it just to have a marketing checkpoint against Intel down the road..
 
you just restated what i said... i figured it was common knowledge that ddr2 had high lantencys
 
WOW lithium you are the first gut in history to probably put off a upgrade because of the sound on a mobo, im still scratching my head lol
Click to expand...

Nope, he's not! :cool:

soundstorm is dead, get over it. It's not like anything really took advantage of its ability to endode DD anyway
Click to expand...

Nope again! Everything made use of the Dolby Digital Encoding, you just told a game to do its surround sound processing thing and then the card would encode it so that you could hook it up to a Dolby Digital receiver with 1 simple TOSLINK or coax digital cable.

The audigys cant do that (although if youre amp has 8chanel discrete analog line level inputs then its not all that important, but its nice to have).

I have a sound setup in my room here comprising of a Denon 2805 7.1 amp, Acoustic Energy EVO 3 floorstanders, sub, centre, left and right surrounds, and left and right backs, im one of those people who are waiting to see just whats on the NForce4 (and all the current rumour is that SoundStorm will be there).

with Intels HDA on their 915 and 925 chipsets, and SoundStorm on Nforce4, theres not much point shelling out for creative solutions anymore, as the chipsets specs are mighty.

Dont need EAX, just listen to Doom3.

pez
 
I think I can count on one hand the number of games that used dolby digital for 3d sound.. EVERYTHING uses EAX for 3d sound, and so will any game based on Doom 3 from now on..

It's all a matter of preference really.. I have no problem using my audigy 2 zs.. fickin' awesome sound card, and soundstorm never could hold a candle to it in terms of quality.. which is why with both nf2 systems I've had, soundstorm has never been enabled.. not to mention the massive amounts of problems that most soundstorm users have.. maybe they'll get it right next time, and give me a reason to retire the audigy.. damn.. then I'd be down to just a vid card, and no pci cards.. ;)
 
Why is everyone so pressed over SoundStorm?! It sounded like crap on my NF7-S compared to my Audigy 2 ZS. Lol, cant believe people upgrade a mobo for onboard sound, just buy a friggin Audigy 2 ZS and be done
 
I think I can count on one hand the number of games that used dolby digital for 3d sound.. EVERYTHING uses EAX for 3d sound, and so will any game based on Doom 3 from now on..
Click to expand...

EAX is a processing technique that games can call upon to carry out certain reverb effects.

Dolby Digital Encoding is a process that takes multichanel audio and encodes it into a format that can be passed along a digital connection to a Dolby Digital Decoder which then sends the signals to a multichanel amp and then on to speakers.

EVERY game you ran on SoundStorm could utilise the DDE.

people buy creative because its the 'norm' in gaming, doesnt mean its the best.

you dont need EAX or creative, just listen to Doom3.

pez
 
Most games use EAX for 3d positional sound effects.. I've been burned by this before when I got rid of my original SB Live for a Diamond MX300, as A3D was better.. guess what, it died and I lost support of later EAX titles, having to use inferior 3d effects.. I'd rather have the ability to support the latest EAX which almost every top game uses..

DD Encoding can't just make stereo into 3d audio.. all it does is convert an existing audio track into an AC3 stream.. If it's not already in a 3d audio format, you won't get the effect..
 
Hornswoggler said:
I would rather see AGP die and PCI express as the only way to go.

Not so much for performance, but to standardize the graphics world.
Click to expand...

Somehow, I think some of my PCI gpu will last longer than AGP ones that are 5-10 years newer :p
 
krizzle said:
Not true..
The whole point of soundcards (besides the features) is that they take away the load off the CPU... and put it on themselves.
Kinda like saying Graphics cards use %15 of the CPU to do their renderings...
If you ever had a soundcard use %15 of your CPU, either you were running a p75 or you were tripping when you read the CPU utilization.
My SoundBlaster Audigy LS (i know, not s2, i didn't have the money) takes nothing. I run iTunes, and my CPU usage bar goes up to max %5 with other programs running when I just listen to music. + Itunes is the most CPU-intensive music jukebox there is...
Click to expand...

I'll believe you because you say so :rolleyes: I don't remember the exact figures, but like I said soundstorm blows away sound cards in cpu utilization - that's a FACT. So you can keep your general advice about what soundcards are supposed to do. Fact is it is not the case. Then you go on to compare sounds in gaming (not only more dynamic but usually 5.1) to the playing of music :rolleyes: x2. My figures may be off, but you're whole post is either wrong or not pertinent to the actual situation. Soundcards do offload some sound work, often considered better at this than integrated solution, but we're talking about soundstorm. Not CMedia, not codecs, SOUNDSTORM. We're not talking about video cards either. CPUs suck at video and choke on it. Doesnt change the fact that many sound card makers rely on the cpu to widely varying degrees. Creative is not at the forefront of this Off-loading feature you speak of at all. My figure was probably over inflated, but soundstorm blows away your audigy in this area... the fact that OMG it's a soundcard... doesnt mean anything. Maybe it sounds better and thats whats important to you. not everyone is a sound buff and can tell the difference. I am satified with the digital out on my soundstorm and care about cpu utilization a lot. To each there own, but iTunes is misplaced, and so is your perception of sound cards vrs integrated solutions when the so-called "norm" is totally flip-flopped. In cpu utilization it blows away your Audigy by a significant margin, probably even much larger than your Audigy beats budget solution at cpu utilization. Forget soundstorms problems, the point is we'd like to see them give it another go. Lot of people won't touch creative.

edit: I'll provide this even though you'll probably use it to flame me...
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=1535&p=16
Yes it's a 1.2GHz Thunderbird and a SBLive.... but as you'll see soundstorm never even uses as much as 4% of it while the Live gets up to 34%. Your soundcard generalizations are flawed, as well as the Pentium 75Mhz thing. So at least I try to give you some facts to refute you. Do you think the Audigy has close the gap on using 6 to 10 times more cpu then soundstorm? Still think sound cards can only chew up 15% of a P75?

edit2: here's a more erecent one with a phillips ultimate edge getting beaten to a bloody pulp in cpu utilization.
http://www.voidyourwarranty.net/review.php?reviewid=PhilipsUltimateEdgeSoundCard/index2.php

I'll admit this is loosey goosey because Im no sound buff, but I'm on the right track. I was talking of nothing other than cpu utilization. It's real. You happen to have a decent one and thats nice. Some of us dont care enough to buy one when soundstorm can be implemented for almost the same price, plus you get better cpu utiliztion and a motherboard for free :D
 
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